Comments on: Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/ Maw Books - book reviews, book recommendations, book lists, author interviews and more! Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:54:26 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 By: Suzanne Smedberg http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/#comment-46002 Suzanne Smedberg Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:04:38 +0000 http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/#comment-46002 I personally hated this book. I know, I know it's a great work of literature and I don't understand, but I thought it should of been called "Eat, Pray, Love: Let's talk about me!", written about an unbelievably self-centered character. But then again, I hate most everything. Ask my book club. I personally hated this book. I know, I know it’s a great work of literature and I don’t understand, but I thought it should of been called “Eat, Pray, Love: Let’s talk about me!”, written about an unbelievably self-centered character. But then again, I hate most everything. Ask my book club.

]]> By: Seymour Totti http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/#comment-41354 Seymour Totti Sat, 30 May 2009 03:35:51 +0000 http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/#comment-41354 I almost always step off the plane not knowing where I'm going to stay, it's really no big deal. Especially in Bali which has been a major tourist hotspot and mecca for Autralian surfer dudes for decades. To be honest, I'd never heard of the book until I went to Ubud a couple of weeks ago. There most people cringe if you mention it ... except all the spa and foot massage places who have benefited from the publicity. >Carole, I live in two cities. You could call them stew and pan-fry I almost always step off the plane not knowing where I’m going to stay, it’s really no big deal. Especially in Bali which has been a major tourist hotspot and mecca for Autralian surfer dudes for decades.

To be honest, I’d never heard of the book until I went to Ubud a couple of weeks ago. There most people cringe if you mention it … except all the spa and foot massage places who have benefited from the publicity.

>Carole, I live in two cities. You could call them stew and pan-fry

]]> By: carole http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/#comment-40647 carole Wed, 20 May 2009 10:57:25 +0000 http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/#comment-40647 I've been thinking about this a lot and was wondering what word you all would use to describe the cities you live in. The book uses the word "sex" to describe Rome, "achieve" to describe New York City and "fight" to sum up Naples. So, what would your city's word be? I’ve been thinking about this a lot and was wondering what word you all would use to describe the cities you live in. The book uses the word “sex” to describe Rome, “achieve” to describe New York City and “fight” to sum up Naples. So, what would your city’s word be?

]]> By: Maggie http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/#comment-40559 Maggie Tue, 19 May 2009 14:07:53 +0000 http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/#comment-40559 oops, here's the link to the song... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH2ow3yI7iw oops, here’s the link to the song…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH2ow3yI7iw

]]> By: Maggie http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/#comment-40558 Maggie Tue, 19 May 2009 14:07:05 +0000 http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/#comment-40558 Check out this great song inspired by the book "Eat, Pray, Love" by Mark Weinstock Check out this great song inspired by the book “Eat, Pray, Love” by Mark Weinstock

]]> By: Darla http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/#comment-39653 Darla Thu, 07 May 2009 01:34:32 +0000 http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/#comment-39653 If you cant identify with this book, simply put, you just haven't been there. yet. If you cant identify with this book, simply put, you just haven’t been there. yet.

]]> By: Darla http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/#comment-39652 Darla Thu, 07 May 2009 01:31:38 +0000 http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/#comment-39652 I think theres a lot of haters in these comments, the whole point of the book, is that an much of an impossibility it is to travel and take a year off of life to do what seems like the impossible, can be done. Crying on the bathroom floor gross? THATS the reality of life, we dont chosse a time and place to break down, we just do. I think that you have to be at the place she was, to have experienced depression, lonliness, deaths, compelte changes in life that you did not expect relate to what she has beenthrough to truly apreciate this book. I have been to Rome, and India, and feel that Gilbert write the core of my fears, hapiness and soul in this book. I LOVED IT, if your stuck and have never been outside this stuffy world to travel, dont hate the player, hate the game. I think theres a lot of haters in these comments, the whole point of the book, is that an much of an impossibility it is to travel and take a year off of life to do what seems like the impossible, can be done. Crying on the bathroom floor gross? THATS the reality of life, we dont chosse a time and place to break down, we just do. I think that you have to be at the place she was, to have experienced depression, lonliness, deaths, compelte changes in life that you did not expect relate to what she has beenthrough to truly apreciate this book. I have been to Rome, and India, and feel that Gilbert write the core of my fears, hapiness and soul in this book. I LOVED IT, if your stuck and have never been outside this stuffy world to travel, dont hate the player, hate the game.

