I never read Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, mostly because I could tell from the back cover description that it wasn’t going to be something I would enjoy. I did watch the movie though, and it confirmed my worst suspicions: that the source material was problematic, and the movie version didn’t make it any better. To be fair, most people thought the movie didn’t do the book justice, and to be fair, many believe that the real Gilbert is more sympathetic than the Julia Roberts-version. Near the end of Gilbert’s journey in the book and film, she meets Felipe, played by Javier Bardem in the film, and they fall in love. In real life, Felipe was based on Jose Nunes, a man Gilbert met and fell in love with on her journey. Jose and Gilbert married in 2007. And now they’re over. She announced her split on her Facebook:
Dear Ones –
Because I have shared details of my private life with you all so intimately over the years, I feel the need to share with you this recent change in my personal life.
I am separating from the man whom many of you know as “Felipe” — the man whom I fell in love with at the end of the EAT PRAY LOVE journey. He has been my dear companion for over 12 years, and they have been wonderful years. Our split is very amicable. Our reasons are very personal.
At this time of transition, I hope you will respect our privacy. In my heart, I know that you will do so, because I trust that you understand how this is a story that I am living — not a story that I am telling.
I thank you for your love, and for your kindness, and for your continued blessings. Hold us in your thoughts. And I hope you will understand and forgive me if I am a bit absent from social media during this sensitive moment.
Yeah, I’m still not regretting my decision to skip the book! “In my heart, I know that you will do so, because I trust that you understand how this is a story that I am living — not a story that I am telling.” This is how she writes? Yikes. While it’s almost always sad to hear that a couple is splitting up, I do wonder if Gilbert will find some way to write a follow-up book on her latest post-divorce journey. Maybe: Divorce, Drink, Bang. No, of course not! That would be off-brand. It seemed like Gilbert’s whole deal was “upper-middle class white woman discovers colonial tourism,” and I suspect this new post-divorce journey will be the same. Where will she go this time? France (for the food), then Kenya, then maybe Cambodia. She’s probably pitching the book as we speak!
Photos courtesy of WENN.
EPL is one of my least favorite books of all time…I read, then skimmed it, while I was living in Ubud (the town she stayed in in Bali). It was just so fanciful…for example, the last scene of the book has her on a sailing boat going to the gili islands with her new lover. They way she wrote it was very romantisized, and you’d think they were the only passengers on the boat. I’ve done that boat trip, and it’s full of twenty-something backpackers heading to party on one of the islands! This is just one example of the over-romantisization of the book…maybe in real life she’s a lovely person, but the book was so self-indulgent.
Yeah, never read the book but I took the trip to Gili – there are actually three Gili islands – and for mere 50$ you can take a private boat, just the two romantic you. The one with the 20 somethings goes to the party Gili and it costs like 5 bucks. All I’m saying, she most likely is not lying.
I read Eat Pray Love because I wanted to hear about the food in the Eat part. Lol I could have skipped the rest. I found the writer to be so obnoxious. She got married to this nice guy, and then decided she felt bored and trapped. He had done nothing wrong, but she was just not into it anymore. So she spends an entire chapter on how horrible this makes HER feel, then she tells him and is pouty and resentful when he’s hurt and angry. She decides to do the eat pray love thing for a year and that she will not be involved with a man for this entire time. Sounds reasonable, but she finds herself so incredibly beautiful that she just knows this will be practically impossible because, you know, she’s her. Then, she meets a guy she likes and she bags her whole plan. I just could not stand her.
ha! Great withering synopsis. It felt like a long magazine article to me, as slickly packaged as the spice girls and more like fast food than a solid meal of a novel/memoir. And yet i had sympathy for her because she’s so earnest and try hard and seemingly well meaning. She’s definitely not highbrow or intellectual, but I’d thought her fanciful phrasing and glossing over of the difficult parts of her life were trying to convince herself as much as the rest of us. I’m reconsidering.
Well… so many people feel this way and stay in their marriage. I don’t think its fair to either party to stay just so you don’t hurt them, and just to settle.
