Saturday 12 May 2012

Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love

elisabeth gilbert eat pray love


I was very cautious when approaching this book.  Say what you will, you'll never persuade me that 'bestseller' equals 'good book'.  Eat, Pray, Love was a bestseller not too long ago.  It sold like insane and was turned into a movie a few years after publishing.  NOT a good sign.

I chose it because I was suffering from overdose of heavy subjects.  War and politics is all right, but sometimes you just need a break.

I gulped it down within a day.  It was entertaining.  Well-written.  Trendy.  Not particularly enlightening.

The heroine of Eat, Pray, Love (Gilbert herself, I wonder?  Really, really?) takes a year off and travels around Italy, India and Indonesia, getting over a difficult divorce and searching for God.  She starts with heavy depression, ends with a new affair and puts a lot of sightseeing in between.  Yeah, a generous amount of money is the best possible cure for depression.  I'm being slightly sarcastic, I admit.  More cruel than necessary, perhaps.  Maybe I'm just jealous.

I found it extremely difficult to identify with Liz, mainly because of this crucial money level difference.  I don't even know people that loaded.  I want different things in life, I have other values.  Still - she's likeable.  Difficult to take seriously after stories from war zones, but likeable.  Sometimes even inspiring.

If only Eat, Pray, Love was less like a sequel to Sex and the City...

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