Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Books: Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Last year for my birthday (9/28), my friend Allison got me this book. With everything going on in my life I didn't get a chance to sit down and read it until recently.

The book is a non-fiction account of how the author dealt with her quarter life crisis (despite being in her thirties). She never refers to it as that, but it is different from the mid-life crisis. The quarter life crisis is when you finish doing all the things you need to do to get to where you want to be and you realize this is not what you wanted at all. In her case, she realized she didn't want to be married or have a family despite living in a big house with her husband trying to get pregnant. (The movie "In Good Company" totally shows this crisis through Topher Grace's character.)

She got a messy divorce, fell in love with her rebound guy and then they broke up. She decided she wanted to just get away and learn Italian and meditate in India. She also met a medicine man in Indonesia who read her palm and told her that she would come study with him.

She is a travel writer (4 books by this point and several articles) and told her publisher that she wanted to spend 4 months in Italy, 4 months in India and 4 months in Indonesia. The publisher decided that sounded like a good idea for a book and paid her in advance. This is how she afforded to do all of this. Slightly less Oprah-esque than it has been billed. It's not like she had this amazing experience and then decided to share it with the world. The book was sold before her plane left.

I must admit that I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Anything blessed by Oprah is usually a turnoff for me (Did you hear God has an Oprah complex?). I don't think it is a life changing book for people who read it or anything. I mean this is the same author that is the inspiration for "Coyote Ugly." I think it is someone you can identify with if you've gone through this particular crisis (which I have, but it lead me to Seattle instead of a shack in Indonesia) or even a mid-life crisis. I'm glad I read it now and not while I was going through my turmoil. I don't think you will find answers for yourself in it, but it is comforting to see how someone else dealt with changing their life.

I recently saw that they are making this a movie with Julia Roberts in two years. Yea, considering how the last movie about her life turned out, no one should have very high hopes for this one. What a double feature movie night that would be. If you haven't seen "Coyote Ugly," good for you! You are better off.

1 comment:

Momma R. said...

I liked Coyote Ugly. It was fun.
I may even have a copy somewhere.... maybe. If I do, I haven't seen it in years. But the soundtrack is good. That's it, I have the soundtrack.

But why did they have to make it into a bar in Vegas?