book talk - Eat,Pray,Love

I'm not sure how it happened, but I read Elizabeth Gilbert's book Eat, Pray, Love. I have a bunch of things that I've committed to reading and Eat, Pray, Love was one of them. At first, I snubbed the book's somewhat silly tone. But, somewhere around Rome I gave in and just started loving it.

I have realized that I love travel books. I was reading this completely silly book from school called Go Big or Go Home by Will Hobbs. In the story, 13 year old Brady's bedroom is hit by an asteroid and he is infected with super Martian bacteria and is blessed with amazing super capabilities. He also begins to "go dormant" because of the Martian bacteria. It was so silly that every once in awhile I would stop out of the blue and read a sentence to Brian because it was so hilarious. But I loved the book because the characters live in the Black Hills of South Dakota and spend most of the book biking, fishing, and camping. It's like reading a Black Hills guide book as long as you don't let yourself be distracted by the unbelievable asteroid named Fred. I've long forgotten Fred, but I'm still loving the Black Hills.

But, back to Eat, Pray, Love. I am obsessed with this book. I am not a very good traveler. I prefer to stay home and read a book. About someone else's travels.
For me, traveling is like going to the zoo. It's something that seems like it will be totally great, but once I am there I hate it and can't figure out why anyone ever does this. (I hate the zoo so much.)
If I have any criticism of Eat, Pray, Love it's that I'm afraid people will come away with the wrong idea about meditation. You do not have to go anywhere to meditate And really, I don't think you should indulge very much in reading about other people's successful practices. Of course it's more fun to read about meditation than to actually do it! Meditation is hard and has zero glamour. I'm not judging Elizabeth Gilbert. I promise. I'm just saying long after I've forgotten how fulfilling it was to read about Gilbert's practice, I'm going to be loving Bali.