Letters to the Editor
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young, beautiful and talented
So how do we,who aren't blessed handle our depression? Oh well, I just asked.
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This doesn't sound
Like it would be much help to the average person who is encumbered by an office job and children and of course without a book deal. Meditation can help, I suppose, but really how much help did this woman need? It sounded as if she had a huge advantage from the very start.
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Re: Lost and found
I believe you when you say this author is "fiercely intelligent", "self-deprecating", etc. in her writings. I also believe (very easily) that, as you said, self-absorbed and self-congratulatory would work as well (just who ARE these extraordinary folks that have the time and money-- and the lack of commitments at home-- to go jaunting off like this??) Maybe I'm just not fanciful enough to get carried away by this kind of story. I did roll my eyes once or twice, although you said you didn't.
I'd rather hear a stiff "he-done-me-wrong" nitty-gritty breakup bit about how some sop got over the miserable thing without the help of grandiose locations and Brazilian lovers-- just maybe with some booze and a buddy or two, and the long slow healer time, like the rest of us. Seems more relevant.
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Paddies!
"Finally, Gilbert takes off for Bali, and settles in a village of 'pink clouds,' rice patties, lush equatorial flowers."
Rice patties? Is that an enlightened snack food?
If the book is as fatuously *omigod!* as the review, I'll pass.
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Yak!
I wonder how debilitating her "depression" was, if she was still able to secure a book deal and travel around the world.
Sounds like another Chicken Soup for the Soul kind of nonsense. Italian being "more beautiful than roses" is the type of line that has me reaching for the sick bag. The lines of text sound like the (painfully histrionic) travails of 18 year old's first big trip abroad. I wonder if her experience would have been as rewarding if she wasn't keeping it all for publication.
I feel "depressed" when I read about another self-congratulatory memoir when there must be books of quality and insight available to review instead.
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Brazilian Lover gave he bladder infection
Yeah, it's true, if you f.. your brains off (normally with a new lover, not your ltr partner), you can get a bladder infection. That zen wisdom is more than worth the price of this book.
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Thanks for the Review
With a title as insipid as this I'd normally never glance at this sort of book.
Having read the informative and amusing review, I now know my instincts would be 100% right.
Thanks, Ms. Leibovich!
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Save Us All
For God's sake, are we going to have to spend the rest of our lives looking at the photos, watching the films, and reading the books of people who are so rich and clueless that they think their experiences are really significant to anyone but themselves? She went on vacation, and had an experience just about anyone could have--if they had wads of money and no responsibilities. Big fucking deal.
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Perhaps you might read the book before you dismiss it? Just a thought.
Unlike most (perhaps all, so far) of the commentators here, I've actually read the book. Although probably not firmly in the demographic the publisher hoped to reach, I loved it
While acknowledging that any memoir is inherently narcissistic ("Hey Look at Me! My experiences and insights are worth publishing!"), there's clearly room within the genre for good introspection and schmaltzy introspection.
I always felt the vastly over-reated Year in Provence was an example of the latter. Eat, Pray, Love, fortunately, is a prime example of the former.
Of course, it's an unusual situation to have the resources and ability to spend a year finding balance abroad. It's also unusual to be President of the United States or a pro athlete or a world famous painter, but we read books about them all the time without resorting to some, jaded, mopey-teenager, auto-response: "Oh sure. It must be so hard having to make decisions which affect the whole of humanity. Well some of us don't have the opportunity to be president. What about a book about me?!"
If I were pitching this book to a publisher, I'd say it's part Bill Bryson's In a Sun Burnt Country, part Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountain. If you were irreperably turned off by the fact that Bryson got to travel around Australia on someone else's dime and you don't or that Paul Farmer (the subject of Kidder's wonderful book) decided to dedicate his life to helping the world's poor while you have responsibilities at home that prevent you from doing so, then please skip this book.
In an age when too many people in government, culture, religion, shout out that there's is the only answer to whatever big question you pose, Gilbert's thoughtful (while simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny) book about how she went about asking and (provisionally) answering questions of importance to all of us, is refreshing.
It's the readers here, who dismiss a book they haven't read because they think it has nothing to say to their particular life (which may or may not be true, of course) who are the narcissistic ones.
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Hear! Hear! Give it a chance.
Like the previous poster, I've read Eat Pray Love too. I wasn't expecting much. I think I am like most readers of salon --judging by the letters at least -- a secular lefty intellectual. So a book about a middle class white woman's spiritual awakening is something I would never pick up in a million years. Sounds too much like something Dr Phil would be hawking. But I've loved everything else I've ever read by Gilbert -- Last American Man, her GQ articles, Pilgrims -- so I pre-ordered it from amazon and read it over the weekend.
Like the old movie poster says, I laughed, I cried. I thanked God I wasn't reading it on a transatlantic flight because my alternate guffaws and tears would have been really annoying to my neighbors for 8 hours. It didn't make me want to take up yoga or run away to Bali, but it made me think about my own life, my own choices, my own compromises. If a book can do that and entertain at the same time, I'm pretty happy.