]]> By: Carly Hartman http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/#comment-38358 Carly Hartman Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:01:32 +0000 http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/#comment-38358 I loved the book! Read my review below. I found this book to be an altering and personally impacting book. It seems amazing the things that God puts in your life to help you through a specific trial. It may have been coincidental, but I needed to read this book at this point in my life. I urge staff working at CAPS at Purdue to read this book and suggest their clients to do so as well. I have decided, for the purpose of convincing you, to do my analysis of the book in order of the book’s three sections, but to also add in my own personal thoughts on each section of the book. Before Elizabeth tells of her year long journey, she tells the reader what led up to the need for such a journey. After going through a nasty divorce and ended love affair, she felt like “overworked soil.” In this beginning part of the book I feel that many readers can relate to the feelings and emotions that she possessed. I found myself at times with tears in my eyes only because I was relieved that someone else had too felt the same way I had. This offered hope to me knowing through an interview how happy she is now after this journey. I found it particularly interesting that she referred to “Loneliness and Depression” as people. She uses the feelings as proper nouns, capitalizing them and giving them a habitat saying, “Depression on my left, Loneliness on my right. They don’t need to show their badges. I know these guys very well. We have been playing a cat-and-mouse game for years now.” I identified with this paragraph feeling that these two “feelings” to some, but huge “monsters” to others, have often haunted me, turning me into someone I am not. One self actualizing analysis that Elizabeth gives in her book is, “I warn myself not to get attached to any obsolete ideas about who I am, what I represent, whom I belong to, or what function I may once have intended to serve.” These sentences spoke to me because I am stubborn in my thinking. I know who I am. I know what I want to be. I know where I come from. But then, suddenly, when you can’t become what you have worked for, or you find yourself wondering, you panic, thinking “but THAT is who I am, NOT THIS.” In her book, she describes herself on her bathroom floor, three inches from her white tile. I can just imagine this with detail even more so as the book cover’s background includes the white tiles. This is a detail I wonder if many readers noticed. Maybe only the desperate ones who are familiar with their own bathroom tiles noticed. In Elizabeth Gilbert’s journey to find happiness and herself she took one year to travel to three countries, coincidentally all starting with the letter “I”, even more to support her self-discovery. She first traveled to Italy to find pleasure. To her, pleasure was learning the beautiful language of Italian and indulging herself in as much Italian cuisine as she could. In her book, she shares her stories of meeting new friends and discovering pleasure. Even here in Italy, Loneliness and Depression track her down now and again. Eventually through her journey Loneliness and Depression lose their war. The amazing thing about this book is that Elizabeth includes enough details that to some may be extemporaneous, but to me, they were crucial. They offered hope. For example, “One night in a hotel room by the ocean, the sound of my own laughter actually wakes me up in the middle of my deep sleep. I am startled. Who is that laughing in my bed?” This has happened to me before as well, signifying that I am on my way back to myself. If Elizabeth and I both could graph ourselves it would be a nice curve, starting with a hyperbolic curve steadily rising through childhood and high school. Then there is a drastic decline after high school then slowly but steadily rising again. She finds herself in her next destination in India going to visit an Ashram and find God. Here she meditates daily spending most of the day in silence alone. She at first fights with herself as she cannot remain still; she cannot find enough peace to be still while meditating. With great practice she eventually can sit through the entire day without even thinking and simply being in existence with God. Many readers can probably relate to the internal conflict that Elizabeth dealt with, wanting to move on quickly but knowing she needs to take the time and have patience to heal. Here in India she meets a friend, Richard from Texas. The two become very close friends but never develop a romantic relationship. Richard is often seen in interviews to promote Eat, Pray, Love. She realizes she is at peace with herself and then travels to Indonesia. Her objective in Indonesia is to find a balance between pleasure and God. She has before been to Indonesia and was told by a medicine man that she one day would return and they would teach each other many great things. She goes to Indonesia not knowing the man’s name or address. She has good luck finding him but he does not remember her. She feels foolish but soon he remembers her and he invites her to come to his house daily to teach other. The reason he does not remember her is because she is a different person now. He remembers a sad and broken old woman and now there is a young happy woman coming to his house. She would teach him English while he would teach her the ways of a medicine man. Some readers can identify with the “unrecognizable.” I can often remember thinking, “I don’t even recognize myself, this is not who I am. I used to be so happy and carefree. What happened?” Elizabeth Gilbert says, “I wouldn’t have been able to pick myself out of a police line up.” The simple statement that the medicine man makes as he acknowledges her outward appearance changing because the inward has changed brings hope to Elizabeth and the reader. In Indonesia she falls in love, she is towards the end of her journey and her heart is healed and ready for new love. This final chapter of the book ends well with a “happy ever after” feeling. While discussing the book with Sarah K., we found many differences in our interpretations. Because Elizabeth Gilbert was paid to do the book before leaving on her journey, Sarah feels that Elizabeth may have been making up some of the stories just to sell the book. I completely disagree. To me this book is a serious matter. It deals with happiness. I believe that the spiritual Elizabeth Gilbert would think it would be “bad karma” to do such things. Overall, I give this book a 5 star rating. I recommend it to anyone looking for peace within themselves. At Purdue many students are in a turning point in their lives. This book will help remind them of who they are and what makes them happy. It promises hope to those to who are blinded and distraught from their circumstances. I loved the book! Read my review below.
