Eat Pray Love
When I bought this book at an airport book stand three years ago, I didn’t expect I would like it so much. I even thought the back cover summary read like a cliché.
In her early thirties, Elizabeth Gilbert had everything a modern American woman was supposed to want—husband, country home, successful career—but instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she felt consumed by panic and confusion. This wise and rapturous book is the story of how she left behind all these outward marks of success, and of what she found in their place. Following a divorce and a crushing depression, Gilbert set out to examine three different aspects of her nature, set against the backdrop of three different cultures: pleasure in Italy, devotion in India, and on the Indonesian island of Bali, a balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendance.
Doesn’t that just sound like a hollywood movie you’ve seen before? Ironically, the book has been adapted for the big screen starring Julia Roberts as Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of the book. It’s due out in August of this year and you can get a sneak peak here.
I don’t know if it was because of my low expectations of the book that I enjoyed reading it immensely, but I was able to finish it within a week. It’s not a book I would typically read and I even felt a bit embarrassed to be seen reading it in public (strange, I know.) The reason I chose the book was partly out of boredom and partly because I was intrigued by an interview I had seen of the author on the Oprah show a while ago. She spoke about her transcendant experiences while meditating and her journey, both in the physical and metaphysical sense. I really thought this lady had lost her marbles. It was difficult for me to grasp what she was talking about. So when I saw that the book was #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, I was naturally curious to find out why and what it was she was talking about on Oprah.
Although I’m interested in seeing the movie, I’m a bit hesitant as movie adaptations of a book are rarely successful. I don’t dislike Julia Roberts as an actress, but I definitely feel it was the wrong decision to cast her as the author. Since the book’s release, it’s become a huge phenomenon and most people are familiar with its existence and Elizabeth Gilbert has become almost a celebrity herself. I mean, if you’re going to make a movie about the life of an actual person, aren’t you going to try to find an actor that has some resemblance to the real-life character that she is playing? I believe Elizabeth Mitchell who plays the character Juliette in the tv show, Lost would be the perfect fit for the role. She has a much closer resemblance to Elizabeth Gilbert and would play the part well. Julia Roberts is such a big star that it’s hard to watch a movie and forget that you’re watching Julia Roberts. You know what I mean? Unless you’re Meryl Streep, but she’s really good.
In some ways, I think reading Eat Pray Love led me to reading Eckhart Tolle’s, A New Earth, which i’ve written about before on how it has changed my life. Eat Pray Love is more of an entertaining read than it is life-changing, but I’m glad I gave it a chance; and although the story line may seem cliché, we never seem to tire of them completely.
