Rainer Maria Rilke

"Live a while in these books, learn from them what seems to you worth learning, but above all love them. This love will be repaid you a thousand and a thousand times, and however your life may turn,-it will, I am certain of it, run through the fabric of your growth as one of the most important threads among all the threads of your experiences, disappointments, and joys."--Rainer Maia Rilke


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Monday, September 24, 2012

I'm Not Loving It

Eat, Pray, Love:  One Woman's Search for Everything in Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert

Memoir

The book is divided equally into thirds:  1/3 is eating in Italy; 1/3 is praying in India; 1/3 is loving in Indonesia.  The first third was my favorite by far! I love the kinds of books that involve travel and are also a recipe-logue.  I delude myself that I might walk in these same footsteps and have the same culinary adventures.  I take notes about the foods to eat and the best places to visit.  Oh, to live vicariously through another!

And, then I stopped living vicariously.  The second third of the book was an absolute drudge.  I do consider myself a spiritual person and I do believe in the power of meditation but way too much time was spent on this and, as a reader, I didn't get anything out of it.

The last third of the book was an improvement.  Although it is only in the last third that the author mention 'love', this is really the underlying theme of the whole story.  The entire book was the author's journey through a bad divorce and debilitating rebound romance so finding that love awaited her at the end was a nice closure.

It's really hard to picture this as a movie and really, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.  I did like it overall, but I'm not getting the build-up and hype.

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