Read, Think, Enjoy

Our September-October bookclub pick is Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. And me being the keener that I am, have already finished the book even though it's only the third day of September.

I know I ranted about this book previously (or at least the marketing of this book), and I understand that there are a number of people who absolutely hate and despise this book, but I actually rather enjoyed it. It's not a perfect book and I do have some quibbles with a few things, but overall, it's an enjoyable read.

The book is about one Liz Gilbert who spends a year on a voyage of self-discovery, traveling to Italy, India, and Indonesia to discover pleasure, devotion, and balance. Along the way, she meets a lot of interesting people and recovers after her terrible divorce and break-up of her subsequent bounce-back relationship.

A number of people have commented that Liz (I have to call her Liz - her writing voice is so warm, friendly and confessional that you think you know her instantly) seems to have a feeling of entitlement. Maybe so. I know we're not all as lucky as she is to get an advance from a publisher to travel the world and write about it. I do know that Liz was a terribly unhappy woman at the opening of the book. Shouldn't we all be celebrating someone's return to health and happiness - even if it does require an envy-inducing journey across the globe? It's nice, for once, to read a book about someone being happy, instead of people who are sad and have sad things happen to them.

That said, I do have some quibbles (I wouldn't be me if I didn't have some quibbles). I understand the decision not to discuss the painful details of her divorce, but that deprives the book of some needed weight. I understood that Liz needed the yearlong journey to recover, but it isn't all that clear what she is recovering from. From the brief discussion of the divorce, it just sounds like she's getting divorced because she doesn't want children. And that's fine. Plenty of people don't want kids. Where it gets sticky is when one person really wants them and the other doesn't. However, there's no sense in the book that her husband desperately wanted children, or that they tried hard to keep their marriage together before it fell apart - no suggestion of couples' counseling. That doesn't mean they didn't try those things, or that her husband was so focused on having a child that there was no other way out but divorce, but there's no sense of that in the book. More discussion of that would have grounded the book and helped us feel even more a sense of joy and relief for Liz as she finds herself and rediscovers her equilibrium throughout the course of the book.

Also, regarding children. Liz indicates that she felt trapped by conventional society's expectation that she have a child (leading to the divorce and journey) but later seems to say that women who don't have or don't want children are unconventional. Well, you can't have it both ways. You can't be mad that you are feeling trapped by society's conventions on childbearing, and then breathlessly declare non-childbearing women as some type of rebel. I'm sure there are plenty of women who do not want nor have children. I don't think it's that rebellious anymore. Maybe 50 years ago, but not today.

I would be interested to read a follow-up from Liz; no, not the book she published about marriage (Committed), but a book detailing how she managed to keep up the pleasure, devotion, and balance she gained on the journey, and how she worked the feelings from her travels into her everyday life. It's pretty easy to be balanced when you're renting a beautiful house in Bali and you have no more demands on your time than meeting with the medicine man, riding your bike through the rice paddies, and cavorting with your Brazilian lover. Would that we all had such troubles! No, how does the typical North American woman achieve pleasure/devotion/balance while living a typical North American lifestyle which may or may not include one or more of the following: job, friends, pets, husband, children, parents, siblings, hobbies, etc.? How can I achieve pleasure/devotion/balance when my bank account/job/children/husband won't let me run off to Italy/India/Indonesia for a year? That's the follow-up I want from Liz, not a book about marriage.

At any rate, this is an enjoyable read, and sometimes that's all you need. It's notable, at any rate, for now making me want to go to Bali! Italy has long been on the destination list, and I've never really wanted to go to India, but I think I could be persuaded to go to Bali.