Eat, Pray, Love
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Tinkrbelcutey
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rated it 5 stars
Jun 08, 2013 08:00AM
Aren't all memoirs a little self indulgent. You are talking about yourself, your life experiences, and how they affected you. She at no time was delusional about her own flaws or how she ended up on this journey, she was up front about the advance that allowed her to take this journey, and she clearly says this is my own journey everyone has their own. I don't understand the vitriol of some of these comments. I found the book to be entertaining and honest. I saw it more as a reminder if you are unhappy with where you are at, regardless of how perfect it may seem to the outside world, you have to follow your own heart and sometimes take a leap of faith, you never know where you might end up.
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I think it would have been easier to stomach her self-centered attitude throughout the book if she hadn't begun with the pity party about how miserable she was. The only reason she was miserable was her own selfish choices, and yet all that sobbing to the reader begged for sympathy. I have read a lot of memoirs in the past couple of years, some with truly tragic plots. Yet none of the writers had that same extreme self pity as this one.
I really struggled with this book, in so many ways it exemplified what is wrong with so many people today. We make major issues out of matters that are really insignificant (in comparison to the problems of others). There's no perspective, the spotlight has to constantly be them and the problems they created for themselves. This book in my mind stands more for the success of marketing, the selling of something to the masses that has no value.
For those with a desire for something of substance and truth I would suggest The Cap The Price Of A Life. A warning though, unless you have really lived an eventful life after reading "The Cap" you will feel you have lost the right to indulge in self pity.
I wrote a grad school paper comparing Gilbert's book withWithout Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman, which is a much better travel memoir, but without all the hype. Steinbach is an observer of other's for their own sake, rather than their effect on herself. Her reflections are thought provoking and inspiring without all that begging for pity. I recommend it to get rid of that bitter taste after Gilbert's book.
Hedda wrote: "This book should be used to equalize unstable tables."I totally agree. there's nothing more to say about it.
What it all really boils down to it this: was it well written? And, in my opinion, it was.
I still think it's suspicious that people have such extreme reactions to this book.
Hedda wrote: "I guess, well, yes, I think it is that bad. Some one gave it to me to read in order to heal myself after my long term relationship failed. The more I read the more puked, hated and raged, instead o..."YES!!!
I was not going to read the book because I saw the movie. Though I like Julia Roberts, I thought she was as shallow and dull in the movie as the Hollywood version of the book. A friend, fortunately, advised that I read the book. I did and thought it was wonderful. Of course, part of the reason that I relate to Eat, Pray, Love is that I am a writer and recognize her writing as wonderful. She uses metaphor and image to produce a text that we can see, taste, and smell. I can only hope to someday write as well as she does.
The other reason is her story. I made a similar six month voyage to India when I was dying of cancer. Thirteen years later, I am cancer free because I was able to immerse myself in a place that was all about me so that I could get well. The critics here want to cut out Gilbert's heart and eat it because she got sick. Shame on them!
I thought that what she experienced spiritually in the India and Bali sections of the book were right on target. Most of the comments that I have read on this blog reveal the ignorance of the critics. Self absorption, which most of the critics here think is a sin, is actually a spiritual practice for large populations in this world. It is not only necessary but is to be desired.
The way I see it, some equate healing with a stay at the hospital where they suffer and everyone sympathetically waits on them hand and foot until they die, leaving everyone thinking they were such wonderful people. Others find healing is retreating to the mystical centers of our beings to find self knowledge and treating our bodies to every possible boost to immune systems and health that we can find. That takes a lot of "me" time.
I recommend that the critics here read more and educate themselves, just in case they get sick. If you want to read about some of the miracle cures Gilbert's method brings, read "Dying to be Me" and "You Can Beat Cancer," by some folks who were sick and tired of living but found their way to life. Oh, and Don't forget Deepak Chopra's Quantum Medicine.
I enjoyed the book.I thought the movie was horrible.
Maybe Julia Roberts and Tom Cruise can get together and make a movie. That would be the most forgettable film in history.
I liked Eat, Pray, Love. It was an easy read and I felt like a tourist with her.
I don't violently hate it, just dislike: I found the author pretentious and shallow. Typical first world problems of a rich white lady. Loved by other successful, self absorbed rich white ladies. Nice to take a year off and jaunt around all expenses paid without kids, pets and responsibilities. Tried to read her other boring books, couldn't get through them. She sucks, book in general sucks. That said, really enjoyed the chapters on Italy in particular the men and the food sounded appealing. India and Indonesia were boring.I guess I missed the "deep meaning". I'll have to fill my life with meaningful crap I find in a 30 mile square radius and be happy with that.
