Our meeting was held this time in Goes where we discussed Eat, Pray, Love, by the journalist Elizabeth Gilbert.
The meeting was enthusiastically attended and the book inspired a lively discussion.
It is an autobiographical account of a thirty- something American woman who decides, after a traumatic divorce (who ever had an easy one?) to leave America and live in three different countries for a year.
Because she is a writer, she is able to do this whilst being paid.
The countries she visits, in sequence, are Italy, India and Indonesia, the Eat, Pray, Love of the title. Her Italian journey was motivated by love of the Italian language and her desire to speak better Italian, the visit to India to live in an ashram inspired by her need to explore her spiritual side, and her Bali trip was in a way a fulfillment of a prophecy made by a holy man whom she had met on a previous trip.
It appeared to us that she became a different person in each of the countries she visited.
We agreed that the book was easy to read, the way the book is structured it is similar to reading a series of articles or diary entries with short chapters. It would make a good holiday read and is generally enjoyable and uplifting although we were all at some point slightly irritated by Ms. Gilbert - and there is an awful lot of her in there.
We all had different editions and it was interesting to see how the book jacket quotes changed. One of the quotes which popped up several times was that it is a book every woman should read. This is a very lazy selling tactic, patently untrue of any book, and probably counterproductive so please, publishers, desist.
As usual the discussion was led by a series of questions:
“Was anyone put off by the title?”
Not enough to prevent us from reading the book.
“Do you think that you have to be spiritually and religiously aware to read the book?”
No, the book explores both but it isn’t earnest.
“Should every woman read it?”
We didn’t feel that it was important enough to be read by every woman, it’s an anecdotal travel book topped off with a love story.
“Did she like herself afterwards?”
Yes, we thought she was much happier at the end of the book.
We awarded this book 3/5
If you have read the book and would like to express your opinions on any of the above points, or any other aspect of the book, please post your comments below.
We’d love to hear from you.
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