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| Manufacturer: Viking
Category: EBooks
List Price: $15.00
Buy New: $9.00
You Save: $6.00 (40%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  1458 reviews
Sales Rank: 18
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Dewey Decimal Number: 910.4
ASIN: B000PDYVVG
Publication Date: April 11, 2007
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| Customer Reviews:
 Even in my underpants, I feel kalos kai agathos May 19, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Liz Gilbert almost got me. As she starts her Italian adventure I was preparing myself for a pulpy read with easy (and possibly undeserved) laughs. And before that, the Amazon reviews almost scared me away. Boy, what a mistake that'd be! This is a spiritual book in the true sense of the word. Although I kept laughing throughout the book, its simplicity is deceptive. Between the lines, Gilbert is about so much more: vitality, coming into one's own, creating reality and matching the soul's aspirations to the delicious unpredictability of life.
After divorcing her husband (who is portrayed rather unflatteringly as a greedy and vindictive sob) the author decamps for the fountains of Rome where she makes great friends, samples excellent food and learns about the pleasure of dolce far niente from the world's masters in this important art. Here is a quote from Liz's book on why Italy, which has produced some of the greatest artistic, political and scientific minds of all ages, has never become a major world power: The Italian history of corruption by local leaders (a la Mussolini and Berlusconi) and exploitation by foreign dominators [France, Austria, Spain etc]
"has led Italians to draw the seemingly accurate conclusion that nobody and nothing in this world can be trusted. Because the world is so corrupted and unfair, one should trust only what one can experience with one's one senses, and THIS makes senses stronger in Italy than anywhere in Europe. This is why Italians will tolerate hideously incompetent generals, presidents, tyrants, professors, journalists and captains of industry but will never tolerate incompetent opera singers, conductors, ballerinas, courtesans, actors, cooks and tailors. Sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic excellence is incorruptible. Pleasure cannot be bargained down. And sometimes the meal is the only currency that is real."
So this book is essentially revolving about beauty - of friendship, inner life, of good food, and not least, the ever elusive bounty that is bestowed by a life that is lived well.
In India Liz stays in a celebrity ashram north of Bombay where she has a couple of transcendent experiences whereas in Bali she befriends several locals in the beautiful town of Ubud. In fact, her capacity for friendship - the genius of it - together with the honest and unflinching ability to face herself is something that I found positively awesome. Liz's description of finding her inner strength is better than that any self-styled guru and self-help "authority" out there, including the controversial Gurumayi herself.
As I started to write my review in here i was kinda surprised (actually i wasn;t surprised at all) how violently some people react to the book. There is some real vitriol here, doubtlessly reflecting the (very real) American horror of idleness and pleasure, of decoupling from "productive" life of the hive. It seems many reviewers can't decide whether they are more insulted by her snub to Puritan ethics, or are they envious of the good life and her courage to end the suffocating marriage. I imagine the very idea of spending a year "finding oneself" is anathema to the hard working hoi polloi. Yet - what else matters in this vale of tears?
Is it true that one can live one's life in an ever expanding circle of vitality and joy? Liz Gilbert gives us a resounding YES. So what if she was paid to write about herself - this is what travel writers do for living. Having had my share of humbling and uplifting experiences I know for sure that she is not faking anything - her spiritual insights are the real deal. In my mind, she provides us with a XXI century (US) version of Lawrence Durrell's travelogues - only more light-hearted, self-deprecating and courageous. Bravissima!
 If you Hate Elizabeth's Choices - Ponder about Why May 19, 2008
6 out of 10 found this review helpful
Eat, Pray, Love is very explicitly a prepaid writer's journey for an entire year where she tries to heal from a painful divorce. She has no children, and her job IS to fly around the world writing about things. It is important to understand this up front. I find that people either love this book or hate it, and often their feelings revolve around this one fact. Detractors feel she is "spoiled" for going off to Italy, India and Indonesia to be on her own. That is what she does! Ths is her job. It is like complaining that Steve Irwin jetted around playing with animals, and did this on his vacations too. If someone has this as their normal lifestyle, and they are actively paid for this, then being jealous or upset that they live this way seems unreasonable. We are hearing notes from a person who DOES live this way. It would be the same as picking up Steve Irwin's book about going around and interacting with animals. To complain that he should have stayed at home makes no sense. It is not who he is. It is not who Elizabeth is.
So, that being said and understood, let's look into this year. It's always easy to throw stones at other peoples' lives. As has been said many times, those who live in glass houses should avoid stones - and he who has no sin should throw first. All of us have made mistakes. All of us have regrets. Elizabeth has ended up in a marriage with serious faults. She does not describe the issues - which I greatly respect! Many women would have turned this type of book into a vent-fest where they skewered their ex. If anything, Elizabeth makes much of her husband's patience and doesn't go into his faults. To complain about her tact in this area seems petty.