Sometimes you fall out of love, or sometimes you love and are still not happy. Are we suppose to go on and stay with someone we love and still be unhappy? I don’t know the real answer but its complicated and tough. I think its better she left than stay and bang a million men or shop her depression away…
I really don’t understand the hate towards this author. I enjoyed her book and thought it brave to travel alone for so long. Would I do it? No but I sure wish I could or had the guts and not everyone does and thats ok too.
Of course I don’t think you should stay or settle, and I never said I did. I do think that a less self-absorbed, selfish person would have been more concerned about the feelings of the person they were leaving than they were about themselves. And I think a more mature, balanced person would have understood that your news of “sorry, I’m out of here” wouldn’t be greeted with a cheery “happy trails!” She resented the fact that he got nasty and angry with her. Of course he did. Any normal person would go through a period of hurt and anger if that happened to them. But she was all whiny “he’s being mean to me, he’s MAD at me!”
As I said below, I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to feel about her. Everyone brings their own story into a book and takes away something of their own. For example, I travel by myself all the time, so that’s no big deal to me, while you see it as something admirable and courageous. There’s no right or wrong to that and I can see your point, while to me, she flaked out on her promise to take a year away from relationships, so I felt she was insincere because commitment is important to me.
So you go right ahead and like her and I’ll think she’s a weenie but we can still be friends, I hope.
GNAT, I could not get past that part of the book, for the same reasons. She seemed like such a narcissist, when you’d think she’d have been guilt-ridden for blowing up this (seemingly) nice guy’s life. It’s fine to realize you have a deep conflict about lifestyle choices, and need to separate, but she seemed so callous toward him.
@GNAT, tracking
That’s what threw me too! I remember that part very well, because once she started traveling, I started skimming. But she and her ex had a plan–that they’d save money, buy a house in the country and then when she turned x age, they’d start having kids and she’d be a stay at home mom. She realized she didn’t want that, as it got closer and closer. She wanted out. Fine. Cool. I’m happy for anyone who realizes that they don’t want kids and don’t have kids that they’ll resent. That part I’m glad about.
But after?? All of her interactions were how SHE felt…..and not guilty about basically springing this on him (my impression was that she had been feeling that way for years, and then just snapped)……and being mad that he wasn’t all unicorns and rainbows. So insensitive.
Sounds a horrid as the Celestine Prophecy..had to toss that one on the third chapter
@Jillybean OMG I just googled this and spent 10 minutes reading various excerpts, and the only thing I could muster was a quiet, resigned “nooooooo…”
Gosh, the people that have pressed celestine prophecy on me. So glad find someone who didn’t take to it.
Can’t, shan’t, won’t read it!!
Having read both The Celestine Prophecy is much, much worse.
OMG me too! Even though so many people were raving about it, the writing was so appalling I couldn’t get past the 3rd chapter either @Jillybean.
Could not agree with you more, GNAT. I positively HATED that book. It was hundreds of pages of a self-indulgent woman whining about the terrible life that she made for herself. She annoyed the heck out of me. Plus the writing was not great, either.
GNAT, a hug of support, as I think your synopsis is perfect.
EPL. Ego, Predicatable, Loot ……as we call it.
My various friends and i were put off by the scene you mention, barely could skim the rest. We sometimes tweet made-up lines from the books just to make each other laugh while we’re off on intense exhausting projects with massive berks. Ie, Tell them you’re bored and running away to eat and use people now because “———————-*”.
*”A true soul mate is a mirror, but hopefully one from a good shop because old antique mirrors can add pounds and you just ate your way across a nation before jet hopping to use poor people as your project muses.”
* “I am stronger than Depression, and braver than Loneliness, but f–k Harvey Nicks for not having that boot in my size, so I am out of here.”
*”So BE lonely, Tiffany-Paloma! Learn your little way around loneliness! Make a map, sit with it, pat it into a little ball and roll it into a SoullessCycle class to distract the riders from the insecurity-based meaningless narcissism of their loud quest!”
We used to do this with lines from Nancy Drew or the Mapp and Lucia books. The way guys quote the Godfather to each other.
Liberty, that made me laugh so hard I could barely see it to read it. I had forgotten so much of the dreck. 😂😂😂😂
GNAT: 🙂 Sometimes i think a friend made it up then she’ll send me a screen ecap of the passage on a page. Yow!
