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| Content | | | | Eat Pray Love | Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
Publisher: Penguin Books, 2007
Books about spiritual journeys tend to be as funny as German sitcoms. Elizabeth Gilbert, after a protracted divorce, embarks on a yearlong trip of recovery, with three main stops: Italy, for pleasure (mostly gustatory, with a special emphasis on gelato); an ashram outside of Mumbai, for spiritual searching; and Bali, for "balancing."
Her months in Rome are not only devoted to exploring the various delicacies of Italian food. Elizabeth also learns the language that is music to her ears and the use of which gives her pure pleasure. Actually, two extremely good reasons to go to Italy.
Her second destination offers quite a contrast to the earthly pleasures. At a sacred Ashram in India, her days are filled with prayer and ascetic rigor. She emulates the ways of yogis in grueling hours of meditation, struggling to still her churning mind. Especially this part of the book could easily drift into a rather embarrassing description of esoteric experiences. Thanks to Gilbertīs strong sense of self-deprecating humour the reader stays more than willing to join her on this journey to a spiritual world.
With her mind and soul nourished, she heads for Bali, Indonesia - in search of balance. There she gets to know unusual people who tend to irritate due to their logic and cultural background - but only Western people might be confused, for them itīs completely natural. On this island, she also encounters love, a Brazilian man. And maybe they actually manage to establish a common life between America, Australia, Brazil and Bali....
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