First, my aunt mentioned this book, Eat Pray Love, to me, said it was inspiring and gripping, said she couldn't put it down. A series of other clichés to say that it had changed her life, or at least provided for good reading on the couch on a Sunday. I love my aunt, but I didn't quite trust her judgement on this one enough to read it. Then, I saw a writer in Houston from the Creative Writing program reading the book in the what-seems-to-be the new center of literary hangout hipness in town - Antidote Coffee on Studemont - where it seemed half "the Program" now lives, writes and commerces in trade secrets. So this writer was reading Elizabeth Gilbert on the plant-decorated patio, gravel underfoot, next to a professor in "the Program." She said to the professor that the book was a respite, a place to rest, relax and renew. Also said that initially she was not interested in the book because it was the typical white women goes to Third World countries and then writes a book about them. But then, she was sucked in and ended up loving it, being changed by it, finding herself in it. Sorry to get all Oprah, but you get the picture.After hearing this second person go on about it, I borrowed my aunt's copy. Well, here's my report: it made me think of something I heard the distinguished essayist Eliot Weinberger say a few weeks ago at a translator's conference. To paraphrase: "I read international literature, because contemporary U.S. literature all too often has become the story of a man or woman sitting next to the pool, deeply upset and heartbroken because of a recent divorce." For me, Eat Pray Love is exactly this. American woman of a certain class and privilege survives difficult divorce, receives six figure book advance to travel to the three I's (Italy, India, Indonesia), finds her own navel repeatedly in other countries, and comes back to sell the tale (and sell the tale after that one). Her story inspires millions.
Now I am certainly not against international travel or searching for yourself or getting a divorce or being inspired or any of this. But the book (like so much popular contemp lit) seems chock full of unexamined privilege, a frightfully isolated and narrow worldview, and a naiveté that is depressing. The book makes me what to read a kind of anti-Eat Pray Love with writing in translation by people in Italy, India and Indonesia. Now that book I would buy (Come on Open Letter! Come on Words without Borders!).