Monday, November 07, 2011

Trouble Relating to Eat, Pray, Love - Why?

So, I've spent the past few weeks steadily reading through the third section of "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert and desperately searching for something to expound upon in this blog. I did, after all, start this blog on the premise of writing my way through this memoir.  Unfortunately, the author's time in Bali has not been super inspiring for me.  I have been frustrated with this.  While it's a great story, I am not finding any application in my "real life". 

Then, I came across this brilliant post by Kristin Tennant on her blog, "Halfway To Normal".  Ms. Tennant is a recent divorcee, mother of two girls and a Christian trying to make sense of the difficulties of the broken parts of her life in light of her own personal faith. I very much admire her honesty and willingness to be vulnerable on her blog.  This most recent entry, which specifically mentions "Eat, Pray, Love" was very interesting to me and a light bulb turned on in my head, as to why I can't relate to the final part of Ms. Gilbert's memoirs. 

The earlier sections (Italy and India) dealt a lot with her personal emotions and spiritual healing - things that I could, at the time, really relate with.  The third part of the book feels more like a travel diary than anything else.  Because she was privileged enough to be able to travel the world and basically do nothing for a year, I find it hard to relate.

It feels odd to do a complete 180 with feelings toward a book.  But take a read of Kristin's posting and let me know what you think. She brings up some interesting points, indeed.

Enough With The Hardships-Meet-Privilege Memoirs

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