Eat, Pray, Love - The Modern Woman's Guide to Devotion and Pleasure

Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love...I have no words to describe this novel or to express my gratitude for the author. Certainly, the bestseller of the year; the most influential "girl" book since...Well I am not going to compare it to anything because it is not like anything I have ever read. The influence this tale of the pursuit of devotion and pleasure had on me is beyond anything words can express. You just have to read it to feel the energy and strength coming from it.

Eat, Pray, Love is Gilbert's biography, which she starts writing at a every difficult time of her life. She is going through a difficult divorce and a remorseful rebound break-up, which both leave her depressed, lonely, and hopeless. Elizabeth had tried everything - psychiatrists, pills, meditation, yoga, another lover...But nothing seems to take her out of her depression and into life again. That is when she decides to take a one year journey in the pursuit of pleasure and devotion. 4 months in Italy, eating pizza and pasta (pleasure), 4 months in India trying to find God within herself through meditation (devotion) and 4 years in Bali combining both. Gilbert shares this amazing journey with the reader, commenting on issues such a self-understanding, religion, devotion, purpose of life, and love. A truly amazing novel, Eat, Pray, Love must be experienced (I am not saying read because this novel has to be experienced with the heart) by everyone. People live such a hasty life now, that they forget to pursuit their own balance and stability. This is exactly what Gilbert aims with this year of travelling. And she succeeds.
The novel as I already mentioned is divided into three parts and into 108 tales. Each part has 36 tales and is devoted to one of the amazing places Gilbert visits during this year. Why exactly 108 - well, you have to read and find out yourself. What is more important is Elizabeth's motivation behind this journey. She gets almost no support from her relatives. They say she is irresponsible to take a year of at the age of 35. However, as Elizabeth points out "I have lost my appetite for life. I need to get it back".

And this is exactly what she does. Gaining almost 10 pounds in Italy, Gilbert indulges herself in the pleasures of good food and good wine. In India she spends almost every hour of the day meditating and trying to find this balance (or God) within herself. Finally in Bali, she is calm, secure, and happy.Throughout this journey the author meets a lot of new people and new friends, who help her in her search for her true self.

I was highly fascinated and touched by the novel. It can still be claimed to be one of those self-help books but I am starting to love the idea of a self-help book. Each and every one I read is better and better than the previous one. I want to compare Lorna Martin's Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown to Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love, because both of these novels are full of sarcasm, humour, self-irony and deep honesty. Both authors reveal themselves in a time of crisis and both find a way to deal with it. I am starting to get this sense of admiration for self-sufficient strong women, who do not need men to validate their existence, who are willing to go against the current, so to say, in order to find this inner balance necessary for a happy ending. I would like to believe I can be this kind of a woman some day.

The main difference between Martin and Gilbert, though, is that the latter goes very deep into the self-understanding concept. I mean, she travels half the world in the search of her true self. The author of Eat, Pray, Love is an amazing woman and her autobiography is a must-read for any self-respecting modern woman. What Elizabeth does is to transform the patriarchal view of the woman as a housewife and as a cooker into a self-sufficient individual, who is not afraid to break up with conventional norm and to find happiness in the most unexpected place.

I do not even need to mention that the movie is not even half as influential as the book itself. If you want to feel Gilbert's warmth and passion floating through your body, I suggest you buy this novel and indulge yourself in some properly deserved pleasure and devotion.

Lorna Martin - Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

She is a journalist in the Scottish newspaper Observer. She has a stable and loving family, a good and successful job, and loyal and funny friends. Yet, somehow her life is a total disaster. She misses airplanes and appointments, she spends 2 nights in Thailand in a stranger taxi driver's home, and she falls in love with a married man. Her name is Lorna Martin, a successful woman of 35, who has a lot of dysfunctional relationships with men, who doesn't know who she is or what she wants of life. After the last stupid thing in her life, she decides to take measures in her own hands, draws a loan, and starts seeing a therapist to figure out what to do.

At the beginning Martin starts her own rubric in the magazine Grazia called Meetings with the Therapist. People love it so much that she decides to turn it into a book, Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Yes, the analogue is quite right - something like Carry Bradshaw but real. Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is the true story of a woman, whose life is a total mess. Martin is painfully honest, strikingly brutal, and amusingly ironic. I loved the book and I am sure every woman will. Lorna manages to uncover all those little secrets and mistakes we women tend to make but are too ashamed to share. And Lorna shares all of this using a unique sarcastic voice, which makes her novel easy and entertaining to read.

I sense that many of you will react Oh boy, yet another one of those self help books. Lorna Martin's Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is so much more than that. Even if you don't believe that seeing a therapist can help you solve your life issues, you will find Martin's honesty absolutely lovable. It takes a lot of bravery to unbare one's soul to that extent. Because Lorna doesn't reserve any saucy detail from her peripetia - from the unfortunate relationship with the married lawyer, whom she tortures with endless sentimental (and drunk) messages to the envy towards her sister and her friends' successes.

What I loved the most about the book is the character of Lorna's therapist, Dr. J. She is no regular therapist. Unfortunately, in the UK therapy is a very expensive pleasure and Lorna has to draw a loan since one seance with Dr. J costs more than her monthly rent (imagine that). At first Lorna absolutely detest Dr. J and her habit of answering every question with As you wish. Absolutely marvelous. What Dr. J (of course in my modest opinion) attempts to do is uncover Lorna's anger to determine why her life doesn't make any sense. After 12 months of intensive therapy (3 times a week) Lorna is a calmer, more organized, and more confident woman. Her misfortunes are behind her and finally her life is headed towards the right direction. Without hidden and suppressed feelings, without stupid and inconsiderate acts, and without obsession with men and relationships.

I recommend Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown because it is light and amusing to read. Martin's voice is compelling and her ability to satirize herself is admirable. Do not be tempted to believe that this is just a pro-therapy propaganda book. Recently I read an interview with Martin in the Bulgarian version of Grazia. Four years after therapy she is happily married and expecting her first child. Seems as if all of us can use a bit of therapy to help us discover feelings we didn't even knew we had, to get to know ourselves better, and to improve our relationship with the surrounding world. Lorna is a perfect example of the heeling effect of this therapy. Care (or may I say dare) to try?