April 2011 Book Club: 'Eat Pray Love' by Elizabeth Gilbert

Take some tasty, chocolatey mudslide cakes and other small delicacies piled high atop pretty plates as well as gooey chocolate mini Easter eggs brimming to overflow in petite glassware and combine with tinkling china teacups and light conversation and you now have an image of the way this month's book club kicked off. And, what better way to celebrate this month's title, Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert?

We had a small number who turned out for our April's meeting and, whilst the numbers were smaller this month, the discussion and social interaction, (which is a major focus in our club) was large. There are always plenty of opportunities to enjoy light-hearted banter and catch-up socially, but we always manage to balance it with an engaging discussion about the book of the month. How deeply we discuss a book depends upon the dynamics of the group. Each month we allow ourselves to be led by the feel of the group and usually, our reading guides.

Eat Pray Love was generally received with mixed feelings. Some readers loved the book, while others didn't, and still others enjoyed parts of it whilst other parts, not so. It was a mixed bag of thoughts and feelings. This is the type of book that makes for great discussion, especially with such a variety of feelings floating around, and depending upon how strong some of those feelings were.

Eat Pray Love falls within the travel documentary genre and if you've visited the bookstores lately, it doesn't take you very long to figure out that it is a very popular genre. Many writers take the opportunity to combine their love of travel and writing as a way to turn out running commentaries on their experiences. And who wouldn't mind doing that, especially if it became a major seller?

Because of the number of travel writers, it is often hard to choose the exact book you want and, on the flip side, as a writer with strong competitors, you need to have the cutting edge; a unique way that sets you apart from all the rest, namely, the Black Caviar of the field (speaking in horse racing terms).

Eat Pray Love is one of those major sellers I just mentioned.Why? Just what did Elizabeth Gilbert do that set her apart from all the rest?

Well, that question makes for much discussion, but she obviously struck a chord with a large proportion of the western population. Was it the entrapment of marriage, outgrown and now loveless that readers connected with, or was it the chance to travel with the author and visit three countries that they had not visited before? Or maybe readers simply wanted to experience the food, culture, meditation and prayer along with the author, and connected with these aspects. Who knows? But what became obvious from listening to our book club members was that the book, or at least parts of the book meant something different for each of them based on their own experiences, their culture, their views on life and religion, and where they were now in their life. So too, I think, for the general population.

This is a book that you choose for personal reasons and not based on the recommendation by others. This is a book that the author must have the edge; the Black Caviar of the racing field.

I know personally, that with all the hype that surrounded this book, even before the movie came out, I ummed and ahhhhed about it. Oprah and her Book Club (which I respect) had sanctioned and promoted it and the general population raved about it.

For me, it took many visits to a variety of book stores, where it wooed me before I purchased a copy. As I wandered around the stores, looking at new and old titles, it always managed to intrigue me when I found it displayed. I'd pick it up and fondle it, run my fingers over its front cover. I'd hold it and read the back cover then carry it around the store with me, only to return it back to its rightful place on the shelf, edged out by other titles more pressing for me to take home. Finally though, one day I eventually felt sorry enough for it. I'd had enough of it begging me to take it home like an orphaned puppy. I finally decided it was its turn to come home to my place. Why this time? I don't know. Perhaps I was finally curious enough for it.

Was I glad? Was it worth the purchase? For me - definitely. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was glad to have shared some of my time with this author and her tale of self discovery. Elizabeth Gilbert is a writer who is easy to read. She kept the language simple and the themes a little more complex. I enjoyed her writing technique so much so that now I would like to read her other documentary called The Last American Man.

Novel Tea 'n Pages recommends Eat Pray Love to those book lovers where it either 'jumps out at you' (blatantly) or if it woos you. No matter what way - it will get you. Good luck. All I can say is, enjoy it for what it is.

So, until next time,
happy reading...

April 2011 Book Club: 'Eat Pray Love' by Elizabeth Gilbert

About the Book:

'From the way Elizabeth Gilbert’s tale begins --- with our heroine in Rome, fawning over a sexy, young Italian --- one could be forgiven for thinking that Eat, Pray, Love might just belong on the chick-lit shelf next to Amy Sohn’s Run, Catch, Kiss. But first blushes can be deceiving, and from the book’s introductory quote --- “Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth” --- we know Gilbert’s not out to deceive. Not her readers and, most important, not herself.

In what could be construed as a coming-of-age story for thirtysomethings, Gilbert leaves behind an excruciating divorce, tumultuous affair, and debilitating depression as she sets off on a yearlong quest to bridge the gulf between body, mind, and spirit. Part self-deprecating tour guide, part wry, witty chronicler, Gilbert relates this chapter of her life with a compelling, richly detailed narrative that eschews the easy answers of New Age rhetoric. In the book’s early pages, a flashback finds the smart, savvy, successful Gilbert on her knees on the bathroom floor of the Westchester house she inhabits with her husband, wailing and wallowing in sorrow, snot, and tears (“a veritable Lake Inferior”), awkwardly embarking on her first conversation with God.

During the interminable wait for her divorce, Gilbert accepts a magazine assignment in Bali, where she meets a ninth-generation medicine man “whose resemblance to the Star Wars character Yoda cannot be exaggerated.” He evaluates her palm, forecasting her return to Bali --- a prediction that resurfaces when she hatches an escape plan from pain: “to explore the art of pleasure in Italy, the art of devotion in India, and, in Indonesia, the art of balancing the two.”

Drawn by the beauty of its mother tongue, Gilbert arrives in Rome dead set on a self-restoration remedy rooted in pleasure and chastity, a peculiar pairing she describes as the antidote for decades spent sublimating herself to lovers with the dedication of “a golden retriever and a barnacle.” For Gilbert, luxuriating in simple pleasures means sounding the curtain call on personal demons --- in this case a good-cop, bad-cop routine starring loneliness and depression --- and allowing her own desires (gelato for breakfast!) to take center stage.

Pleasure triumphs, and our protagonist is prepared for the next leg of her journey: an ashram in India, where racing thoughts eventually yield to successful meditation and a cast of supportive characters, including a plumber-poet from New Zealand, an ever-amiable, sage Texan, and the Indian tomboy she scrubs the temple floors with as part of her devotional duty.

By the time Gilbert arrives in Indonesia, she has shed her grief, realizing her own ability to control her reaction to life’s events. She is strong, enjoying a succession of simple days spent with the medicine man, a Javanese surfer dude, and a woman healer. Bicycling around Bali, she finds balance and, as the title suggests, love. Happiness, Gilbert comes to realize, “is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it.”'


Notes from: Reading Group Guides