Book Review: ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ may be all students need
“Eat, Pray, Love”, three basic things that Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of the novel with same title, tells us we need to be happy.
An autobiographic novel, the book is set in Italy, India and Indonesia. The three places that Gilbert visits to heal, find God and eat delicious food after a messy divorce leaves her searching for everything in life, namely a balance between worldly pleasure and spiritual devotion.
Along with learning to heal spiritually and physically, Gilbert also meets a variety of people along the way all who help her find herself, from the Italian man who she practices Italian and English with in Rome to the Texan she meets at the Ashram she studies meditation at in India and the California surfer slang-talking Indonesian man she becomes best friends with.
Gilbert’s writing reads more like a good conversation spoken by a close friend than a novel.
Her prose are enlightening, witty and humorous no matter what the topic. Her ability to capture one’s mind into her whirl wind of travel, food, and worldly and spiritual balance makes the book nearly impossible to put down until one has discovered all Gilbert has learned through meeting people, studying yoga and meditation and eating some of the world’s best food.
It’s not only Gilbert’s ability to tell all the details of her experiences that make this book great but her ability to paint the scenery and culture she is in and living at the moment so the reader can better understand her surroundings and experience everything she has, even if only on a secondary level.
There is nothing one can’t gain from reading “Eat, Pray, Love” even if it’s just a keener love of gilato, all of Gilbert’s experiences are ones that can be learnt from.
–ch.jensen@aggiemail.usu.edu