"One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia."
I am a BIG Julia Roberts fan. I loved her in Pretty Woman, Erin Brokevich, The Pelican Brief, Steel Magnolias, and Hook to name a few; so it's no surprise that I would want to see her newest film, Eat Pray Love, based on the true life year of Elizabeth Gilbert.
When I saw the first preview for the movie I resolved that I should read the book. As it turned out, my aunt had given it (the book) to my grandmother to read, which meant that it was lying hidden somewhere in my house. Seeing that it is a book about one woman's journey to self-discovery and my grandmother is eighty she wasn't exactly interested. So I found the book, tucked underneath a bed with a slew of others, removed it, dusted it, and dove right in.
The Washington Post said, "Readable, funny...by the time she and her lover sailed into a Bali sunset, Gilbert had won me over. She's a gusty gal, the Liz, flaunting her psychic wounds and her search for faith in a pop-culture world."
"An intriguing and substantive journey recounted with verve, humor, and insight. Others have preceded Gilbert in writing this sort of memoir, but few indeed have done it better....She is an irresistible people magnet, and inveterate explorer, a marvelous storyteller, a vicious with often at her own expense." -Seattle Post-Intelligencer
I have yet to even finish the book and I can't write a more accurate statement of the balance between truth, passion, and humor that Gilbert has achieved. I am not the world traveler that she is, nor have I been married or painfully divorced, however as Marie Claire put it "Lucky for us the lessons she learns are entirely importable." And they are, the journey she takes to find herself apart from men and work and what society and social status tell her she should be is a journey that we all take at some point in our lives. I think, in America at least, this journey is more commonly known as a 'mid-life crisis'. I don't think this is an accurate label. If someone's journey to find themselves and where their passion is or went is in fact a "crisis" for anyone it is typically those standing on the sidelines watching the change. They bystanders wonder what brought it on and how long will it last and if things will ever go back to 'normal', whatever that means. All too often we get so caught up in living life that we forget to live as ourselves, as we were created to. As a result, by the end of our lives we wonder what happened to the things that we used to love and when we stopped making time for the small things. I don't know about you, but I don't want to wonder that at the end of my life. I want to know that I lived it to the fullest extent possible and then die old and grey and warm in my bed.
As for Elizabeth Gilbert, I have no doubts that she will die happier now having experienced life outside of everything she knew, and I haven't even gotten through the entire book yet. (Did I mention that I only started it yesterday?) Now I don't agree with all of her ideas on faith and God and other such things, but I don't have to admire her. I admire the fact that she took herself outside of all that she was uncomfortable with having finally realized that she was unhappy and could actually do something about that. I admire the fact that she recognized unhealthy patterns in her life and made it a point to not revert back to those things, no matter how hard that may have been for her. She tried new things, met new people, experienced the fresh air (and I don't just mean that in the literal sense) and I think that if we all took a lesson from Elizabeth it should be to seize life at the moment it presents itself and never stop. I think the population as a whole would be much happier and more enjoyable if we conformed less to duty and obligation and allowed spontaneity to have a little more control. Not everything needs to have a purpose and not everything needs to be penciled in.
And I know one thing that is for sure, one of these days I am going to Italy. I will go to Naples, to the Piazza de Michele and try the worlds best pizza! My mouth was watering as I read about it and I can't wait!
No comments:
Post a Comment