Oh, let us count the ways:

1. Health. "Debilitating depression" meant that my grandma soiled herself in bed for days on end. How silly of me to drag her to the psych ward, though, when I might have dispatched her for a grand tour of the continent -- with a lover or two thrown in for extra spice. But then she was just a country girl who worked her whole life and lived on social security. No doubt she wouldn't have tolerated authentic anti-pasti.

2. Job. What poor planning to have one. A beautiful person would never so encumber herself. Really, one ought to have a settlement from the last hubby to cover things until the next book deal falls into place.

3. Food. Each delicate dish one consumes is like a deeply scented rose, not merely eaten, no, but imbibed. And each thought one has about it? Perfume for the pedestrian masses. And here I am with my can of Dinty Moore stew having never considered the zen koan likely hidden inside.

4. Sex. Celibacy is a necessity for the beautiful person who wishes to clear one's head and ready herself for so many Brazilian lovers agitating at journey's end. Common folks, by contrast, merely copulate with whatever stray rogue might be at hand until they are utterly spent. Poor dears, who never really know pleasure for lack of self-restraint, it's a wonder they raise themselves each morning.

5. Salon. For the beautiful person Salon is an outlet, where her latest travelogue-cum-novel may descend upon the bitter little people who never get out, that idyllic prose and breathy thought like petals of a Wordsworth rose might inspire them to ...

What? Quit our jobs, divorce our spouses, pack on twenty pounds chowing down in Italy, and get it on with foreigners in South America?

What an ode to the self-indulgent American woman. Few females in all of time could pass their days sobbing on a bathroom floor, then travel abroad, and expect the world to embrace their musings as literature.

This is what's wrong with America, right here. Thanks once again to Salon for rubbing our noses in it.

This book sounds like it is awful. After reading the moving review of "Enrique's Journey," I was amazed to find it followed by a review of this self-indulgent nonsense.

i have no anger towards ms. gilbert but find and am glad she has found peace the vast majority of the world cannot look to her for inspiration simply because we lack her vast resources whether they be intellectual or financial simply because we don't have them. this could be jealousy or practicality, either way, she doesn't address herself to me or just about anyone else because she lives in the vapors. i hope she has found peace but really how many of us could afford to do it this way. i suspect that she will habve to revisit the question she was asking herself and have to ask it again and again and again. nice trip if you can afford it though.

Whaddya know? There's life outside of New York City! But apparently it has to be experienced by a New Yorker for it to be of interest.

Isn't this where you can't get out of bed, or alternatively can't sleep, can't focus on one thing long enough to secure a fabulous book deal, make complicated travel arrangements, etc., can't stop crying, can't function? Isn't that what debilitating means? I haven't know many "debilitated" people with the level of function required to plan a fabulous year long voyage around the world.

Like many skeptics of this book have written - been there, done that (the debilitating depression, I mean) and it briefly destroyed my professional career. I have not purchased the yoga shirt bearing the name of an ashram for well-heeled Americans on designer-clad spiritual pilgrimages.

It's striking how "Eastern" religious and philosophic traditions, which tend to deemphasize (some would say devalue) the individual, have been most enthusiastically embraced in the West by exactly the sort of middle class to wealthy, self-absorbed Yuppies who jet off to an ashram in India, and seek red kitchens in pristine island cottages in order to find themselves. And then get paid for it. Only in America.

So Gilbert's overblown prose may fail to move much more than my bowels. Her epiphanies, like other people's epiphanies generally, may lose their sheen in the telling. The review is shrewd enough to point all this out. But most appalling here is the bitterness of the invective spewing forth from the gnarled, overworked fingers of the commentators.

Why all the bile? Are you mad at Gilbert for not taking on children and the myriad other commitments with which you've chosen to saddle yourselves? If she were a backpacker sans book deal, would that make her story any more palatable? Beyond the fact that the world probably doesn't need yet another tale of privileged enlightenment (did a Baccarat chandelier light up in her head as she ohmed away in her cave?), there seems to be a hefty dose of plain old jealousy here.

Peeps, the choice was yours. You were the ones who bought the hype this society has spun you like so much cotton candy: mortgage, kids, enslaving makework, cradle-to-grave consumerism, lather-rinse-repeat. Gilbert certainly hasn't rejected that package wholesale - she did make sure she was nicely sorted out before leaving - but instead of focusing your remaining energies on Gilbert-hating, you should perhaps take this opportunity to see where your own life could use some tinkering.

In this country, leisure, learning and personal growth for their own sake are viewed (to a downright uncivilized degree) as frivolous. We're encouraged to be a slave to the rhythm, too busy to step back and ponder, too absorbed to recognise that most of our daily pursuits are but a distraction from the higher goals that really matter: improving our characters; nurturing our physical, spiritual and emotional health; tending our relationships; being responsible and compassionate global citizens. All these seem like add-ons that don't "get" you anything. Not for a moment do I suggest that Gilbert is anyone's sherpa to anything but savvy, au-courant personal branding. But the appearance of the book itself can open doors perhaps too long sealed in our own consciousness.

Finally, as others have pointed out: travel is more accessible than ever! It's not just for the wealthy or desperate any more, nor has it been for some time. Travel should be a rite of passage to adulthood - no! a requirement - like the draft - for Americans, woefully insular as you are. In some ways you're probably the only "civilisation" that can still afford to be. The rest of us long since lost the luxury of imagining we're the centre of the universe, and had to get off our asses and discover the world to which we belong. There's a famous statistic I read once that states that when shown the outline of a map of the USA, 75% of American high school seniors can immediately identify it. But when asked to point out the US in the context of a world map, the figure drops to under 25%. But it's all so avoidable. Just downgrade your SUVs, deny little Susie her nineteenth Build-A-Bear and avoid Starbucks for a while. You can coast for months in many countries on those savings alone.