But you know what your mama always said about covers and judging books.
While visiting my sister I finished The Gravedigger’s Daughter early than I anticipated. For once in my life, I’d only packed one book. Usually I pack three or four for a long weekend, and I end up irritated by the extra weight when I haven’t even finished the book I was reading. I perused MB’s shelves, and she loaned me Eat, Pray, Love. If you adore this book with the heat of an active volcano, maybe you should just click away now.
I’ll be frank. The only reason I finished the book was so I could review it here. My MFA mentor once said that one shouldn’t review a book about which one has nothing nice to say, but I’m thinking she meant for paying gigs. I argued with myself about writing this review. Elizabeth Gilbert and I are the same age, and she’s got a whole lot more publications to her name than I do. These facts made me think "well, she’s doing something right." So I grant that she knows the business better than I do, but I will not grant her much more. Okay, I’ll grant her a good heart. She did raise money to buy a homeless woman and her kids a house. That’s a good thing.
From the start I chafed while reading the book. I feel like the entire thing is so constructed, so contrived. I’d very much like to see her book proposal. How, I wonder, does a person write a proposal for a book about a spiritual journey that has not happened? Did Gilbert just know to the core of her being that she would have a spiritual experience? I can almost buy into it, except I believe, based on my own spiritual experiences (which, again, I’ll grant are individual, so how can I know?) that they are not something to be anticipated. The fact that she sold this book, which enabled her to take the journey, which is the subject of the book, just smells to me. Like three-day old fish. I can’t help but to question her credibility. I often felt suspicious, wondering "did she do that so she’d have something about which to write?"
I was intrigued by the controlling metaphor that Gilbert sets forth for the reader in the introduction. She sets up her book to be a sort of japa mala. I don’t think she delivers, though. Throughout, I don’t see the reason for dividing certain sections into their own "beads" other than, perhaps, to ensure that she makes it to the 108 she needs for the trope to work. This isn’t the only trope that doesn’t work. Throughout the book, Gilbert uses metaphors and similes that make no sense if the reader really thinks about them.
On the sentence level, the book disappoints over and over. Gilbert shifts tense within sentences, which speaks to me of a lack of control on the writer’s part. Sure, this is acceptable on a first draft, even on a blog (I don’t edit my blog much, so I’m sure I’ve made the same mistake here). But to do so in a published draft? Is this an editor’s error, as Neal suggested to me? Maybe I’ve turned into a snotty MFA chick, but the sloppiness of the book felt like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. At times she drifts into addressing the reader as "you." Is this meant to be chummy? Again, inoffensive to me on a blog, but sloppy in a memoir.
I visited Gilbert’s website in hopes of learning something that would make me feel differently about this book. I read a page of her thoughts on writing, and while some of them rang sound to me (get your work out there, missy!), I find her casual take on craftsmanship deplorable. Does every writer need to be an MFA? Of course not. Should every writer study her craft, learn how to write clearly on the sentence level? Absolutely. If I’ve learned nothing else over the years, not only from my own graduate school experience, but also from being married to an artist and having close friends who are artists, it is that art demands discipline.
Sort of the same way meditation and spiritual growth require discipline. I wish Gilbert had applied the same focus (which, by the way, she says she hoped the japa mala structure would give her) to her book as she did to her Yogic practice.
Knot Much of a Knitter is hosting a discussion of the book on her blog if you’ve read it and want to discuss it more. My next book review will be on a book that I’m loving, so stay tuned!
Hee. I have this book, but haven’t been inspired to crack the cover yet, and partially that’s because so many people have raved about it. When something becomes this frickin’ popular, it tends not to be my cuppa joe. I don’t think that’s a snobby factor on my part (although I may be self-deluded), but the “rave” books don’t tend to be what I like.
Wow, that sounds really snobby after all, and I didn’t mean it that way. Hmmm…
Beverly – a thoughtful review. Enough to make me wonder if I should rethink my position. I agree that it is curious that she departed on the journey with the deal in hand. Did that mean that the journey was a sham? I haven’t conceded that yet. I do like the conversational tone of her writing, and though I normally have fits about the kinds of things you’re pointing out, I admit I didn’t notice. I enjoyed her voice. Now maybe I need to look again. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, both here and in my comments!
We just love you Beverly!
I have been intrigued by the book having seen Gilbert on Oprah. Not enough to spring the $$ on it, mind you, but I have checked to see if it’s in at the library. Not yet. I am sure I will eventually read it, but having the new knowledge that she had the book deal before the journey certainly colors it for me.
I have traveled extensively. Did I learn a lot about myself? Yeah. More than I ever realized? Yes. Did I ever expect to have such life-altering revelations, synchronicities and experiences? No. To me those are the real memories, the unexpected. Like wandering the streets of Rome and realizing that for my life to be what I wanted it to be I needed to Move To San Francisco. That night I met a guy in the hostel who was moving to SF in a few months to start dental school and didn’t have a living situation sorted out yet. He was my roommate for the first year I lived in the city.
