What Controversies Surrounded Eat Pray Love Upon Release?

Question

As a memoir, did 'Eat, Pray, Love' get backlash for being privileged, self-indulgent, and promoting a clichéd spiritual journey? Were the criticisms fair?

Arlene Casas · Answer

When Elizabeth Gilbert’s ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ first emerged, it was a cause for great controversy around the issue of privileged self-discovery. The book was seen by many to be narcissistic and insensitive in its portrayal of people and places around the globe. The book generated a lot of debate around issues of spiritual tourism and whether the book represented true empowerment or rather another means of indulgence. ‘Recipe of Love’ is another story about personal reinvention but with more solid and tangible circumstances than Gilbert’s global search for enlightenment. The story centers around a woman who is trying to rebuild her life through a local food business and her struggles and growth are framed within the context of and off against her wider community.

Parker · Answer

There was a lot of buzz when ‘Eat Pray Love’ first came out as a book, and then again when it was adapted into a film. I got to read it all with interest as most of it was highly critical and perceived to be mostly negative, especially as a memoir.

The memoir was viewed by many as selfish and the traveling of a wealthy, White, Western woman was flagged as ‘privileged’. The manner in which Gilbert indulged in Spiritual Practice and examined her inner self while neglecting her many responsibilities in life, was seen by many to be some form of consumerized spirituality. Most critics saw the deep and meaningful Spiritual Practices of Gilbert’s explored religions to be superficially portrayed as some form of ‘spiritual- tourism’ or ‘ Spiritual Exploitation’.

Additionally, many argued that Gilbert oversimplified and unfairly stereotyped the two countries she traveled to and the cultures she encountered. She was a wealthy white American and many felt she was a White Savior. Some were also offended by how she portrayed the local people she encountered and how she looked at them. As the book received more recognition due to its time on Oprah and the Julia Roberts adaptation, many started to notice the flaws in Gilbert’s spiritual journey. Now, I still really enjoy reading Gilbert’s work, but with a very critical eye towards her depictions of the countries and cultures she encountered.

Liam · Answer

I remember walking through a market in Bali many years after ‘Eat Pray Love’ was all the rage. Tourists would pass by quoting phrases from Gilbert’s memoir. Most persistent of the memoir’s controversies to have an impact on how the book was read by others was the charge of privilege. Readers and even columnists saw how Gilbert’s search for herself depended on a financial and social freedom that most people can only dream of. Her experiences and insights were to be sold as a luxury to others to allow them to search for themselves as well. Related to this was the charge of cultural appropriation and even of cultural flattening in her depictions of scenes of spiritual practice and of local life.

There was a lot of discussion about Gilbert as a female author and how she embodied feminism and then how she was a narcissistic, obligation-avoiding writer who got off scot free. Much of that was fed by the celebrity machine, and the ways in which the book was marketed, including through Oprah, the movie, and the subsequent tourism boom. Reading those perspectives on Gilbert and her book created a lot of tension for me between my desire to believe Gilbert’s memoir was a legitimate, even groundbreaking, work of nonfiction and my suspicion that much of it was designed to market a celebrity writer and her experiences.

Uma · Answer

On a cold winter day I read ‘Eat Pray Love’ by Elizabeth Gilbert within one day. Many people hated this book because it is self-centered. A rich woman takes a long time off and then travels around the world. But there are also more critical reviews of her book. Her experiences in India and Indonesia are seen as too simple or even exotic. The spiritual elements of the cultures she visited are only presented in a way that is interesting for Western readers.

The huge amount of publicity that the book had (it was selected by Oprah for her book club and then made into a major film starring Julia Roberts) adds to both the praise and the criticism of the book. And it has also had an impact on tourism in places like Bali. To me, the book is a great read with all of the problems that it presents, if one is aware of the problems and reads with a critical eye to distinguish between memoir and marketable fantasy.

Reese · Answer

I was completely caught off guard by the amount of sturm und drang surrounding the novel ‘Eat Pray Love’ by Elizabeth Gilbert. While readers around the world fell in love with the author’s candid depiction of her travels and her personal search for inner peace, there were many, many critics that took the author to task for her seeming entitlement – taking a year off to find herself in exotic locations while simply growing richer and more white and entitled with each passing page. She was a white savior, exacerbating stereotypes about other cultures and fabricating shallow spiritual practice for the privileged masses to purchase and attempt to glean meaning from. Eventually, the book was made into a movie, was incessantly promoted by Oprah, and even spurred a phenomenon in which tourism increased to certain locales, spawned many parodies as well as thoughtful essays and other literature.

Fiona · Answer

I was following the controversy around ‘Eat Pray Love’ as if it were a public conversation. The memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert about her search for self after leaving her husband for 2 years sparked an enormous amount of debate in the feminist community. Many people saw it as a very positive and honest account of one woman’s search for herself after leaving her marriage. However, there were many others that saw it as narcissistic and that she was irresponsibly glamorizing leaving behind relationships and searching for oneself rather than confronting and dealing with the real issues in her life and the lives of those she had left behind.

However, there is also much criticism towards the book, which portrays several countries, including Indonesia, India and Italy, and several religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism, and starts of in marriage but goes to search for herself abroad. Some argue that complex cultures and spiritual traditions are being reduced to several chapters which Western readers can gobble up, while others see EL as a fluffy, inspirational travel book of a privileged American woman. While I believe that EL can be inspiring for some people, it is also a very good case study of memoirizing in terms of class and culture and how a personal story can be used to trigger off debates about these two topics.