I found this book to be an altering and personally impacting book. It seems amazing the things that God puts in your life to help you through a specific trial. It may have been coincidental, but I needed to read this book at this point in my life. I urge staff working at CAPS at Purdue to read this book and suggest their clients to do so as well. I have decided, for the purpose of convincing you, to do my analysis of the book in order of the book’s three sections, but to also add in my own personal thoughts on each section of the book.
Before Elizabeth tells of her year long journey, she tells the reader what led up to the need for such a journey. After going through a nasty divorce and ended love affair, she felt like “overworked soil.” In this beginning part of the book I feel that many readers can relate to the feelings and emotions that she possessed. I found myself at times with tears in my eyes only because I was relieved that someone else had too felt the same way I had. This offered hope to me knowing through an interview how happy she is now after this journey. I found it particularly interesting that she referred to “Loneliness and Depression” as people. She uses the feelings as proper nouns, capitalizing them and giving them a habitat saying, “Depression on my left, Loneliness on my right. They don’t need to show their badges. I know these guys very well. We have been playing a cat-and-mouse game for years now.” I identified with this paragraph feeling that these two “feelings” to some, but huge “monsters” to others, have often haunted me, turning me into someone I am not. One self actualizing analysis that Elizabeth gives in her book is, “I warn myself not to get attached to any obsolete ideas about who I am, what I represent, whom I belong to, or what function I may once have intended to serve.” These sentences spoke to me because I am stubborn in my thinking. I know who I am. I know what I want to be. I know where I come from. But then, suddenly, when you can’t become what you have worked for, or you find yourself wondering, you panic, thinking “but THAT is who I am, NOT THIS.” In her book, she describes herself on her bathroom floor, three inches from her white tile. I can just imagine this with detail even more so as the book cover’s background includes the white tiles. This is a detail I wonder if many readers noticed. Maybe only the desperate ones who are familiar with their own bathroom tiles noticed.
In Elizabeth Gilbert’s journey to find happiness and herself she took one year to travel to three countries, coincidentally all starting with the letter “I”, even more to support her self-discovery. She first traveled to Italy to find pleasure. To her, pleasure was learning the beautiful language of Italian and indulging herself in as much Italian cuisine as she could. In her book, she shares her stories of meeting new friends and discovering pleasure. Even here in Italy, Loneliness and Depression track her down now and again. Eventually through her journey Loneliness and Depression lose their war. The amazing thing about this book is that Elizabeth includes enough details that to some may be extemporaneous, but to me, they were crucial. They offered hope. For example, “One night in a hotel room by the ocean, the sound of my own laughter actually wakes me up in the middle of my deep sleep. I am startled. Who is that laughing in my bed?” This has happened to me before as well, signifying that I am on my way back to myself. If Elizabeth and I both could graph ourselves it would be a nice curve, starting with a hyperbolic curve steadily rising through childhood and high school. Then there is a drastic decline after high school then slowly but steadily rising again.
She finds herself in her next destination in India going to visit an Ashram and find God. Here she meditates daily spending most of the day in silence alone. She at first fights with herself as she cannot remain still; she cannot find enough peace to be still while meditating. With great practice she eventually can sit through the entire day without even thinking and simply being in existence with God. Many readers can probably relate to the internal conflict that Elizabeth dealt with, wanting to move on quickly but knowing she needs to take the time and have patience to heal. Here in India she meets a friend, Richard from Texas. The two become very close friends but never develop a romantic relationship. Richard is often seen in interviews to promote Eat, Pray, Love. She realizes she is at peace with herself and then travels to Indonesia.
Her objective in Indonesia is to find a balance between pleasure and God. She has before been to Indonesia and was told by a medicine man that she one day would return and they would teach each other many great things. She goes to Indonesia not knowing the man’s name or address. She has good luck finding him but he does not remember her. She feels foolish but soon he remembers her and he invites her to come to his house daily to teach other. The reason he does not remember her is because she is a different person now. He remembers a sad and broken old woman and now there is a young happy woman coming to his house. She would teach him English while he would teach her the ways of a medicine man. Some readers can identify with the “unrecognizable.” I can often remember thinking, “I don’t even recognize myself, this is not who I am. I used to be so happy and carefree. What happened?” Elizabeth Gilbert says, “I wouldn’t have been able to pick myself out of a police line up.” The simple statement that the medicine man makes as he acknowledges her outward appearance changing because the inward has changed brings hope to Elizabeth and the reader. In Indonesia she falls in love, she is towards the end of her journey and her heart is healed and ready for new love. This final chapter of the book ends well with a “happy ever after” feeling.
While discussing the book with Sarah K., we found many differences in our interpretations. Because Elizabeth Gilbert was paid to do the book before leaving on her journey, Sarah feels that Elizabeth may have been making up some of the stories just to sell the book. I completely disagree. To me this book is a serious matter. It deals with happiness. I believe that the spiritual Elizabeth Gilbert would think it would be “bad karma” to do such things. Overall, I give this book a 5 star rating. I recommend it to anyone looking for peace within themselves. At Purdue many students are in a turning point in their lives. This book will help remind them of who they are and what makes them happy. It promises hope to those to who are blinded and distraught from their circumstances.

