By now most of you must have either read the book or seen the movie. The Wikipedia describes the book as 'one woman's search for everything across Italy, Indonesia and India'. I beg to differ.
Elizabeth Gilbert, a recently divorced woman, unable to cope with life for reasons untold, finds herself weeping uncontrollably on her bathroom floor. In what seems to be an epiphany, she decides she needs to go to Italy to speak Italian, a language she loves. And then she decides she needs to meet up with her spiritual guru in India.If that was not enough, she also remembers a wizend old medicine man in Bali and his hot prediction of her return, which somehow seems very significant.Unable to decide between the three options, she travels to all three destinations, seeking whatever it was she was she wanted to find, presumably an answer to her prayers.
In Italy she finds herself eating everything she could get her hands on. One would suppose that is all there is to do in the land of Da Vinci, Gallileo and Pinocchio. She ditches her Italian classes in favour of the 'real thing' - chatting with people in restaurants and cafes while expanding her gastronomical prowess.
In India she checks into an Ashram whose identity remains undisclosed. Her quest for spirituality is interspersed with dreams, visions and a lot of frustration. She eventually seems to graduate into a state of contented sanity, which speaks volumes about the benefits of scrubbing the floor. Believing that she has found the God of her dreams she moves on to Bali looking for the medicine man.
He has no idea who she is or what on earth she is talking about when Elizabeth finally finds her man. Well ofcourse he has to keep his business going. Many tiresome pages later she finally finds what she has been looking for all along - a lover.
The book left me indifferent, unimpressed and a bit bored. Like vapid pasta.
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