I’m taking a blogging break until August 29 – our first day back to the homeschool books. I’m busy planning math, writing, spelling, etc., etc. And re-reading parts of the classical educator’s must have: The Well-Trained Mind: a Guide to Classical Education at Home by Susan Wise Bauer.
Back soon with more books…
Update (6/9/08) For my latest comments on Gilbert’s book, follow this link.
I don’t read memoirs, I absorb them. I begin to read and I don’t quit until I’ve come up out of the last word of the last chapter. I get easily involved with the author’s experiences; I hate to put the book aside for a moment. That was the way I took in Angela’s Ashes and Lucky.
It was the same experience with Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, a story of lost love, heartache, spiritual enlightenment and delicious food.
The book, which I found listed on Amazon.com, yet scooped up at my library, originally caught my attention because Gilbert traveled to one of the most exotic and fascinating places on the planet – Indonesia. I lived in Ujung Pandang, Indonesia for seven months, so I was curious to see how her impressions of the country compared to mine.
When the book begins, we are introduced to a married Gilbert who is pleading with God to rescue her from her domestic life and starting a family. She leaves her husband soon afterward. A new man comes into Gilbert’s life, but the two have a difficult time making it work. Once the divorce is final, Gilbert leaves the on/off again boyfriend behind and sets off on a year-long quest to find pleasure in Italy, spiritual piety in India and balance of the two in Indonesia. Unfortuately, Gilbert packs up her depression, anxiety and loneliness to take with her.
Gilbert studies yoga and meditation with a Hindu guru. As a Christian, this is not my thing, but I can appreciate her desire to pursue the spiritual. And her daily life in the Indian Ashram is interesting. Awake for prayers and meditation at 3:30 am. Yikes! That’s dedication.
She does talk quite a bit about meditation, which reminded me of The Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. Foster has a chapter in this Christian classic dedicated to meditation. I’ll have to dust it off for a re-read.
As for the Indonesian comparisons, Gilbert lived in Bali and I lived on the island of Sulawesi, so even though we lived in the same country, the cultures are different from each other. Gilbert did have me laughing out loud when she described the “family mini-van.” Husband, wife and children all cramed onto a motorcycle, no helmets, weaving in and out of traffic. That’s a common sight Indonesia and it always amazed me too, especially to see the women calmly perched on the bike in a sarong. Amazing.
I’m always curious to read how others, especially non-believers, view God, prayer, heaven and hell. This book is a excellent view into one woman’s beliefs and while I disagree with what she believes, I learned a lot about how she thinks.
A note to my Christian readers: you may find some of the language and content in Eat, Pray, Love offensive. Consider yourselves warned.
This book is largely concered with Hobbits – from the prologue
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring (the first book of The Lord of the Rings) is one of the most popular books in the English language. It’s sold millions of copies, been translated into dozens of languages and brought to life on film.
I’m only sorry it’s taken me so long to finally read it.
I read The Hobbit years ago, and if I remember correctly, I attempted to read Fellowship before, but for some reason, I never got past the first chapter. I suspect it was during my college days and most of my reading energy went to textbooks. (What a pity for an English major to admit – she had no time to read real books.)
Most of my fiction reading this year has been fantasy. (I blogged at bit about those books here and here.) I don’t really want to offer a review of Fellowship, since it is a beloved classic; I mainly want to record that I read it, enjoyed it, and would love to read it again.
Ever since I was a girl, I”ve enjoyed traveling to other worlds produced by an author’s imagination. Isn’t that what a good story should do? Take us away from the everyday-what-we-know to another place to have adventures? That’s why we can re-read these stories again and again never growing weary of the tale.
Having said that, the book I started today is not fantasy and not a work of fiction. It’s… well, just wait and see.