Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

Three one-dimensional stories

Posted by Leena Kamat on 07 Jul 2008
This is an inspiring and light-hearted memoir of a 30-something divorcee who launches on a journey of travel mirroring her self-discovery. It's a nice, breezy read, and managed to raise several chuckles out of me while also making me empathize with her feelings of emptiness and loneliness.

I just wonder how the author has lived in NYC, probably encounting hundreds of Indian people and their peculiar ways in the process, and yet only bothers to explore India such a one-dimensional light. The first part of her journey is in Italy, where she explores pleasure, i.e. the "eat" part. The whole time while she is in India, she is only in an Ashram, i.e. "pray." Then she goes on to Indonesia and strives to find a balance, also conveniently stumbling upon a (Brazilian) hottie, i.e. "love." The point of her story is not to box in these places, but she does so in the process.  I find it a little irritating that she sees the pleasure of Italy and the spirituality of India as so distinctive of the locations, and so diametrically opposed to one another.

Anyway, I liked the book.