Committed

by Elizabeth Gilbert

Just finished this book. I bought it a week or two after it was out. I read the first chapter at Borders, bought it, and have not touched it ever since. But now, I felt I need a change of pace and book after so much of the fiction I have been reading. So I decided to give this a go, and it was a wonderful change it was. I finished the book in three days, which was surprisingly quick for me.

A short synopsis. This book is a non-fiction semi-autobiographical account by Gilbert as she is about to get married for a second time. It follows on from Eat Pray Love, where she has fallen in love with a man she met in Bali, Filipe. When they go back to the US, the face difficulty at customs as Filipe cannot stay in the US indefinitely because he is not an American citizen. So they have to actually get married for Filipe to stay in the States. They apply for a visa to enter America again and Gilbert is with Filipe traveling in South Asia whilst waiting for the visa to be processed, and this process takes about a year or so. Though the 'forced' marriage is inevitable, Gilbert is still unsure of the justification of marriage, especially after her first failed marriage. So too, Filipe who has also had a failed marriage. So this book is Gilbert's contemplations and study of what it means to be married, what it means to her and what can be different this time around. She explores the many aspects of marriage; the history, social, moral and material implications.

This book is wonderful from start to finish. It is however less personal and less emotion driven compared to Eat Pray Love. I would say it actually is more Malcolm Gladwell-ish in style. It was perhaps more fact-based and as it needed to be, because Gilbert was exploring the meaning of marriage. For me, it was very eye-opening and some of my preconceptions of marriage and even relationships are now forever broken. I would say this is a life-altering book. It clarifies the differences between what love and infatuation are, and also the expectations of marriage in this generation and past. There is so much to talk about from this book, which I will do in some other post.

Gilbert's writing itself is witty and never boring. Her logic is reasonable and where parts that it seemed emotionally-charged, it is broken down into understandable bits. So you always get to know what is happening, and what is being felt. Great book about marriage and relationship for anyone who is absolutely clueless about such things like me. Even if you do know about these things, it would be a good book to read anyways if just to open your perspective on marriage, love and relationships.

Eat Pray Love

by Elizabeth Gilbert

This book I guess pretty much everyone have heard about it now, seeing the movie version of it came out starring Julia Roberts. Only picked up the book again after the hype about the movie after I read about a quarter of the book when I first bought it a year or two ago. Well, I have not watched the movie and do not have much inclination to actually watch it. I don't know how it would translate well into a movie because what made it special was most of it was monologue of her experiences and speaking out all the lines or conveying it through action would be quite difficult to do. Everyone interprets images differently from their mind and the past experiences they have.

Here is the synopsis from the back of the book.

Elizabeth is in her thirties, settled in a large house with a husband who wants to start a family. But she doesn't want any of it. A bitter divorce and a rebound fling later, Elizabeth emerges battered yet determined to find  what she's been missing.

So begins her quest. In Rome, she indulges herself and gains nearly two stone. In India, she find enlightenment through scrubbing temple floors. Finally in Bali, a toothless medicine man reveals a new path to peace, leaving her ready to love again.

I liked the first two parts of the book of life in Italy and India. Perhaps these world are foreign to me and thus mystifying and unique. Indonesia is closer to to my sort of upbringing so I can understand what she says but it just brings out disillusionment. Or perhaps I was just in a bad mood while reading it. The writing is witty and smart. Her views are practical and easy to relate to. And she writes without pretensions, like a person now comfortable of explaining how she was uncomfortable in her own skin.

It is an encouraging story of an amazing journey. It gives one inspiration to stop, remove oneself from the pressures and white noise from day to day life, and be more rigorous in the pursuit of peace, contentment, love and happiness.