Mulberry Jam

A week ago, a friend gave me a copy of Elizabeth Gilbert’s book “Eat, Pray, Love.” I was aware of the book when it came out last year. A book with a focus on food and yogic philosophy? You’d think it would be right up my alley. But I waited to read it and was eventually discouraged by some negative reviews. People seem to either love it or hate it, with few people lukewarm about either Gilbert or her story. The book begins with Gilbert at a very low point, facing a bitter divorce in her early thirties, accompanied by severe depression. After settling the divorce she finds it difficult to re-engage in life, and seems unable to leave the pain of the broken marriage, compounded by an unhappy rebound love affair, behind. To escape from herself and the situation, she uses a book advance to take a full year off, spending four months successively in Italy, India and Indonesia. These are the three sections from which the book takes its title. She describes her travels as a search for God. God is definitely a part of this quest, but it’s also about trying to find a way to become sustainably comfortable in her own skin.

The outset of the book is heavy going, as Gilbert describes crying oceans of tears and spending night after night in misery on a series of bathroom floors. But she won me over completely once she and the book arrived in Italy. She gives herself over to food and the pleasures of daily life, including the beautiful Italian language. Her description of being charmed by the florid profanity and histrionics at a Roman soccer game conveys her affection for Italy, and is itself completely charming. It is an abrupt change to follow her to a yoga ashram in India, living a life of austerity and prayer. Her new regimen includes five hours daily of scrubbing floors, a vegetarian diet, and daily wake-up calls at 3:30AM for prayer. But her search for an experience of God over four months of prayer and meditation is rewarded with a true glimpse of the transcendent. The final stage of her journey, in Bali, is embodied by a voice that’s clearly older and wiser than the desperate woman who began the story.

As with most memoir, the question for the reader is can you sympathize with (or in some cases, stomach) the complaints of the writer. In re-reading the negative reviews, it seems many critics couldn’t relate to her troubles or her goals. Before diving into the book, I had my own concerns about whether it would be my cup of tea. In the past I haven’t been a big fan of the hits of modern memoir. Excerpts I’ve read from books like “Prozac Nation” or “Running with Scissors” have left me cold. I feel little besides impatience with what seems to me to be endless navel gazing, wallowing in sad childhoods and victim psychology. This book, however, sucked me in immediately. Gilbert has an entertaining voice, able to cover her early mid-life crisis with a touch that’s doesn’t minimize her pain, but is light enough that she avoids taking herself altogether seriously. And she’s genuinely working to try to improve herself, to find happiness and to make her life better. Again and again, her wit and irreverence kept the book from being sappy or tiresome. I was happy for the hard-won equanimity she found, and enjoyed sharing the voyage with her.

Thanks, Kim, for giving this one to me!