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 enlarge | Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy Used: $4.37
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New (142) Collectible (6) from $5.19
Avg. Customer Rating:  1562 reviews
Sales Rank: 20
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.8
ISBN: 0143038419
Dewey Decimal Number: 910.4
EAN: 9780143038412
ASIN: 0143038419
Publication Date: January 30, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: Visible shelf wear -- may have some notes/markings on pages
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| Customer Reviews:
 If only... July 10, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
I recieved this book as a christmas present and didn't read it for about 7 months. I had gone through a sad break up and had moved half way across the country to start anew. I got a new job and decided to finally read this book. I am so glad I did. I recognized myself in so many of the author's feelings about her divorce and and the mental anguish a break up puts you through. I loved the Italy part and had a fondness for India, but I felt pretty detached when it came to Bali. Overall I found this book to be an easy enjoyable read and I will be recomending it to all of my friends.
 Slumber Party Theology July 9, 2008
7 out of 11 found this review helpful
My sister-in-law gave me this book. She loved it and wanted to buy it for all her girlfriends. I found Elizabeth Gilbert hysterical and shallow, and was incredulous that other reviewers described _Eat, Pray, Love_ as "wise and rapturous." Is this what passes for wisdom in our culture?
To be fair, Gilbert is a good writer. She has a keen ear for dialogue. Her transcription of a Lazio soccer fan's monologue as he screams instructions at the players is funny, though full of Italian you could never use in polite company! You meet a host of quirky characters, including Richard the Texan, who drawls "Man, they got mosquitoes `round this place big enough to rape a chicken" as he sits down beside Gilbert at the ashram refectory.
I most enjoyed Book Three because of the anthropological details. Did you know Balinese parents name their children one of four names (Wayan=First, Made=Second, Nyoman=Third, and Ketut=Fourth), depending on birth order? According to Gilbert, two Wayans can marry each other, and name their firstborn Wayan. Not surprisingly, many Balinese have nicknames since you can imagine the confusion on the first day of kindergarten when the teacher calls out a name, and fourteen kids raise their hands.
In Bali, Gilbert befriends a local herbalist / healer named--yet again--Wayan, and raises $18,000 to buy her and her eight-year-old daughter Tutti a house. I was fascinated by the cultural complexities of owning land in Bali (land gets sold by rumour) and disturbed by Wayan's unorthodox male fertility treatments (she has young stud taxi drivers impregnate wives since their sterile husbands don't believe they could possibly have a problem and it MUST be the woman's fault).
Now that I've gotten Gilbert's good points out of the way, let me tell you her downsides. This book, while marketed as "rich in spiritual insight," is about as insightful as your average teen magazine article--"Fake Tanning: Is it for you?" Here are three problems with Gilbert's approach:
PROBLEM #1
Gilbert assumes "all religions are the same." This is her drumbeat theme. In chapter 3, she explains that though she uses the word "God," she could just as easily substitute Allah, Vishnu, Zeus, etc. Her casual lumping together of things that are blatantly different is nonsensical. For example, in chapter 46, she discusses the yogic tradition of "Kundalini shakti," where a snake lies coiled at the base of your spine and you release it through the seven chakras (or wheels) of your soul until it explodes through your head and you achieve union with God. Gilbert describes the experience of union as "soft blue electrical energy pulsing through my body, in waves" (142). Eager to link "kundalini shakti" to other religions, she says "Christians call it the Holy Spirit" (143).
I read that sentence and went, "HUH?" Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit in the Gospel of John as a Counsellor who will "convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment" (John 16:8) and "guide you into all truth" (John 16:13). Nowhere does the Bible characterize the Holy Spirit as a pulsating blue energy field or serpent. To the contrary, the serpent in the Garden of Eden represents evil.
PROBLEM #2
Gilbert has no core sacred text on which to base her beliefs. She seems adverse, even hostile, to the idea. She admits: "I have always responded with breathless excitement to anyone who has ever said that God does not live in a dogmatic scripture" (14). And on page 143: "Every religion in the world has had a subset of devotees who seek a direct, transcendent experience with God, excusing themselves from fundamentalist scriptural or dogmatic study in order to personally encounter the divine." And again, on pg. 176:
"I'm irritated by spiritual prudence and I feel bored and parched by empirical debate. I don't want to hear it anymore. I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances."
The problem with Gilbert's approach is that there is no external check on her imagination.
Gilbert's God morphs from chapter to chapter, based on her emotions. I got confused because half the time it seemed like she believed God was merely a wiser version of herself: "Maybe the voice I am reaching for is God, or maybe it's my Guru speaking through me, or maybe it's the angel who was assigned to my case, or maybe it's my Highest Self, or maybe it is indeed just a construct of my subconscious, invented in order to protect me from my own torment" (53).