Melissa,you sound very jealous.
Navel-gazing to the infinite power !!! I finished it but skipped lots of pages particularly those in the Ashram !!
Nancy wrote: "Melissa,you sound very jealous."
Nancy sounds like she is realistic with a clear idea of what is important and not impressed by a self-indulgent, spoiled woman who Whines, Moans and Complains all the way to the bank benefiting from the easily impressed.
I would have been far more impressed if she channeled her funds and energy into doing something which would have benefited society rather then, as Muthoni so aptly put it, "navel-gazing."
OMG yes! Indeed, I am super jealous no one paid me to jaunt around the world for a year navel gazing, bemoaning my upper middle class white lady problems and churning out a shitty novel. How do people get this gig? While I'm at it, I am ALSO super jealous of E.L. James gettin' paid for that craptastic trilogy. On the other hand, I am in AWE of Kristopher Jansma, Helene Wecker and Lauren Beukes, the authors of the last three 5 star books I read.
Melissa,That's how I felt when I read it. I had an almost allergic reaction to the book. I also was jealous that no one would pay me to travel around the world because I broke up with my boy friend, I'm depressed, I want to learn a new language. I think that my boring life could make a great book. Please pay me. I too would like to travel. I'll write a great book.
No,no, no... You are all wrong. That book has already been written, what we need here is new material. How about this.A middle aged white male wanders the world wondering why younger women pay him no attention (not that this wasn't an issue when he was younger also). Frustrated he turns to alcohol, fast cars, and develops a porn addiction.
At his lowest moment he is rescued by an amazing woman who through her incredible cooking and tough love turns his life around and molds him into a new man that women everywhere desire.
I'm open but in terms of location think we should consider Sweden, Argentina, and Thailand. I can start work immediately.
What a self absorbed, silly woman!
Melissa wrote: "OMG yes! Indeed, I am super jealous no one paid me to jaunt around the world for a year navel gazing, bemoaning my upper middle class white lady problems and churning out a shitty novel. How do peo..."Sorry Melissa, in my previous post (#421) I mixed up the names and called you Nancy. I totally agree with your posts except that I think my dislike of the book probably extends to the level of hate.
I am offended that when there is so many interesting, well written books in the world, authors with good publicists and agents get so much attention for self serving crap.
As I posted before, my title for this book is "Whine, Moan and Complain."
I do love Marc's idea for the book and wonder if he is volunteering to be that middle aged man. Although my suggestions for countries would be France (either an Alpine ski resort or the Riviera), Tanzania and the wilder parts of Australia or new Zealand.
So. . . here's a choice for you. You get to a. live through a devastating and horrific experience such as the Holocaust, from which you emerge and write a deep and moving novel that captures the brutality and humanity of existence. . .or. . . .b receive a hefty advance from a prominent publisher to travel the world eating, praying, loving and writing about your love life. I don't care how much any of you hated the book, I bet you'd choose the latter. I know I would.
Thank you for this - I was beginning to think I was the only one the planet that hated this ridiculous book.
"I do love Marc's idea for the book and wonder if he is volunteering to be that middle aged man. Although my suggestions for countries would be France (either an Alpine ski resort or the Riviera), Tanzania and the wilder parts of Australia or new Zealand." - MairziI was volunteering and my selection of countries was quite deliberate, good food in Argentina and Thailand, and great scenery from the male perspective in all three of my choices.
My wife however is less willing to endorse my selection and has given her permission so long as the locations involved are Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Antarctica. I also have to increase my life insurance.
In response to Donna, you are very correct, there are few deeply moving books that involve experiences one wants to replicate. A good book in my opinion, takes you somewhere else, somewhere you wouldn't otherwise go or perhaps even want to go. You see the world through the eyes of another and in the process come away with new ideas and ways of looking at things- your existence is enriched and perspective altered.
Our time in life is also short, time spent reading a book that takes some of us nowhere is grounds for resentment. That said no doubt some people are in a place where this book showed them something that touched them and impacted their life for the better- that's fair.
"In response to Donna, you are very correct, there are few deeply moving books that involve experiences one wants to replicate. A good book in my opinion, takes you somewhere else, somewhere you wouldn't otherwise go or perhaps even want to go. You see the world through the eyes of another and in the process come away with new ideas and ways of looking at things- your existence is enriched and perspective altered. "Marc, I find your comment thought-provoking and articulate--something to ponder. Reminds me of something Flannery O'Connor once said about being sick. She said being seriously ill (and I'm paraphrasing) was like visiting another country because of the perspective one gains from being sick in the land of the (mostly) healthy.