]]> By: Natasha Maw http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/#comment-36041 Natasha Maw Sun, 12 Apr 2009 17:02:24 +0000 http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/#comment-36041 Mark - I haven't heard of that memoir. I'll go look it up. Catherine, Sandie and Carrie - Thank you so much for stopping by and commenting. Interesting discussion on the age level. I have seen so many different ages say they either loved it or hated it. It's hard to pinpoint. Like I mentioned in my earlier review, I think that the life experience that you bring when sitting down to read the book will definitely impact how you feel about it. Debra - It sounds as though this book connected with you on a personal level. Mark – I haven’t heard of that memoir. I’ll go look it up.

Catherine, Sandie and Carrie – Thank you so much for stopping by and commenting. Interesting discussion on the age level. I have seen so many different ages say they either loved it or hated it. It’s hard to pinpoint. Like I mentioned in my earlier review, I think that the life experience that you bring when sitting down to read the book will definitely impact how you feel about it.

Debra – It sounds as though this book connected with you on a personal level.

]]> By: Debra Whitehead http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/#comment-34162 Debra Whitehead Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:42:39 +0000 http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/02/29/eat-pray-love-by-elizabeth-gilbert/#comment-34162 I finished the book a couple weeks ago.... I feel like I have lost a friend Elizabeth. I miss you. Thank you for your thoughts especially the ones you don't share with anyone but yourself... I am not alone anymore. I finished the book a couple weeks ago…. I feel like I have lost a friend Elizabeth. I miss you. Thank you for your thoughts especially the ones you don’t share with anyone but yourself… I am not alone anymore.

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