If a book stirs strong feelings, good or bad, then it has done it’s job.
Some people have negative thoughts after reading this book, and after watching the movie. Me, I always take the parts I like, and discard the parts I don’t like. You might want to do the same.
For those who have no clue, Eat Pray Love chronicles the story of a writer in her 30s who embarked into a journey of self-discovery after leaving a perfectly comfortable marriage. She travels to Italy,India and Bali to escape society’s “expectations” and to forgive herself for being “such a failure” at marriage and parenthood (she did not want to have children). Liz talks about three main subjects – eating, meditating and loving ones self. Hence the title.
After reading the book and watching the movie, I do not feel like
– Leaving my husband nor ending my marriage
– Nor do i feel the need to abandon my children to “find myself”
– Nor do i wish to see India or go to Bali (although I have become curious about Ashrams)
However, what stirred inside me are
– Longings to go to Italy, talk Italian and eat gelato and tiramisu all day
– Be “in the moment”. We are constantly multitasking and lead very busy lives. We forget that it is important to “sit still and smile”
– Be very grateful of family and friends and all I own now
– Discover yoga
– Seriously take up meditation and learn to empty my mind
– Rediscover the “sweetness of doing nothing” (which we all mastered back in high school!)
– Live well and be passionate
– and finally, write write write!
Sidebar: Eat Pray Love was published in 2006 and has been on the New York Times bestseller list for 187 weeks. What i like about the book and Liz is her writing style – amusing, entertaining, accessible and honest. You are not reading a Tolstoy nor an Austen, it’s just Liz.
If you are a fan, watch her here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9B9zFo4RFw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86x-u-tz0MA
Read about her here:
http://www.mamamia.com.au/weblog/2010/10/bookclub-eat-pray-love-love-it-or-hate-it.html
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