Elizabeth honestly doesn't want kids. That is fine! Only people who REALLY want kids should have them. A look at the child abuse statistics bears this out. So for whatever reasons - mostly unmentioned - she and her husband break up. As a result, she spirals into a deep depression and is at the point of suicide. She is seeing a therapist and it is not helping. She is on medication. It also does not help.
So finally she formulates a plan to get away. Remember, this is a woman who does travel writing *for a living*. It is not an abnormal thing for her. She loves the Italian language. She loves yoga. She had met a medicine man in Indonesia. So she gathers her things and heads out.
Italy - land of long, leisurely walks, of delicious comfort food, of a friendly openness. I know many people who ADORE Italy and return there frequently. Yes, it is a land of fiery emotions, and some people live in poverty. You can find similar conditions in most countries. She begins her stay here sickly and worn down. Slowly she begins to repair her physical health and starts to make connections with others. She begins to explore a little and find pleasures in the basics of life.
Next, India is where she explicitly goes to an Ashram (retreat) to study yoga and medication. People who are interested in yoga very often do this. Again, to complain that she doesn't "see outsiders" when she is at a yoga retreat seems baffling to me. The purpose of going to a retreat is to rebuild your own spirituality. It is only then that you can help others. When they tell you in an airplane to put on your own oxygen mask before you help a child, it's not because they're callous. It's because otherwise you both could die. She slowly learns how to deal with "monkey mind" - a VERY common issue with westerners who meditate, who cannot get their mind to let go of their worries. It is only after several months that she can meditate without strong negative, painful emotion.
Finally, Indonesia is where she learns about balance. She gets a sense of how people work in a community, how they support each other, how they heal the physical and mental and spiritual together.
Now, I have phrased this review a bit "defensively" because I really think some of the people who "hate" this book do so because they think it is wasteful for a person to spend a year "taking care of themselves". They feel a depressed writer should just ignore the depression and do ... what? Open a kindergarten? Elizabeth WAS a travel writer. If she had just "gone back to work" she would have been doing something very similar. A past job had been to go to Indonesia to write about yoga for several weeks. Is it really any "worse" that she went to India to write about yoga for several months? She was after all paid in both cases to do exactly what she did. The only real difference is that with this book part of the criteria of what she wrote was to include her personal feelings, which if anything is far more difficult (and risky).
Some people have an issue that she HAD serious depression. Is this going to turn into a Tom Cruise rant on how women should not be depressed or affected by changes in their lives? Many women DO get serious depression and are told to just "deal with it". Depression is an extremely serious medical issue and should never be dismissed or ignored. Elizabeth was on medication, she had a therapist. If a "change of scenery" was key to helping her recover, then that is fine - and quite normal. For people who say "well my life sucked worse and I dealt with it" - again, perhaps those people do not understand what depression is caused by or how it works. It is demeaning to people who do have serious depression to say "just get over it" or "I don't think your life warrants depression, so you don't have it."
If you completely ignore the content, I think Elizabeth's writing style was brilliant. I downloaded a sample 20 pages on my Kindle and was laughing out loud at several statements in the book. I promptly went and bought the entire thing. There were many, many sections in the book where her descriptions were vivid, her dialogue was crisp, her observations were right on. I love her writing style.
Now that all being said, I do not say that this book is flawless. In a way it is like reading Valerie Bertinelli's book. Both women are open about their mistakes. Neither woman is perfect. Elizabeth takes on a lover before her marriage is dissolved. Certainly this is something men AND women have been doing for centuries, but it is not a wonderful choice. Being a planner-type myself, I found Elizabeth's way of just randomly launching into travel without knowing what she's doing rather disconcerting. She gets to Indonesia with no idea of where she is going or how to get there. Also, some aspects about the ending of the story bother me, but I do not want to give anything away.
While others found her self introspection to be too much, I found it normal for a memoir. If you're writing a memoir, you are by definition writing about yourself. People read your story to learn how you felt and thought - and it SHOULD be different from how they would think! If we all just read about "our own thoughts" the world would be a boring place. It is important to learn and grow and understand how people different from ourselves interact with the world.
I think it is very difficult for Americans in particular to "let go" of a hectic pace. In Europe people routinely take vacations of a month or more. In the US, people race away for a weekend, and bring their laptops with them. They have kids and then pile their schedules full of karate lessons, soccer games and play dates - when more and more studies say that kids (and adults!!) need quiet time to just "be free". I honestly think we all COULD use an entire year off from our current life, to spend time on our own, away from our stress and schedule. Look at many cultures were people live a far more relaxed, easy way. Often they have far less rates of cancer, diabetes, heart attacks and other issues. Stress and cortisol are causing modern people huge health issues.
