Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
After finishing Illuminations of the Heart, any book would have seemed brilliant in comparison, but I think I would have enjoyed Elizabeth Gilbert's Committed even if I hadn't just finished one of the most painful books I'd ever read. If you, like most American females of a certain age, read Eat, Pray, Love in your book club a few years ago, you'll probably remember that Liz fell in love with Felipe in Bali (the "Love" section), and they promised to spend the rest of their lives together in unmarried bliss.
The only obstacle to their happily ever after turned out to be the Department of Homeland Security. After a couple of years of spending time with Liz in Philly and leaving the country only to renew his tourist visa, the government cracked down and told Felipe that he couldn't come back unless he and Liz did exactly what they didn't want to do: tie the knot. In the year that they worked out the legal red tape of the situation, Liz and Felipe traveled through Asia, living on the cheap, and Liz read everything she could do help herself come to terms with jumping back into the institution of marriage.
While Eat, Pray, Love was more of a standard memoir, Committed is only sort of a memoir. It's a lot about Gilbert's responses to the interesting things she read about marriage, with events from her own life and the lives of people in her family and people she interviewed while traveling around Asia to highlight the topics at hand. Sometimes she rants, sometimes she shows her prejudices and her personal world-view, and sometimes she whines at the unfairness of her situation. But overall, she shows her love both for the examples of people who taught her how to love, and, most importantly, for Felipe.
No comments:
Post a Comment