A review of Elizabeth Gilbert's book "Eat Pray Love". 

Reviewed by Kara Martin

When I was asked to review this book, I was quite reluctant. Yes, it has sold more than 7 million copies; yes it stayed at the top of best seller lists in the US for 57 weeks; but I was receiving all sorts of warning signals from the cover:

• The writer is running away from a failed marriage and a failed rebound affair
• She is seeking self-understanding through food, prayer and love
• Julia Roberts is "giving the book to her girlfriends" and then decided to star in the movie
• The Sunday Times described it as a modern A Room of One's Own (The classic essay from Virginia Woolf about needing a woman's place to write and dream and start the possibility of a career. A ridiculous comparison!)
• Her search for spiritual understanding involves an ashram in India and a Medicine Man in Bali
• The ultimate goal seems to be romantic love

However, Elizabeth Gilbert is a very entertaining writer, and thankfully quite self-deprecating. Against my better judgment, I started really enjoying the reading. There were even a couple of laugh-out-loud moments, like when she feels more courageous when she discovers each of us have four "spirit brothers" that protect us (sort of like guardian angels), and then she gets hit by a bus the next day!

I like that she unashamedly puts on 10 kilos in Italy because she simply enjoys food and conversation; I like that she is curious about spirituality, and that she incorporates the spiritual into every part of her life; and I like that she is very inclusive of Christian viewpoints.
However, this is a book that many Christians would prefer not to read. She openly embraces Hinduism, which she refers to as yoga. She believes that hell and heaven are the same place, and you might as well enjoy the journey. She believes we are all responsible for what happens to us, we control our own fate. She believes the path to enlightenment involves an ascetic lifestyle and meditation. She believes all religions are equal paths to God. She believes that we all need a guru to lead us to enlightenment. She equates sin with desire or suffering (more Buddhist in idea) and that we can overcome it through union with God. She has quite a broad moral outlook, hence is happy to make love outside of marriage.

What she actually wants is everything: freedom, sex, ecstatic spiritual experiences, great food, fun travel, lots of friends and happiness. Apparently she achieves all this in a year. Partly because she agreed on a book deal before she left on her journey of self-discovery, and the whole thing was bankrolled.

Some Christian blog reviews described her as "narcissistic", "whining", "irresponsible", "shallow"... and they were the polite comments!

In the end, Gilbert is describing a spirituality for wealthy, middle class, white women; and in this "intimate" novel she writes about her suffering, but not much about her confusion, doubting, shame, and the messiness of life. It is no A Room of One's Own, because it fails to honour the fullness of what it means to be a woman; in spite of her commitment to a year of celibacy, and seeking wisdom, and being free... she ends up in bed with a bloke she meets in Bali (probably not realising that is actually the clichéd story of quite a few Aussies!!).

While this book would be a disastrous roadmap to spiritual awareness, because she cherry-picks the fun bits and leaves out the years of painstaking devotion, it is still a helpful insight into one woman's spiritual journey. It could also be the means of a fruitful conversation about spirituality with your friends.

The very obvious missing figure from Gilbert's spiritual journey is Jesus; the one who claimed to be THE way, THE truth and THE life.

KARA MARTIN is a lecturer with School of Christian Studies (www.socs.org.au), and is an avid reader and book group attendee. Kara does book reviews for Hope 103.2's Open House (www.theopenhouse.net.au).