I agree that her book proposal would be an interesting read. Perhaps she knew someone who knew someone…?
Thanks for the flip side to “eat, pray, love” blind mania!
THANK YOU!! I went in really wanting to love this book, and I really didn’t, largely for the reasons you listed. I can see why the book is popular, given its premise (and yes, the cover is gorgeous!), but I’m not sure I quite get why it’s so beloved.
Oh, thank god, someone who feels close to what I do about the book. I, shallow woman that I am, bought it for the pretty cover and because of the description on the back. Dumb. I’ve had it for over a year and it has made the trip to London and back, Ohio and back (twice), and is currently enjoying its home on my nightstand where it revels in its protective cocoon of dust. My Elizabeth is still in Italy, and I fear that it is where she shall stay. I usually give a book 50 pages to keep my interest and then it is off to the library donate pile. I don’t know why this one has lasted so long, but perhaps it is slapping me in the face and forcing me to “become a better person” through reading it. Not likely.
You’re not at all an MFA snob. I have several non-MFA friends (well, one or two have BAs in English, to be fair) who disliked the book for the same reasons you describe here.
And I’m all for the negative reviews–few works are ever unanimously well-received, and part of putting your work out there is living with the notion that, even if it sells well and wins awards (which luckily hasn’t happened in this case), someone–maybe even someone smart–will pick it up and say: Really? people liked this? It all comes with the territory… in fact, part of me looks forward to a bad review, cause then I’ll have been read. Of course, to get that bad reviews, I’ve gotta get some stuff in the mail.
Oh, and there’s a hilariously bad review of a certain non fiction book by the purveyor of Treadmills on Amazon.com… it’s worth reading for its use of metaphor.
As you already know, I wholeheartedly agree. To quote “that’s me in the corner. That’s me in the spotlight. Choosing not to read the rest of this.”
I also despised her hypocritical “I’m not a guru but this is really how one finds the path” mentality.
Kudos on the review.
Thanks for this. I haven’t read this book. I probably wouldn’t have anyway, given that with my limited reading time I rarely choose to read nonfiction (and something about all these damn memoirs running around in recent years gives me a self-righteous fictional rash), but the fact that she sold the book before she took the trip has irked me as well. I’m glad you said it out loud here.
I’ve heard similar reviews on this one, but I just picked up the audio version and ripped it to my mp3 player for an upcoming trip, so I’m curious what I’ll think. It’s actually read by the author, which adds another whole level. BUT–just in case–I also loaded the audio of Reading Lolita in Tehran. 😉
Even though I may not be well-learned in writing, i know when a book is poorly written. I’ve never had the desire to read this book, and now even less so. Thanks for the review!
Well, I haven’t read the book, although I may. When I head back to teaching religion, I have to keep current on the popular culture spiriual books, which always disappoint me.
I saw an interview with her( I think on Oprah) and I think the interview was much better then the book. I got about half way through the book and just never bothered to pick it up again.
Wow-I think this is the first time since I became aware of you that I’ve had the urge to disagree. I have, and love, this book. I can see how some of the points you made are valid, but for the overall tone-of-voice thing, that’s one of the selling points for me. Reading this book isn’t like reading a memoir-it’s like hearing the story firsthand from someone who’s so excited to share the experience that they get a little lost at times. To me, that’s totally okay, because her enthusiasm is totally contagious. Also, in response to the “trueness” of the memoir-I won’t be questioning it based entirely on the Italy section. I lived for a similar length of time in Florence, and so much of Gilbert’s experience in Rome was very real to me for that reason that I have to assume that her experiences elsewhere were equally true.
Is setting out to have an “experience” with a book deal in tow a little sketchy? Oh, yeah. But in this case, I think she actually did have that experience, and managed to create a genuinely refreshing memoir at the same time.
My initial reaction to this book was utter rage. I hated Gilbert for her inability to say “I don’t want children” and for her whining about her pretty house in Westchester. I hated reading about her break down on the bathroom floor and her dependency on having a man in her life to the extent that she’d continue on with the young actor even at the expense of herself.
I picked the book up a year later, and I did enjoy the Italy section. Although her tense shifts and her “buddy-buddy” tone really annoyed the hell out of me as well. That’s sloppy writing, and I suspect that the legions of new copy editors don’t worry about subject/verb agreement and tense agreement like they once did. Pity.
Thank you for this review. I have looked at the book at the store, listened to the hype and not been engaged at all. I think for me, it is the idea that I can “grow” as a person because someone else had an ephiphany during her travels. I think I will just revisit under the Tuscan Sun and think about wine, cooking and picnics. That is an Italian journey I can love! Bev