Culture Blues

Time I Go Into Hiding: Eat, Pray, Love Hits Theaters Soon

I knew this day would come. Ever since I heard of the storyline of Eat, Pray, Love, I knew it would be the book that middle-age women everywhere would want to shove up their vaginas, and that a montage-heavy Hollywood movie would ensue. I prepared to brace myself for the misery of having to be exposed to EPL previews and posters of Big Lips eating spaghetti all over Rome and pleasuring herself with prayer beads.

You haven't truly experienced life until you've taken a semi-permanent vacation in exotic locales paid for by alimony.

The time is now -- I was trying to catch some quality episodes of Parental Control when I was ambushed by a trailer featuring an old, sage Asian man reading Julia Robert's palm, telling her she will have many life experiences. I had to turn it off. While I have never read Eat, Pray, Love, I am positive it is the biggest waste of page known to man and an insult to me as a woman. As someone who loves to read and write, it has been plaguing my dreams since it was published in 2006, and the movie will be even worse.

By now I have spent more time reading reviews, listening to podcasts, and bitching about Elizabeth Gilbert's "I-Am-Awesome" manifesto than it would actually take to read the book. I even own a copy -- at work, I was dared to read 1/3 of it, but I couldn't follow through. I now use it as a door stop when I forget to bring my key to the office bathroom.

First of all, a bit about the plot. Elizabeth Gilbert is a writer and divorcee (I think -- until I read the book, I won't claim any of this is accurate) who hatches a plan to write a book about a spiritual/geographical journey, in which she learns to stop wallowing in self-pity in a ball on her bathroom floor and heals her broken marriage wounds (completely forgetting that real people don't have time to sob in the fetal position or the money or fortune to take off on a paid-in-full vacay). She plans her trip for Italy, India and Indonesia, and is sharp enough to note that they are all places that start with "I" -- something Gilbert is obsessed with.

I could get really nitpicky and point out hundreds of examples displaying how self-righteous and unaware Gilbert is, how sickening her obsession with male attention is, how idiotic and smarmy her anecdotes are, but that would take hours. There are a few overarching problems, however, that stank so bad I couldn't breathe.

Remember, poor people can only make you sad if you notice them.

First of all, Gilbert is traveling in some of the poorest places on the planet, and, showing a total lack of self awareness, relentlessly focuses on herself and her own situation, all the while demonstrating gross appropriation of cultures she's leeching off for her own financial, egotistical gains. Her privilege is the big elephant in the room. But one of those big, pretty Indian elephants -- surely there's a montage scene in that, no? I can see it now -- Roberts wearing one of those Indian head dresses. What is that?! I don't even know!

The most irksome part about this book is that surely GilFART (sorry, I'm too immature) wrote this book before she even got off her stupid divorced ass. The premise is too cutesy -- she goes to three places with three distinct goals in mind, that all perfectly feed into her dream of Livin' La Vida Loca. I keep joking about the montages, but reading excerpts of the book (and hearing them in podcasts) makes me think her travels were one extended montage. It's like she was in a Broadway musical or a Lifetime movie or something, where everything is calculated and the characters are flat and predictably burst into choreographed song and dance. Maybe the book wouldn’t have sucked so much if she had written it before she left, and just made everything up.

I think she actually did make stuff up. Two direct quotes from pretentious reviewers on a Slate podcast were "I loved her time in Italy because I spent a chunk of time in Rome" and "I totally related to her studying Italian because I did too." That's exactly the kind of nonsense that makes Eat, Pray, Love fly like a mud-slung cake of dog poo. First of all, your shared experience of being in the same city is not enough to make it relatable, particularly if the author's experiences are not authentic. I'm going to join the bullshit wagon and declare that I, too, spent a major chunk of time in Rome. I lived there for 4 months and went to the same language school as Gilbert. But instead of making her anecdotes relatable, our shared experience exposes her inaccuracies. Dropping out of the classroom setting a school offers and taking to the streets for first hand lessons is not a bad idea, but it is not how you learn Italian, as Gilbert suggests. All Romans speak English and they love to practice, so even if you speak fluent Italian, they will reply to you in English if they sense that English is your native language. They don't care about being your Italian instructors; they want to show off what they know and get things done. The absurdity of the picture Gilbert paints makes me discount every single thing she says.

While spiritual journeys often suck, this one is the worst. Looking in the book I noticed the story opens with details about her Manhattan real estate holdings and ends with her getting a boyfriend. Gilbert went to fucking India for that? My friend went to India and got lost, cheated, and diarrhea and I think she achieved more spiritual evolution.

If this isn't enough for you all to hate Eat, Pray, Love a fourth as much as I do, I'm going to close with an excerpt of the book, so you can see for yourself whether Gilbert has created an aesthetic masterpiece, or just a commercial one:

I climbed to the top of the tower. I was now standing at the tallest place in the Ashram, with a view overlooking the entirety of this river valley in India. Mountains and farmland stretched out as far as I could see. I had a feeling this was not a place students were normally allowed to hang out, but it was so lovely up there. Maybe this is where my Guru watches the sun go down, when she's in residence here. And the sun was going down right now. The breeze was warm. I unfolded the piece of paper the plumber/poet had given me.

He had typed:

INSTRUCTIONS FOR FREEDOM

1. Life's metaphors are God's instructions.
2. You have just climbed up and above the roof. There is nothing between you and the Infinite. Now, let go.
3. The day is ending. It's time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful. Now, let go.
4. Your wish for resolution was a prayer. Your being here is God's response. Let go, and watch the stars come out -- on the outside and on the inside.
5. With all your heart, ask for grace, and let go.
6. With all your heart, forgive him, FORGIVE YOURSELF, and let him go.
7. Let your intention be freedom from useless suffering. Then, let go.
8. Watch the heat of day pass into the cool night. Let go.
9. When the karma of a relationship is done, only love remains. It's safe. Let go.
10. When the past has passed from you at last, let go. Then climb down and begin the rest of your life. With great joy.

For the first few minutes, I couldn't stop laughing. I could see over the whole valley, over the umbrella of the mango trees, and the wind was blowing my hair around like a flag. I watched the sun go down, and then I lay down on my back and watched the stars come out. I sang a small little prayer in Sanskrit, and repeated it every time I saw a new star emerge in the darkening sky, almost like I was calling forth the stars, but then they started popping out too fast and I couldn't keep up with them. Soon the whole sky was a glitzy show of stars. The only thing between me and God was... nothing.

Well I'll be damned -- let's trash the Ten Commandments and go with this shit instead. Also, Gurus are stupid. Eat, Pray, Vom.