That stuff is really from the book?! So glad I didn’t read it.
“Leave the gun, take the cannoli.” Sorry, I remember nothing from EPL–prefer your made-up quotes, anyway!
Wait, what? Those were REAL???!!!!!
Ahh someone else who knows Mapp and Lucia! Obsessed with them.
OMG – THIS! Thank you for capturing so well what I loathed about that book!
@GNAT
read all your comments on here, and couldn’t agree more (I didn’t actually read the book, but got dragged to the movie with girlfriends and then had to nod and pretend I liked it because everyone else was fawning over and and I was already deemed a “snob”, so didn’t want to make things worse).
I almost wish we could meet up (I’m in MD, too), you sound like my kind of person. 🙂
She looks like Martha Stewart in the blue jacket. The first photo in the dress is remarkably bad lighting for a portrait.
Never read the book. The movie starred Julia Roberts…another reason I wasn’t interested in the story.
The movie was awful.
Tried to, and then it was exactly as unbearably cringey as I’d expected.
Same. Never read it and really would never see it because of JR.
They should have gotten someone like Diane Lane..although that would be similar to Under the Tuscan Sun.
It’s amazing how well Under the Tuscan Sun holds up. Aspiration with realism, adventure with relatable concerns. Beautiful cinematic storytelling. (Some of the subplots felt a little corny and forced, but I forgive it.)
Aw, crap you guys. I’ve read EPL multiple times. I love Lizzie G. Yes, there’s quite a bit of navel gazing. But when I first read it, the section where she describes kneeling on the bathroom floor, sobbing from a depression that she didn’t understand was 100% me at that point in my life and it just ticked all the right boxes. I will always have a soft spot for her and her writing.
The movie, however, should be destroyed in a cleansing fire. Except for Javier. He can stay.
Yes I have felt that depression as well and sometimes when you try to explain why you are depressed or what made you more depressed you sound like an asshole and no one gets it.
If you are truly depressed, clinically depressed, not just “the blues,” there is no “reason.” Your life can be perfect and you can still be unable to face the day. It isn’t circumstances that cause depression, it’s a chemical imbalance in your brain. That’s why you can’t explain real depression.
I get it. As GNAT said, that is clinical depression. It is the same with clinical anxiety disorder. You can’t explain why you are anxious or fearful, or the room you are in seems ‘wrong’ in a nightmarish sort of way. It just does.
Each person gets something different from a book, which is something I love about reading. You see her a sympathetic because you saw her crying as a symptom of depression. I didn’t see it that way. I have struggled with depression my entire adult life, and I didn’t think she was depressed in the clinical sense. She was crying because she felt terrible that she was going to look bad for leaving her perfectly nice, loving husband for no reason, that she was the bad guy, that she couldn’t think of any justification for leaving except that she was bored. I didn’t see anything in her feelings of remorse that she was going to tear his life apart for no reason except for how it affected her and what people thought about her. I found her to be so self-absorbed and selfish. But who knows – maybe I bring something to that story that makes me look at it that way, while you bring something else that shows you a different side. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong.
I just have to say HONKS for reading! Books are the absolute best!
I think we see what we want or need to see, and it isn’t the same for everyone or even the same on multiple readings.
I’ve listened to her podcast, and not only is that how she writes (““In my heart, I know that you will do so, because I trust that you understand how this is a story that I am living — not a story that I am telling”) — she actually says this type of sh*t out loud! She had some good advice in the podcast, but the was she presents it drives me nuts — if you’ve ever seen the show “Enlightened” on HBO, she sounds like the character Amy (amazing Laura Dern), in her voice and in the way she says ‘enlightened’ garbage from time to time.
I HATED Eat Pray Love. It was like an instruction manual on how to be completely self absorbed and obnoxious.
I wish we could get two glasses of a nice wine and sit on a comfy sofa and talk about her flaws. Lol what is wrong with me that she rubbed me so badly?
Could we make that 3 glasses? Sounds fabulous!
Absolutely! 🍷🍷🍷
This is what I love about talking about books. We respond in such different ways, and it says so much about US. That’s where it gets good. It can be a crap book, but the talks could be so freaking amazing. There should be a celebitchy book club.