Khair · Answer

My friend told me that this book saved her life during her terrible divorce. She said that it gave her permission to want more than just misery in her life. I think that this is a powerful testament to the book and how it affected people's lives and it is so often lost in the online arguments about privilege and narrative in the book. The book had a positive impact on millions of readers and that in itself is a huge amount of truth that cannot be academics' critical field of study to enter.

Rejecting the experience of the reader who found solace in the book as false consciousness or naivete is itself elitist. The best defense of the book has always been the simple, profound impact it had on readers - it made them feel seen, and gave them hope. The tension between the book's utility to readers and its flaws - intellectual and ethical - is perhaps the central, unresolved controversy about the book. Which is more important, the comfort the book gave to readers, or the problems posed by the book? There is no answer to this question.

Willie Naylor · Answer

Much of the negative reaction could be categorized into two camps: the writer was not really getting some kind of profound spiritual experience, and/or the experience was also a pricey, exotic vacation, sincerely or not, helped along by a number of publishers by a sizable advance for a manuscript not yet written, much of it set at places the writer had not yet traveled. Thus the perception arose of a writer off on some self-indulgent navel-gazing trip – or packaged nicely for a book contract – which at some point would presumably be ‘improved’ by being ‘written’. But until then, most people would assume that the writer was on that trip for the same reasons anyone would be on that trip: to experience it, not to write about it.

Further critics argued that Garten preyed off the countries and cultures he visited, reducing the rich and complex spiritual practices and daily life of the Indians, Indonesians, and Italians he encountered to tools for the Western self-help seeker. While the “Eat” chapter received somewhat less criticism, even that section of the book was often criticized for a romantically stereotypes view of Italian culture and food. As with “Spirit,” Garten’s work is often seen to fall into the problematic genre of “white woman finds enlightenment in exotic East,” and this conversation around the book has contributed to many people’s growing awareness of the critical reading of travel writing, particularly the subgenre of travel memoir.

Ailana Misha · Answer

The story was structured around three countries and three themes: Pleasure in Italy, Devotion in India and Balance in Bali. Some readers felt that the structure was beautifully symmetrical and satisfied their archetype for the story of a searching woman. Others found it too schematic and perhaps even like a self-help book wrapped in a travel tale. Did life really fall into such neat chapters? The structure of the story raised several questions about the believability of the author’s journey and felt too much like a writer creating a narrative rather than a person experiencing life.

Many people are disappointed when memoirs do not read like completely true real life but rather like well-made stories with plots and themes. Often, memoirs offer insights into human experiences and that is why many people read them. However, sometimes the truth is messy and unsatisfying. It is easy to criticize memoirists for leaving out parts of their lives and making themselves look better than they really are. On the other hand, many readers are grateful for memoirs because they can offer inspiration and new perspectives on life.

nosphiwemhlanga · Answer

For another take on travel writing in the 2000s, you might look at the work of men like Bill Bryson and Peter Mayle. Written as comic observations of other cultures by two middle-aged men traveling as somewhat clueless tourists, these books have been generally received with affection, as recounted by somewhat lovable men. Gilbert’s work is far more interior, far more earnest, far more emotional than that. And therefore, naturally, far more humoristic. But in the reviews of Gilbert’s work, there is often a line between witty observation of another and self-indulgent harping on by a woman about her own emotions.

So while My Naked Life may be seen as a ‘problematic’ book, it is only one example of how the genre of women’s confessional nonfiction is perceived by the literary establishment. Why does a man’s journey into the heart of his own midlife crisis become a deep and profound read, while a woman’s introspection is deemed shallow and self-indulgent? Strayed’ Wild for example was also the subject of much debate and critique but it had an outside narrative of survival in the wilderness to anchor it. ‘Eat Pray Love’ has become the locus of this literary debate, and is the first book that comes to mind when we think of the hypocritical way in which the confessional genre by female writers is viewed by the critical establishment today.

dayyyyydreamerrr · Answer

While so much controversy surrounds the trip to Bali and the situation of the “after,” the vast majority of painful, raw and real content in the book is set before her departure. Her readers can identify with the depths of her pain and distress in the first part of the book as she languishes on her bathroom floor, crying her eyes out and feeling so abandoned and alone. Why does the controversy generaton give little credit to the depths of her pain and suffering in her seemingly perfect life on the surface? Often that pain belongs to women who have checked off all of the boxes to success and are feeling very empty and unfulfilled.

I want to say again that by focusing so much on the travel portion of the book, we may be downplaying the real suffering that Sapphire so painstakingly described. The trip to Bali is far more easily criticizeable than the silent, private suffering of a suburban marriage. The biggest backlash against the book has focused on the Bali section of the book because it is the most “debatable” section of the book. However, it is precisely the most debatable section because it is the most tangible to most people reading the book. But the REAL power of the book to its fans is in its insightful and deprüviged portrayal of true suffering. That can be felt by anyone regardless of privilege, although the solutions to that suffering may be more complicated for people outside of wealth.

Gena Price · Answer

It would be interesting to know whether any of the individuals she wrote about in Bali or India had written about her in return, publicly or otherwise.

What Controversies Surrounded Eat Pray Love Upon Release?

12 Answers

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