I'm no extreme fan of Eat, Pray, Love. I finished it because I have three friends who I respect--who really liked it. Three friends who I do not believe are whiners or "self-centered little twerp[s]"--and who were touched and impacted by the book. And I'm not sorry to say that while at first, I found the extreme hatred for this book on this thread very curious, I am beginning to find these reactions to be ridiculously judgmental and suspect. People are just having too much of a good time hating and being condescending.
Hi Donna,I disliked the book quite a bit, probably as much so that it disappointed me. A book that really bothered me was "Lolita." In all truth that book was a masterpiece of seeing the world through the eyes of another but the topic was so repulsive that I struggled to acknowledge the genius it took to create such a work.
With "Eat, Pray, Love," I was expecting more and failed to find it. The overall topic in this case was by no means repulsive but I didn't find the author appealing.
As for the tone here it might be a bit exaggerated but if you really want to see bizarre and some real fanatics check out "The Secret."
Thanks for the tip about The Secret, Marc. I didn't read it, but I checked out the reviews and found it really amusing that a book about positive thinking has inspired so many negative comments, albeit really funny ones. I loved the guy who recommended it for Celestine Prophecy Dropouts. (I'm still laughing.)And I would agree with you about Lolita. But I have to chalk up at least some of Nabokov's content to the 1950's--when it was pretty accepted to demonize and objectify women, no matter what their age.
Full disclosure: I have no plans to read this book, although I have great respect for the author as a journalist, short-story writer and biographer. Not because I am a snob, avoiding wildly popular Oprah books-- many of those were terrific reads while also being serious literature. I was warned off EPL by my own book club members ('fluffy' was the general opinion.).
It was the 2006 NYT book review by Jennifer Egan which was persuasive: "... Lacking a ballast of gravitas or grit... not a single wish goes unfulfilled... What's missing are the textures and confusion and unfinished business of real life... while I wouldn't begrudge this massively talented writer a single iota of joy or peace, I found myself more interested, finally, in the awkward, unresolved stuff she must have chosen to leave out."
Even when Gilbert's age, still reeling myself from a difficult divorce, I would have avoided a memoir which focused on the upward journey out, leaving the hard stuff that got her there to the imagination. In middle age & living with losses when stakes were far higher, I would look to such a book for an entertaining travelog-- just not in the market for one, at present.
Hedda wrote: "This book should be used to equalize unstable tables."yes
Virginia, you are a drink of fresh water in a fetid, rat infested, moldy dank dungeon of wits gone sour.
I liked this book. I thought from the beginning it was one person's story about what she did for a year to heal herself. I did not see it as anything more than that. I found some meaning for myself by reading it and agree with some other comments that it was about balance in our lives.
Nancy wrote: "Virginia, you are a drink of fresh water in a fetid, rat infested, moldy dank dungeon of wits gone sour."Haha, gee thanks?
Slash wrote: "I'm a dude and I really dug this book. I'm going in for my fourth read soon (the movie was another story). I think Gilbert nailed a lot of unique dilemmas that we Gen-Xers go through including: uni..."Thank you for this. I agree, especially about the movie. The movie=awful. And I hate saying that because I love Julia Roberts. But the book? I don't get the negativity in this review. You can't do what she did without having money to travel and stay for the periods of time she did. That should be obvious. I can't remember if she stated it in this book or the follow-up but she used an advance from her publisher to do the traveling. If you read the book, she lost all her money in the beginning. It's not like she had a billion dollars to do the book. She also published before EPL so it's not like they had an unrealistic bargain sending her off to experience and write the book.
As a writer (soon to be author), it takes incredible, enormous discipline to write a book and so it wasn't ALL leisure while she was in these countries. There is nothing misleading on the cover and people making personal attacks against her are uncalled for. When I read the negative reviews--especially in this thread--all I think is they're just jealous. For that she should be attacked on a personal level? No.
Melaina wrote: "Personally, I am not a fan of this book either. Some of her travel tales are interesting and entertaining, but really, the place this book has taken among others, other women, who think there is so..."
I could not agree more with you. Perfectly succinct.
Elizabeth Gilbert answers her critics and plugs her new book: http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/f/0/5/f0595...
Arrgh. Every single podcast on Maximum Fun has been plugging her book for her, too. I guess she's BFFs with somebody at MaxFun. I just have no interest. EPL grossed me out too much. Every time I hear a plug for her book on a podcast I want to punch my computer screen.
