Eat Pray Love, a surprisingly hate and love read for me

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Eat, Pray, Love
Elizabeth Gilbert
softbound, 334 pages
Memoir, Penguin, 2006

It is hard to start reading a book when one has a slight negative prejudice towards it. Before I saw the movie, I already skimmed a few pages of it in a bookstore and I was turned off by the very idea that the author wanted to avoid: Another tale of prozac-filled brain in a cold urban jungle of New York City by a woman who divorced her husband and a society filled with sexual permissiveness but devoid of spiritual warmth. As a starter, I really hated too much anxiety-filled drama so that I did not decide to read this one then.

But I came to read it this June and I am glad I was ready for it. It was a delightful read as it tackles a personal spiritual journey (or I must say, journey towards selfhood). I got her now than when I was skimming the book in my 20s. There is a point in our lives when we are faced with a question whether we made a right decision all along or just tagged along the linear dictates of society. To settle down only means to get a career, get married, have children, send them to college and send them off to real life. That is not even linear to me. If we choose a different path, the society seems to bombard us with doubts. But that is life, it is dynamic and there is no such thing as a straight line in life, whatever life and love life we choose embrace. Society has no answer so that the higher being is sought after for the answer. I did not take special notice on this spiritual journey when I was skimming the first few pages long ago.

So the author, who was prescribed with anti-depressants and contemplated suicide and prayed for the first time in the bathroom decided to find God, ended up finding herself. In her journey, she went to Italy so she can eat passionately so she regained her health, she meditated a lot in India and followed a vegetarian diet, and she found balance in her life in Bali where passion/art and religion are known and as a bonus, she found her new love there.

The author has so much transparency over her many vulnerabilities which I can say she is courageous and straightforward. She also has a keen observation and the ability to put herself as the object of her own humor. She made a heavy subject light. It is  actually like drinking whiskey but one feels like she's only having a champaigne.  

We are all anxious over what the world throw at us, whether we are married, single, with children or no children, but it is in finding an anchor whatever it may be in religion, in friendship, in art, in meditation, in words. Lastly, it is not a fault to always look for love, passion, romance, friendship. Of course, for the author, I am glad that she has finally found someone to reassure her worth.

Lastly, I just want to add that I am in love with anything about Italy right now, so I had a wonderful time on the section under Italy. To Italy, I want to attraversiamo!


Location: Rome, Metropolitan City of Rome, Italy

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