Book Notes: Eat, Pray, Love

I finally sat down and read Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. After hearing all the praise in the media, and more importantly on the recommendation of many readers and writers (Michele, Leslie, Daniel) I pulled the copy from my bookshelf and started to read. I’ll just add that I bought the book back in December.

It took about three days to read it (one section per day) and I must admit that I enjoyed the “Eat”/Italy section the most. I think that says more about me than anything about Elizabeth Gilbert or her writing. More than anything else, I could relate to her decision to not have children and her analysis of the predicament that puts women in, even in 2008, even in America–”the land of the free”. As a woman who has chosen that path I am all to familiar with the odd looks, the accusations of selfishness, and the very real fear and feelings of displacement/out-of-placeness that comes with what is still an uncommon choice. She articulates the difficulty of the situation better than anyone I’ve known or read on this point. I often find myself trying to describe it to friends or even put it to words in my writing and I almost never get it right or am able to get to the heart of it. Elizabeth does get to the heart of it in the first section of the book and returns to it again when she meets the young girl at the Ashram and again when she meets Wayan and Tutti in Bali.

Overall, it’s a touching, well-rendered story, and a well-written memoir.

Q

~ by quincee on 21 May 2008.