I started to feel that _Eat, Pray, Love_ was one long rationalization of Gilbert's selfishness, and that God was there to give her the green light on whatever she decided to do--whether it was leave her marriage or spend "a transcontinental airline ticket's worth of money ... buying enough lingerie to keep a sultan's consort outfitted for 1,0001 nights" (105). Take this conversation with Richard the Texan about her affair with a younger man named David and her divorce. Richard tells her: "David's purpose was to shake you up, drive you out of that marriage that you needed to leave" (149). Wait: David was sent by the Fates on purpose to make Gilbert realize she had to get out of her marriage? Have you ever heard such a whopping excuse for adultery?
17th-century French mathematician Blaise Pascal understood that human beings need a framework beyond their own mood swings to approach God: "Without Scripture, whose only object is to proclaim Christ, we know nothing, and we can see nothing but obscurity and confusion in the nature of God and in nature itself."
Texts like the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount set standards we can't wriggle out of. "Jesus replied, `Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery'" (Matthew 19:8-9). No wonder this "dogmatic" text makes Gilbert uncomfortable: it puts limits on her desires. It prevents her from turning God into whatever she wants him to be.
Gilbert's consumerist approach and lack of systematic theology made me unable to take her seriously. She cobbles together a shaky belief system of New Age mysticism, defending her incoherence: "I think you have every right to cherry-pick when it comes to moving your spirit and finding peace in God. I think you are free to search for any metaphor whatsoever which will take you across the worldly divide whenever you need to be transported or comforted" (208). She doesn't care what's true, merely what makes her feel good--which is ironic given her stated intention in the introduction: "Sincere spiritual investigation is, and always has been, an endeavor of methodical discipline. Looking for Truth is not some kind of spazzy free-for-all ..." (2). If _Eat, Pray, Love_ is not a spazzy free-for-all, what is?
PROBLEM #3
Ultimately, this book has nothing to do with God. It's a self-help book in disguise. Gilbert admits as much in the last chapter. "I was the administrator of my own rescue," she explains as she lands on a paradisiacal island with her Brazilian lover after getting rid of a nasty bladder infection from having too many orgasms. She cheerily dismisses all problems of evil, injustice, and divine retribution: "... there is no such thing in this universe as hell, except maybe in our own terrified minds" (328).
In Gilbert's world, no problems exist that cannot be solved by eating pistachio gelato or reciting mantras like "Om Namah Shivaya" ("I honor the divinity that resides within me"). My friend is an emergency room doctor in California who treated a two-year-old girl with a high fever. It turned out she had gonorrhoea and had been infected by the mother's boyfriend. Would a loving God be indifferent to the child's suffering, or blase about the rapist's behavior?
If you're looking for books where writers wrestle profoundly with faith, read these instead:
(1)_The Brothers Karamazov_ by Fyodor Dostoevsky (translated by Pevear / Volokhonsky)
(2)_Gilead_ by Marilynne Robinson
(3)_Pensees_ by Blaise Pascal
(4)_The Habit of Being_ by Flannery O'Connor
(5)_Disappointment with God_ by Philip Yancey
(6)_The Little Woman_ by Gladys Alyward
(7) _The Lord of the Rings_ by JRR Tolkien
(8)1 & 2 Samuel (the life of King David); Acts (biographies of Peter & Paul)
Waste of Time July 9, 2008
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
This is one of the few books I could not finish. It bored me to tears. I found the author very self-absorb, and irratating. She acts like she is the only person in the world who has every been depressed and experienced heartache. Save your money and time. Read a different book.
 my favorite book July 9, 2008
3 out of 8 found this review helpful
This is my favorite book. It's hilarious and deeply spiritual at the same time. It changed my life. I read it through once, and then I immediately read it a second time. I've never done that before!
 Don't judge a book by its cover... July 8, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I was really excited to hear about this book. The title is catcy and seems to invite readers to what could be an inspirational book about the true meaning of life. I received it from a good friend as a gift and although it was written very well I could not have disagreed more with the author about the "meaning of life". The main character (or author) seems to be very self absorbed and almost possessed by selfish and self-defeating thoughts. Why would you leave a perfectly great marriage because it no longer suited your needs (the author didn't want kids!!!) then have the nerve to write a book about it? I think its great the things the author realizes throughout her journey but in this case the ends does not justify the means.
Here is my advice to the author:
-Notice some people live to eat but many others eat to live...
-If you want to pray please don't do so in the bathroom.
-Love is not just about loving yourself or about your human need for love, love can be about loving someone else so as to sacrifice sometimes. As first lady Nancy Regan said relationships are not always 50/50...sometimes they have to be 100/0.
The only reason I'd suggest reading the book is to find out for yourself on which side of this controversial book you'd be on...
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