Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything

 

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything, written by Elizabeth Gilbert, is a non-fiction story. The book I read is a simplified edition written for English learners of level 5.

This story, in fact, is a true story of the author herself. She spends four months in Italy for the sake of pleasure (Eat), learning a new language and making a lot of new friends. Then she lives in a temple in India for three months, finding spiritual renewal by the hard work of the devotional life (Pray). Finally she ends the year on the Indonesian island of Bali, searching for the balance of pleasure and devotion with an elderly local medicine man (Love).

The themes of this book are the relationship between beliefs and lifestyle, and how the beliefs affect daily life. There are some philosophical and religious beliefs in this book.  For example, do you know how to live with happiness and enjoy pleasure? According to the writer, it depends on your beliefs and searching for a perfect balance between both the inside and the outside of yourself. Then, what can we do to reach that balance and find freedom in our lives? The writer’s answer is just learning to let it go – let the past go, and prepare yourself with happiness for tomorrow – the rest of your life. While I agree with the author’s views, I still think sometimes letting go is easy to think about but might not be so easy to do.

There are a lot of colourful characters involved in Gilbert’s long journey too, such as her Italian friends and their families, the respectable elderly medicine man, the Indonesian woman, etc. In addition, by following the writer, I feel as if I have travelled across the world – from one culture to another; from city to countryside; from mountain to island – and got the interesting feelings of those places.

Overall, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything is a fascinating book with beautiful sentences, and it is easy to read. If you are interested in a pleasant story and spiritual quest, it will be a good choice. I firmly believe that it is worth spending some time to read.