Not just you Gnat. I couldn’t get through it. I just wanted to slap the taste out of her mouth for all of the self indulgent whining. And I totally agree with the other comment about how “precious” she is.
It’s good to hear other people here felt the same way about EPL and Liz G. At the time when I read it, I couldn’t quite pinpoint what bothered me about it and her (um…everything you’ve all said here!)
For me, the book itself was like Under The Tuscan Sun, a bit pretentious. So I got through EPL by reading it as more of a travelogue (and who wouldn’t want an advance to travel to 3 countries and indulge? *Rough life*…)
As for Liz, I think she comes across a bit GOOPy sometimes, and this is what makes her hard to take. And when I heard the premise (never read it) for her book after EPL about marriage, sorry to say I knew this one wouldn’t last either.
Yes! I also can’t work out quite why I absolutely hated the book…it was just so extraordinarily self-indulgent. It was as though she was the centre of the universe and every situation or person existed just to provide her with some “aha” moment of self-realisation.
It does seem to resonate strongly with divorced women and women who don’t travel much but would love to. I’m neither of those, so maybe that’s why I just didn’t click with it.
She seems to find everything about herself to be precious.
Yessss. Like when she was (I think) about 35 and she met that guy who was (I think) about 44 and she was all fluttery and giggly about whether she (young, beautiful and precious) could ever, ever date a man that was 44 (old, withered and nearing death). Her own mother finally told her to can it, the guy’s only nine years older than you and how did I ever raise such a twit? (ok I made the twit part up, but not the rest.)
She was 35, he was 52 when they met.
Don’t ask me why I remember that. Oh well, I tend to remember everything. I remember the crudest details about celebrity break-up from ten years ago which nobody cares about, for example. One day that memory of mine is going to make me rich, just so you wait…
I didn’t read it because it didn’t sound like the sort of book I would enjoy. Love is so often a choice, not an emotion, and it doesn’t sound like this author gets that. Many times I am with my husband because I really really want to be, not because I feel this overwhelming romantic love for him 24/7. This author would rather go wander the earth leaving her poor husband behind and start banging someone she meets only to then abandon him as well once the romantic love part fades. Shallow. Very shallow, IMO.
Yes this! Love is a choice we make daily. Romantic love does not live through the daily grind.
I found out recently that her uncle was my absolute favorite teacher in high school. He was very kooky and brilliant and always encouraged my creative writing, so it tickled me to find out that his niece ended up being a famous writer. Which has about nothing to do with this topic; I just felt like sharing.
Genuinely curious – how does one travel without being labeled colonial tourist? Is it not better to immerse yourself in the local culture? Do we not take vacations to get away from the humdrum and relax/find peace?
The problem is that it was all me me me.
I don’t understand how someone can go somewhere like India, and talk only about the guru/spiritual guy who tells you that you’re going to meet someone hot and live happily ever after–which is what I remember from her trip to India, her descriptions.
Her going to a place with rampant poverty should’ve at least had her take a second and realize that she was luckier than most. That didn’t come through at all.
And I never understood the point of “finding herself”. She didn’t want to have kids w/her husband and quit her job–like they planned. Fair enough. So when you end your marriage, take a break, and maybe don’t date for a while until you are settled in your choice (which was mind blowing for her)….and then get back out there. Why this has to be a huge undertaking (to justify a perfectly valid choice), I don’t know.
And none of what she was trying to do (find herself) came through in the book, imo.
Right, she mainly came across as self-absorbed and a bit vapid.
Hated that book with a passion. She came off as small minded, entitled and bratty. Here’s to book # 2!
Well, I really liked EPL and my life is about as far from hers as possible. A bit clunky, sagged in the middle, and highly romanticized, but I still enjoyed it. I think Gilbert, as she portrays herself in her book, is more self-deprecating than all of this gleeful hatred suggests. (As objects of hatred go, she’s fairly benign.) I would have appreciated more astringency in her prose, but I still enjoyed the book. So it goes.
Her next book should be about a year-long journey of self discovery through psychotherapy. No amount of food, traveling, men or marriages will fix the fact that she is unbalanced.
