Eat, Pray, Love — A Review
My pal Angela sent me a copy of “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert, with the note “You’ll want to shake her occasionally, but a good read.”
With a recommendation like that, what else could I do? I sat down to see what the deal was. And ended up taking quite the unintended ride.
EPL is the story of a woman who hits thirty (naturally), freaks out over pressures in her unhappy marriage (naturally), goes through an unpleasant divorce (as if they’re ever pleasant), and then goes on a pretty self-indulgent and thoroughly control-freaky pilgrimage to try to get her act back together. And in doing so, she meets characters (naturally), has revelations, has several serial breakdowns, and eventually (at the convenient end of her trip and her book) meets the man she’s going to marry.
In the process, she has internal battles with her Wellbutrin prescription, eats incredible-sounding food that would probably kill me, makes all kinds of decisions about how to handle things that help you understand where the chaos in her former life probably came from, and ends up halfway around the world trying to recreate the world she left behind.
I know, I sound pretty hostile. That’s largely because I get all pissy like that every time I read a book that I could have written, better. I think my personal journey, through hitting 29 (overachiever!), freaking out over my unhappy marriage (naturally), going through my unpleasant divorce (as if they’re ever pleasant), going on a pilgrimage to get my act back together, meeting characters (as you do when you’re paying more attention to the people around you than you are to the noise inside your head), and meeting the man I married, in my not so humble opinion, is a far more entertaining journey than the one in EPL. In any case, mine had diving with sharks, a government coup at gunpoint, and several fistfights in it. At least when they made a movie, they’d need a special effects budget (the mark of any really good story is the number of explosions in it, IMO. Which probably explains the chaos in my former life, too.)
Those of you who lived through those years with me are probably chuckling at this point (I can hear you from here, Bubba). And wondering how I’d manage to disguise their identities in the final draft.
The fact is, everyone thinks their story, their journey, is interesting stuff. And the fact also is that people who should be writing but aren’t writing enough get pissy all out of proportion with the people who actually have nailed book contracts to write about what they do.
I‘ll take it as a sign. A sign that I need to get busy, writing.
The part about the coup at gunpoint and the fistfights, for some reason, always makes me think of Jimmy Buffett’s “Last Mango in Paris”. If you know the song, you’ll know which part I can see you playing.
I read it only because everyone was talking about it. I thought it was alright but nothing to write home about. I ended up appreciating Italy mostly because I like that place. It brought back good memories. At least she pretty much gets over her emotional dilemmas by the time she gets to Bali. My key takeaway: The Guru Bead. As such, I didn’t really need to read past the prologue. No explosions. Whining fu. Joe Bob says check it out.
writing AMEN
I’m so glad you reviewed this. I’ve had several people recommend it, and after reading your intro I knew it wasn’t for me. Yeah, yeah, been through all that too, and my story included forests of kelp, beautiful redwoods forest, and unlike you two, my happily ever after is as a single woman and I’m intensely pleased with that. Quite frankly I’m sick of stories that end with prince charming!
Babe, just remember.. The fact is, everyone’s story, their journey, is interesting stuff. Everyone’s story is also very similar, uncommonly dull, and not worth the 500 snaps taken and posted to flickr to document it.
Writing about the journey is a journey in itself. The talent to make the story compelling is a gift like perfect pitch, athletic ability, and children who don’t make you regret having sex. You can ask for it, you can work for it, but frankly not everyone has the internal chops.
You do.
Yeah, that was me laughing.
You forgot the near riot in Ole Miss, the Tornado, the Lonely Trucker, and the Automatic Weapons. The SMGs are my favorite part of your story (but I’m biased).