Eat, Pray, Love

BY: Elizabeth Gilbert

At 32 years old, Gilbert was educated, had a home and a husband, and successful career as a writer. However, she was not happy; she was depressed with her marriage, often spending the night crying on her bathroom floor. She divorced her husband and entered into a relationship with another man, but this relationship did not work out either. She decided that she needed a change. She spent the next year travelling the world. She spent four months in Italy, eating and enjoying life (Eat). She spent four months in India, trying to find her spirituality (Pray). She ended the year in Bali, Indonesia, looking for "balance" of the two, and love (Love). Gilbert paid for the trip with an advance she received on a book she planned to write. Wikipedia

I loved her stay in Italy. The way she described her enjoyment through the simplicity of food, friends and a beautiful language blew me away.
Whilst in 'Pray', her writing isn't enough for a typical person to reason out her utmost dying need for spiritual awareness. She seems to go on and on about how everything in her prayers and mediation went wrong. It's almost as if she's the most amateur devotee among the rest of her spiritual partners. 'Pray' dragged me through and I almost felt like skipping the whole series just that I feared I would miss out some significant parts. I really should have skipped it, she goes on whining and whining about her failure. Extremely petty and fickle.
In the early parts of 'Love', it doesn't look too promising as well. Until the part where she starts mixing with the locals and making friends. It was intriguing listening to her conversations with the old medicine man. Puns made about the utterly obvious, adorable.

However, it seems as if her travel there was just for her self-absorbed being. When it's often better to compare yourself to every situation, every comment, every side-story so as to see how lucky you actually are - especially for the modern woman - ; she seems to point squarely to herself and her personal problems. How is it she seems to have lived in Italy, India and Indonesia for months like the locals and had not been affected by the poverty and corruption? I suppose if you are so caught up in your own petty problems and still be able to live in reasonable luxury that it's difficult to understand that other people around you have far worse problems. Maybe instead of looking to foreign lands for self fulfilment she should have been looking solely inside of herself. She was rash and simply went overseas albeit even knowing the roots of her own problems. It's almost as if she just expects a different setting to push her into self awareness yet ironically still living in uttermost comfort.

The book is completely a leisure read, the type you just read to keep busy.
Do not expect to be refreshed by it.