EAT, PRAY, LOVE – ONE WOMAN’S SEARCH FOR EVERYTHING
Elizabeth Gilbert, Bloomsbury Publishing, US$12
At 30, protagonist Elizabeth Gilbert realises she wants neither her husband nor a baby. (“Until I can feel as ecstatic about having a baby as I felt about going to New Zealand to search for a giant squid, I cannot have a baby.”) She leaves her seemingly perfect life (a loving husband, journalism career and properties in Hudson Valley and Manhattan) and gets “caged up in Divorce Internment Camp”. Emotionally fragile, with a need for self-discovery, a plan to travel guiltlessly for a year is conceived. She would “explore the art of pleasure in Italy, the art of devotion in India, and, in Indonesia, the art of balancing the two”.
Gilbert secures a book deal for her travel chronicles (thus this memoir) and takes off to Italy. While accommodating to her stomach’s desires for fried zucchini, gelato for breakfast and innumerable servings of pasta and pizza, Gilbert finds pleasure in its simplest form – food.
In an Ashram in India, she juggles daily floor scrubbing, meditation and chanting in Sanskrit (no mean feat!) while maintaining her position as the Ashram-social-butterfly. Readers see how a heartfelt realisation prompts her to relinquish past relationships that were never meant to be.
Having satisfied her heart and stomach, Gilbert heads for Bali to learn from a Yoda-look-alike medicine man, whose mantra is to “even smile in your liver”. With a dash of compassion and ingeniousness, she coordinates a charity drive for a homeless mother-daughter pair! Like all fairytale endings, as the title suggests, love unexpectedly appears in the form of a handsome older Brazilian, and “balance” is achieved. One cannot help but applaud for this (brave) woman who “eats, prays and loves” her way to discover what she truly yearns.
Eat, Pray, Love was No. 1 New York Times bestseller for over a year and listed in Oprah’s Book Club. Paramount Pictures has acquired the rights for the book, with Julia Roberts set to star in the movie.
Lau Liang Tong