I lost interest in her book when I found out that she got an advance in the area of $200,000 to travel and write the book; she’d submitted a proposal beforehand. So she had plenty of $$$ to travel with and wasn’t really on a journey of self-discovery, she was on a journey to try to make more money and justify her advance.
Oh, no kidding. Thanks for this. It’s like the HGTV shows where they’ve already bought the house but pretend they’re looking.
Yes! Speaking of those shows, I now can speak w 100 percent certainty they are completely scripted and fake. A friend of mine has recently done a show about a home Reno and it was built on a throne of lies!
Sorry, Elf reference. Couldn’t resist.
Well she’s lucky she had world travel to take her mind off of leaving her husband. Fine to split if you’re not satisfied but most of us have to work for a living so we can’t just go on a big trip. I know it was for her book and she’s a writer but that is a luxury most of us don’t have. I guess that’s why I couldn’t relate. If there’s no real reason for leaving except that you’re unhappy, be prepared for the other person to be very hurt – you’re ending a marriage. To me that would not be the time to travel the world in an attempt to find myself, I would feel the need to stay at the scene of the crime and assess the damage I had done. That’s just me.
I have a young friend, a sometimes successful PhD in English professional woman whom I mentored over the course of about four years — who fashions herself as a writer — who loved EPL SO MUCH, she read it over and over, waxed on and on about how she adored the language, the writing voice. Even her emoting about the book irritated me.
Like GNAT, I have a thing about commitment and ownership about the consequences of the choices we make in life. There was nothing about the book or the movie (sorry, Javier, even for you I couldn’t watch it) that would make me read/watch. Not one thing. And now Gilbert has made another decision that surprises me not at all.
I want to understand the hatred for this person. I get the points about self-absorption, privilege, and romanticization, but those weren’t enough to make me hate the book or her. I just noted them and moved on, enjoying the better parts of the book. I guess the point is that other people found those traits to be so bad that it ruined anything else the book may have offered? Is that accurate?
I tend to agree with you Loulou. she’s definitely self absorbed and privileged but I think that if she were a man no one would actually care about the self absorption.
agree with you two. and I don’t actually understand why we should hate a woman for being privileged or concentrated on herself. she was into introspection, doubting her life choices, felt her marriage was wrong for her and had an opportunity to explore her feelings on that great journey. then she wrote a book about her life and that’s it. I disliked both the movie and the book and still think she’s okay. I’ve watched her interviews and she is quite intelligent. she has some really insightful advice in certain topics. she’s as flawed as the next person. I have no idea why people chose her as victim of their negative emotions and frustrations. she’s honest about her being independent, unapologatic,, about living the way she wants and living for herself and not a man or a child. I like her for that.
I didn’t even find her self-absorbed, or not to a narcissistic degree. She went on a declared journey of self-discovery, and she writes about said self-discovery. If anything, I found that through her process, she also discovered compassion, and meaning, and she also learned to not take herself so seriously. I really enjoyed her self-depricating sense of humour.
I find it fascinating how strongly people respond to “Eat, Pray, Love” and the person of Liz Gilbert. I for one, refused to touch the book for YEARS, because it was so hyped, and I found that off-putting. Then I did read it, and while I didn’t find it life-changing, I enjoyed it.
“Big Magic” on the other hand, really spoke to me.
The film version of “Eat, Pray, Love” is an atrocity, in my mind. The way I see it, they completely left out the self-depricating element, and yes, they turned the character of Liz into a damn self-aborbed, narcissistic drama queen, who in the end is no further along in her human development than she was at the beginning of the story.
So that kind of negates her second book, which was her whining about how she didn’t want to get married again, but did.
There is SO a divorce book coming.
I don’t get all the hatred for this author. I adored this book and felt the way she did about her husband in several failed relationships in the past. I loved how she explored and found herself through traveling. I am sad her relationship did not work out, but guess what, most people’s don’t! I know several people who settled who now are divorcing.
If you want to read an Elizabeth Gilbert novel, read ‘Stern Men’. It’s actually very funny and entertaining.
What always confused me about the EPL thing is that I KNOW Gilbert is actually an excellent writer. Her journalism and non-fiction from the 90s and early 00s is great—how did she become so intensely annoying and alienating to so many readers once she began writing about herself? Maybe I just answered my own question! I would still like to read her latest novel, The Signature of All Things…but I agree that EPL is pretty much the worst.
