strong reactions

I was FINALLY able to start reading "Eat, Pray, Love" which Mere has been telling me to read for about a year now. I'm exactly 44 pages in so far and it's almost overwhelming (in a good way) all that I think I will be able to take from Elizabeth Gilbert's insights. For those who don't know, I underline passages I want to go back and add to my quote book later on. Suffice to say that I think I have more text underlined than not so far...

In any case, after my first 30 pages yesterday, I read reviews of the book on Amazon and was taken aback by the incredibly strong reactions - people either swear by the text or want to burn Gilbert at the stake for daring to write a memoir about **gasp** herself. Many were disgusted by the fact that she signed the book deal for "Eat, Pray, Love" before she even went on her Italy-India-Indonesia journey. So freakin what? She comes clean and admits to this from almost the very beginning and I say more power to her!

Gilbert has a humorously human and accessible style. She was able to take the depressed walking-disaster that she was at the time and turn her experience into something that can, and does help (and even entertains) others. Speaking from experience, when the shit hits the fan, you struggle to wake up, GET UP, eat, breathe, and go back to bed at night. You can't even take one day at a time - more like one nanosecond at a time. I can only admire that she could have the foresight and ability to find a way to heal and grow and support herself all in one fell swoop (granted a year of traveling and soul-searching does not really count as "one fell swoop").

There also seems to be a group of reviewers angry that Gilbert talks about herself and thinks about herself - they throw around "selfish" so much that it's more or less lost its powerful connotations. I pose a challenge to each of those reviewers: write your memoir and see if you can avoid thinking and referring to yourself, your thoughts, your feelings, your experiences.

Whew! Glad that's done so I can get back to my book...