In a
very interesting study of the blunders written by students, there is a story
about how Milton came to write his epics. According to a very imaginative
student, Milton got married and he wrote Paradise
Lost. Later his wife died and he wrote Paradise
Regained. Though how many times he repeated this practice only history can
answer as can be seen from the number of his wives.
Now
in popular culture, marriage and love are usually celebrated while divorce is
usually represented as the end of your life. From Jane Austen novels to present day romance
novels, there is a long tradition of writing that ties up your life neatly in
terms of love and marriage. Then there are as many number of chick-flicks that
show how the course of true love never did run smooth.
Eat Pray Love is a 2006 novel by
Elizabeth Gilbert that is quite unconventional because of its veracity and audacity.
Told in the first person autobiographical mode of narration, the novel depicts
a woman’s search for identity after a rather painful and time-consuming
divorce. A woman in her thirties, instead of settling down and having a family
of her own, is haunted by anxiety attacks. She wants to be free and decides to
go on an adventurous trip all by herself.
She
feels that she has been floating through life without an identity of her
own. Once her marriage breaks down, she
lands straight into the hands of a lover named David. One of her friends makes
a remark that if she had resembled her husband earlier, now she resembled David.
This turns her inward and she wants to find out what she is really like and
what she really wants out of life.
After
her brief rebound affair with David, she recognises that another relationship
is not quite the answer that she is looking for. She travels to three places
that have only one thing in common- the first letter I- Italy, India and
Indonesia. In Italy, she learns the native language and finds a new interest in
friendship and in the Italian cuisine. A word catches her attention- attraversiamo- which means “let’s cross over”
commonly used by her friends when crossing streets.
She
goes to India and scrubs floors in an ashram while learning how to recite the
prayers correctly. She meets Richard from Texas who calls becomes friends with
her and calls her groceries. Her next place of visit is Indonesia, where she
meets an ancient medicine man Kekut Liyer who asks her to enjoy life to the
fullest and to laugh right from the liver.
She
meets a Brazilian divorcee named Felippe in Bali and agrees to spend time with
him. She also helps a traditional healer named Wayan to build a house with the
help of financial aid from the US. Her experiences make her believe in the
goodness of life once more and she feels that she has finally confronted her
inner demons. Her scars hurt her less and finally she recognises that she has
become much lighter as she has performed this wonderful act of crossing over. A
feel good book about divorce, the film adaptation released in 2010 has Julia
Roberts as Elizabeth Gilbert.
