For all of the shit that we have given Elizabeth Gilbert and her book Eat, Pray, Love, she did have the pluck to up and leave her life and rediscover herself, and I admire her for doing such a courageous thing with her life when she could have trudged on miserably. That takes guts. She also let herself learn from those whom she met abroad. But one of her faults as a writer and a student is that she exoticizes her friends to the point at which it seems that she dismisses the possibility that these people possess any complex psychological life that questions and contradicts (which we all know is profoundly at work in her own mind).
It seems to me that she admires the people she meets abroad because she recognizes that they are at peace with themselves and the world. They can live in squalor, without money, without a stable job, while supporting children, and still be happy and productive people. This type of person attracts Ms. Gilbert because, as she says of herself, she is a border person who lives at the edge and is constantly without roots. But interestingly, she can only recognize this personality in foreigners. These people exist in the U.S. as much as they exist anywhere, but she makes it seem as though America is the problem, and that no one can be a satisfied, hardworking stable person in this country.
The one moment in the book where I think she does recognize the similarity between herself and another person in the book is when she is remembering a conversation with the girl who cleans the Ashram. The girl says that she would rather be somewhere in the U.S. I think this must have been an “Ah ha” moment for Ms. Gilbert – every culture has some of her, those people who would like to move away and become someone else.
I am also sure she met a lot of jerks while she was abroad too, but she decided not to include them in her story for one reason or another. Maybe she cut them because she wanted to keep the book positive and upbeat. And that is one really good thing about her, is that she is able to see the positive qualities in all of these people she meets. We have been so down on her on this blog that perhaps we could benefit from some positive thinking about her. There are certainly a lot of other women who have benefited from reading this novel, even if just to open their minds to the possibilities that they can act, that they can affect change in their lives.
Although Ms. Gilbert may be reverting back to the Victorian era female fad of visiting foreign countries, think E.M. Forster A Room with A View or Passage to India (thank you to my sis for that one), she is at least exposing women – and men – to worlds greater than what they could imagine before reading this book. But maybe too she is just fueling the self-centered life that everyone feels so entitled to in our era. Above all, I think she is trying to find a balance wherein she is satisfied with sacrificing some things and asking for – and getting – others. When watching interviews with Ms. Gilbert, it is clear that she still does feel conflicted and is continually trying to improve herself and that she is still working towards peace.
