This beautifully written, heartfelt memoir touched a nerve among both readers and reviewers. Elizabeth Gilbert tells how she made the difficult choice to leave behind all the trappings of modern American success (marriage, house in the country, career) and find, instead, what she truly wanted from life. Setting out for a year to study three different aspects of her nature amid three different cultures, Gilbert explored the art of pleasure in Italy and the art of devotion in India, and then a balance between the two on the Indonesian island of Bali. By turns rapturous and rueful, this wise and funny author (whom Booklist calls “Anne Lamott’s hip, yoga- practicing, footloose younger sister”) is poised to garner yet more adoring fans.
Eat, Pray, Love
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If wisdom could be traded like currency, author Elizabeth Gilbert would be a wealthier woman by far, though it's likely her fabulous memoir, Eat Pray Love, racked up a few bucks during its stay on the New York Times bestseller list. What Gilbert imparts in her story--basically, bracing self-knowledge acquired during a year of travel following a bitter divorce and a shattered rebound romance--is at once astounding yet totally obvious. As Gilbert would attest, albeit more eloquently, the most important stuff in life is pretty much under our noses, but we occasionally have to shake ourselves senseless in order to see it (enlisting a guru and a medicine man are highly recommended).
Take this simple but devastating observation posited while Gilbert was on the final leg of a global tour. "I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and then I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been the victim of my own optimism."
Ten million women are smiling wry smiles and nodding their heads in agreement (men too, probably, but the book has a definite female skew). Such emotional bulls-eyes are hit early and often in Eat Pray Love, each seemingly more poignant than the last. Alternately funny and heartbreaking and always deeply resonant, Eat Pray Love, takes the reader on two epic journeys – one through Italy, India and Indonesia and the other deep inside Gilbert's intense psyche. Charles Montgomery's towering The Last Heathen: Encounters with Ghosts and Ancestors in Melanesia notwithstanding, travel memoirs just don't get any better than that. --Kim Hughes
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Gilbert (The Last American Man) grafts the structure of romantic fiction upon the inquiries of reporting in this sprawling yet methodical travelogue of soul-searching and self-discovery. Plagued with despair after a nasty divorce, the author, in her early 30s, divides a year equally among three dissimilar countries, exploring her competing urges for earthly delights and divine transcendence. First, pleasure: savoring Italy's buffet of delights--the world's best pizza, free-flowing wine and dashing conversation partners--Gilbert consumes la dolce vita as spiritual succor. "I came to Italy pinched and thin," she writes, but soon fills out in waist and soul. Then, prayer and ascetic rigor: seeking communion with the divine at a sacred ashram in India, Gilbert emulates the ways of yogis in grueling hours of meditation, struggling to still her churning mind. Finally, a balancing act in Bali, where Gilbert tries for equipoise "betwixt and between" realms, studies with a merry medicine man and plunges into a charged love affair. Sustaining a chatty, conspiratorial tone, Gilbert fully engages readers in the year's cultural and emotional tapestry--conveying rapture with infectious brio, recalling anguish with touching candor--as she details her exotic tableau with history, anecdote and impression.
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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I wish Giovanni would kiss me. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By J. Macgillivray
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
I know millions of women got a lot out of this book, but I just couldn't find anything enlightening in it. The author was also paid in advance to have the spiritual experience she writes about, which made me doubt its sincerity. I did enjoy the food descriptions in the 'eat' part, though.
The best book of this genre is "Gift From the Sea" by Ann Morrow Lindbergh.
The best book of this genre is "Gift From the Sea" by Ann Morrow Lindbergh.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By Yammy
Format:Paperback
I'll keep this review short. I couldn't even finish the book. Go whine somewhere else Elizabeth because I don't want to hear it.
27 of 29 people found the following review helpful
By Brian Griffith
TOP 100 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
Gilbert's adventures combine a challenging spiritual quest with dreamlike travel experiences. Her struggles with inner pain are real and gripping, while the exotic locales stoke the reader's appetite for more. She seems to mix it all very well -- inner growth, vocational renewal, and the best kinds of friendship. I just loved her Balinese friend Wayan.
Some people would consider this book spiritual tourism at its most escapist. But let me give one paragraph as an example of what Gilbert puts herself through:
"It took me a while to drop into real silence. Even after I'd stopped talking, I found I was still humming with language. My organs and muscles of speech -- brain, throat, chest, back of neck -- vibrated with the residual effects of talking long after I'd stopped making sounds. My head shimmered in a reverb of sound, the way an indoor swimming pool seems to echo interminably with sounds and shouts, even after the kindergarteners have gone home for the day. It took a surprizingly long time for all this pulsation of speech to fall away, for the whirling noises to settle. Maybe it took about three days."
I'm really glad to see this book topping the bestseller lists in North America, and I hope Gilbert's kind of adventure becomes the popular aspiration of the future.
--author of A Galaxy of Immortal Women: The Yin Side of Chinese Civilization
Some people would consider this book spiritual tourism at its most escapist. But let me give one paragraph as an example of what Gilbert puts herself through:
"It took me a while to drop into real silence. Even after I'd stopped talking, I found I was still humming with language. My organs and muscles of speech -- brain, throat, chest, back of neck -- vibrated with the residual effects of talking long after I'd stopped making sounds. My head shimmered in a reverb of sound, the way an indoor swimming pool seems to echo interminably with sounds and shouts, even after the kindergarteners have gone home for the day. It took a surprizingly long time for all this pulsation of speech to fall away, for the whirling noises to settle. Maybe it took about three days."
I'm really glad to see this book topping the bestseller lists in North America, and I hope Gilbert's kind of adventure becomes the popular aspiration of the future.
--author of A Galaxy of Immortal Women: The Yin Side of Chinese Civilization
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3.5 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
good
good I really enjoyed this book I also saw the moving and I think it was quite accurate. I like it when a book and movie are the same.
Published 6 days ago by Wendy Michaels
3.0 out of 5 stars
Zzzzzzzzzz
Aftermath years of seeing all my girlfriends read this book, I thought it was high time I get on board and give it a go. Read more
Published 24 days ago by Directorofstyles
1.0 out of 5 stars
Selfish and self-obsessed protagonsir
Previous critical reviewers have aptly described this book. The Eat third of this book was a delight to read, principally because of the descriptive details of the food, but large... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Christine Kwong
4.0 out of 5 stars
four stars for troubles at relating to you elizabeth
The book is great, well writen, not too heavy and pleasant to scroll through whenever you need to get away! Read more
Published 3 months ago by Marie-Claude Chenier
4.0 out of 5 stars
Scintillating (3.5 stars)
Gilbert's search for life and love in Italy reminded me of Aleesa Sutton's Diary of a Single Mormon Female. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Urbano
5.0 out of 5 stars
A book for thoughts within
Excellent book that makes you reevaluate your life. In this day and age working and careers are so important. But are they? Read more
Published 4 months ago by Guy Tessier
4.0 out of 5 stars
An overall enjoyable read
This book is about one woman's journey to find God and a peaceful place in this world and the universe on the whole. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Tom Turvey
1.0 out of 5 stars
Eat Pray Sleep
After all the hype, what a total let down. This storyline (and the character) simply had no backbone. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Jan
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fabulous!
Perhaps because of my personal age and stage in life, and the fact that I have gone through similar challenges, I ABSOLUTELY LOVED THIS BOOK! Read more
Published 18 months ago by Readsalot
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good book
I read this book after watching the movie. It was a bit different but still an excellent read. I love the thought of being able to go to Italy! That would be awesome!
Published 19 months ago by Amazon User
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