“Eat, Pray, Love”
July 12, 2010 by jhynes
One month to go! “Eat, Pray, Love” opens in theaters August 13. Just want to make sure all of your book clubs mark it on their calendars and maybe try a movie field trip. I’m just basing my movie opinion on the trailer, but it looks like this one will stay true to the book. Didn’t you just see Julia Roberts playing this role while reading the book anyway?
“Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert is the author’s personal journey to discover herself after a terrible divorce. She goes to Italy (eat), India (pray), and Indonesia (love) on her personal quest where she doesn’t exactly know what she wants to find in the end, only that she wants the opportunity to discover.
Our book club read this a while ago, but I know a book is good when I loan it out right away, and I still haven’t seen it return to my house years later, because the book keeps getting passed along to family and friends and friends of family and friends. I enjoyed the book club discussion about which country each person connected with while reading. India was my favorite.
This woman puts her life in print for all of us to scrutinize, agonize, and praise. I admire that she lets us into her head and into her heart and holds nothing back from the reader.
What Gilbert taught me through this book is that if we try hard enough, we can find a new way to approach our little daily challenges and our big life changes. It is easy (myself included) to get stuck in the ruts of life’s bumpy road, and to follow the path of what we think we should do or what is expected of us. We may struggle to get out of those ruts, but it can be done, and I think we have to remind ourselves to do just that. We owe it to ourselves to scrub away boredom, fear, and anxiety and replace it with freedom, confidence, and peace.
I think when we travel, we are more apt to try something new or out of the norm (“When in Rome”). We should adopt that idea at home every once in a while. You never know what you might discover about yourself or your friends and family – yes, invite others on your crazy adventure, no matter how small.
I likely have to wait until this movie comes out on DVD before I see it – don’t think the hubby is ready for Gilbert’s personal quest on the big screen. Even though I’ll have to wait, I think watching this movie in my pajamas with my favorite ice cream and some of my closest friends is just the way it should be. Don’t you think?