The Signature of All things is beautifully written and researched. Well worth reading, would not recognise it as same author as Eat, Pray, Love. I believe she should be more well known for this novel and another Stern Men, much more accurate reflection of her as a writer,
I loved Signature of All Things. It is beautifully written.
I really loved Signature of All Things. You could feel her research but it didn’t overpower the story or characters. Felt it was a tad too long, but that’s a quibble. Alma has stayed with me ever since I finished it.
Kaiser, I say give “Eat Pray Love” a fair chance and read a chapter or two. I could even lend you mine. The thing with Gilbert is that she is a genuinely good writer and has won various awards in the field. Not “Romance of the Year” but “Snobby critics’ sweetheart” award. So please, give it a chance and then (maybe) toss is aside 🙂
Never read the book either, and all I remember from the movie is the food scenes, which I must say, were pretty amazing 🙂 anyways, sad that she’s separating.
Never read the book, but how about Eat, Pray, Leave as a sequel?
I was thinking Eat Pray Love Run….
I couldn’t get past the first couple of chapters of the book. All that whining! I don’t know what prompted me to go see the movie but I did and I loved it. Maybe because I lived abroad for a few years and I look on those years as a great adventure with all its ups and downs. Maybe because I’m a sucker for a love story and a story of exploration in foreign locales. Whatever it was, I did love the film.
She’s an articulate and expressive writer and has a slightly wacky and self-deprecating sense of humour that comes through but dear God she’s got her head so far up her own arse it’s a wonder she can see. Please Elizabeth…don’t write some blubbering, maudlin screed about the break-up of your wonderful marriage!
When I was in high school, Elizabeth Gilbert visited my English class. She was friends with the teacher. This was back in 2000. She was nice. I haven’t read Eat, Pray, Love — no desire to — but I have her book of short stories somewhere, and the stories were really good. I thought it was nice of her to visit.
I think Eat, Pray, Love was hyped up in the media due to the movie and is not an accurate reflection of Elizabeth’s writing abilities in The Signature of All Things and Stern Men, which I found far more enjoyable. I think many writers fail to measure up when writing about deeply personal experiences, an autobiography probably one of the hardest things to write for a novelist.
I feel like EPL came out at the cultural saturation point of Oprah esque “find yourself, love yourself, stare at your navel” pop psychology and that is what pushed it both over the edge popularity wise and hatred wise. Hiring the very divisive Julia Roberts to star in the movie probably didn’t help.
Just as Oprah and her self help stuff have faded from the zeitgeist, I think this type of book has too. Seems kind of frivolous and self indulgent now in these troubled, turbulent times doesn’t it?
Wow, this story and thread are mean. Everyone has a right to their own opinions and tastes, but this woman was simply writing about her life, from her perspective.
God forbid anyone here writes about their lives and struggles, and see what the rest of the world has to say about your privileges.
In fairness to Gilbert, some comments here contains really inaccurate details of the book. Like flat out wrong. Also, the book pretty clearly states that she’s on a journey of self-discovery, so I think that’s an indication to readers that it’s going to be a pretty introspective read. Nevertheless, I do really appreciate hearing the other points of view because it makes me think about things I hadn’t considered before.
Strangely, while I hate Eat, love, pray, I think her book on writing (Big magic) is fantastic. Also: The signature of all things is the complete opposite of ELP. Well researched, flawed main character etc etc.
ELP felt inauthentic (she probebly just wrote it to earn money while traveling after her divorce.) The book doesn’t mention it, but she got the book deal before she went abroad. She sold a book about her travelling before she travelled. Apparently she felt really sure that amazing things would happen to her.
Well, I can only be jealous that she’s so confident.
I was going through a divorce at the time, an ugly, bitter divorce, and I found EPL completely cathartic. I couldn’t take the time off for the self-discovery experience I desperately needed and it was useful to live vicariously through her. She has a gift for describing the pain of a break-up (even one you initiate). I’m sad for her that it didn’t work out with her Felipe, but if she writes about that experience, I will read it, because she writes from the heart.