So to summarize, I think part of why this book is so popular is that it draws out such strong feelings in people. Readers feel jealous of Elizabeth's ability to travel. They feel upset that Elizabeth "wastes" a year traveling without feeling "guilty" about not volunteering at a nursing home instead. They feel annoyed that Elizabeth's personal memoir talks about her personal feelings rather than writing a social treatise on poverty in the slums of India (which she wasn't near). They feel morally upset that she left her marriage without laying out in explicit detail for public review why the marriage failed. They feel an ovarian outrage against any female would not actively leap at the chance to bear children. They feel religious fervor at anybody who would approach the worship of God without going specifically through a priest and Jesus Christ. Whatever was the trigger for someone, I think that trigger is an important idea to meditate on - because there are MANY people who feel the way that created that trigger. To be able to try to understand them in this no-holds-barred book is incredibly valuable. If your decision is to just close the book and turn your back, that is the attitude that causes cultures to still clash all over the world. How much better if we could really learn to understand each other, forgive each others' mistakes, accept that we all have different views and at least get some small sense of where people are coming from.
I am not saying we all have to approve of Elizabeth, or follow in her footsteps. However, I feel she makes many extremely important observations, and explains them clearly. She is speaking out for a large group of people. To at least understand her is to take steps towards understanding people you have to interact with in your daily life. To do this healthily and maturely can really be beneficial long term - for them, for you, for your social group, and for your community.
For that reason, well recommended.
On The Top Of My LIst ! May 17, 2008
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
Joanne Scaglione, Author Living The Secret Everyday: My Secret Workbook
Yes, this is probably one of my favorites. Elizabeth Gilbert is a very talented writer who knows how to keep her readers interest. I so could relate to her search and journey to find herself. It will make you laugh and tug at your heart strings as you follow her around the world. I give it an A+++. Read it and see for yourself. Congratulations Elizabeth.
The courage to be yourself requires great strength May 17, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Monteiro Lobato, a great Brazilian writer, once said: "To be yourself requires a lot of work and a constant vigilance because everything conspires so that we can just be another sheep from many different flocks. The world hates exception and to be yourself is to be an exception."
Liz is selfish and guess what: she should be proud of it! The altruists, many helping others in a selfishly act to feel good about themselves and impress friends, will not agree of course, but finding happiness is not just a surviving act, it is a moral obligation. As the book explains very nicely in the end: be happy then you are helping making this world a better place. Be unhappy and you are helping destroy this world. To blame someone for my unhappiness is just plain stupid. It is non-sense. It is dependency showing its ugliest face. It is society most favorite game.
Anyways, the book is very good, is very sincere, is funny, informative and made the author a lot of money so people will naturally get very jealous about it (some positively and some destructively). Although I don't agree with certain aspects of Liz's personality, I admire her courage to be herself and write about it. Not everybody is ready for or want to read this book.
What made Liz very happy at the end was not her pizza, her meditation, her medicine man or her new possessive relationship. What made her happy was to be free from society, religion, God, parents, family, husband, herself and be able to taste the blue freedom.
Praise for Eat, Pray and Love!
 Uninspiring May 17, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
From the first words of this book I was repelled. My first repulsion was the author's propensity to ramble on and on and on about an experience/feeling/opinion of hers that she seemed to be overly impressed by. Her ego was the next problem. It made reading about her experiences akin to being poked over and over again by a prickly thorn. As for her sense of humor, I can at least say that I knew when she was trying to evoke laughter. The problem was that even her self-deprecating humor was filled more with vanity than with wit or charm or anything that would elicit a smile or chuckle. I felt that the author truly believed that she traveled to the edge of reason and sanity and returned with adventurous and colorful tales. But for me, her book read like the whimpering meanderings of a very average life that could have been recorded into a journal bought from Borders and tucked into a corner. I'm unclear how a meaningful spiritual journey could be based on pride rather than humility, but to each their own path. A lot of women have experienced more in a minute than she did in her 30 plus years, which makes reading her whining tales a very uninspiring experience. This book probably would impress the minds of the many people who live sugar-coated lives and would be enthralled by the author feeling Ghandi-like b/c she was willing to give her husband everything in their divorce (not due to altruism but to release her own guilt). This in the author's mind acquainted her life with that of true Martyrs. I think that alone speaks for itself and should be enough for anyone to decide if this book would be of interest to them.
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