To think Elizabeth Gilbert massively manipulated public perception with Eat, Pray, Love?

[NotMySpiritualMother]

I know Eat, Pray, Love was a cultural moment but honestly, the more I reflect on it, the more uncomfortable I get. It was marketed as a journey of healing and self-discovery but at its core it was a hyper-privileged escape fantasy dressed up as a mental health breakthrough. She made a fortune off the “spiritual travel for broken women” blueprint and has since rebranded herself multiple times - including shifting narratives about her sexuality, personal life and identity in ways that feel strategic more than authentic.

AIBU to think that the public was groomed into seeing her as a spiritual guide, when really it was just marketing wrapped in incense?

Surely it was obvious to everyone from the start that she was a complete grifter?

I always found her massively annoying and fake so the fact she's reinvented herself so often isn't a great surprise. YANBU.

I never read the book, or had any interest in seeing the film either, so I can't really comment on any of that. Maybe it was appealing to a particular demographic? Lots of lost people, looking for some form of escapism, I suppose.

I enjoyed reading Eat Pray Love much more than I thought I would. I do share your cynicism though about how authentic or otherwise it all was in light of her recent book. I read an excerpt of it in a newspaper and she sounded absolutely unhinged and deeply disturbed. Yet again, she's touting it as a brave and admirable story of survival. I find her very strange

I barely got a few chapters into the book because I found it really smug: it was basically a 2010s reboot of what the privileged hippy kids did in the 60s. Admittedly I was in a very cynical frame of mind when I read it but I doubt I would feel more charitable today.

To be honest it just seems really blindingly obvious: if things have gone really badly for you a reset and a rest in a different setting is good. Rebranded for the angsty 2010s but its a story as old as the hills.

Also as a PP said its nauseatingly privileged: we'd all love to take 12 months off to take our feet off the pedal and "find" ourselves but who can actually do it?

But maybe I'm being overly cynical...

I think she likes she likes the narrative of herself better than the experience of being herself. And that's fairly common, so a neatly parcelled book presenting self creation through narrative as triumph found an audience.

I wonder though if she's misjudged how far the method can be stretched? Not sure it can accommodate the really quite grotesque and unedifying behaviour in the new book where everyone is that bit older, thought processes less elastic, capacity for transcendence dulled by years of excess, and they aren't so much glorious damned and beautiful, nothing aspirational.

Weirdest thing is, I swear I've read a version of it on Mumsnet.

Groomed? Seriously? She wrote a book, people were free to read it or not, take on board what she wrote or not. I know I read it, think I felt ambivalent about it and don't remember a word of it. Anyone (over 16) who feels one book is their spiritual guide needs to have robust look at themselves.

I mean I skim read it as a still quite naive and slightly idiotic 20something and even then i thought it was a load of American "ohhhh are you excited for Euroooope" navel gazing claptrap

I have no clue who liked it

I have no clue who liked it

The Guardian?? 🤪

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/sep/23/eat-pray-love-review

She's a nutter.
But also a great writer.

There was a fairly thorough but fair takedown in the guardian a couple of months ago. She's certainly left some broken hearts on the way.

She is of a similar ilk to the writer of the salt path really I feel.

I’ve never read it or seen the film. Trite, mawkish nonsense wrapped up in faux spirituality from what I could gather.

You all should read " The Signature of All Things". Brilliant book. Also her New Yorker and other magazine pieces.

Is it bad that I’ve never heard of it? 😳

There was no sense of actual self-esteem - I am deeply sceptical of any story where a romantic relationship is required for a happy ending.

Plus - she put on weight because she ate proper dinners in Italy but that was ok because then she went to an ashram and got skinny.

I didnt consider her aspirational in the first place

Do you not just think people change/ evolve/ whatever? So she wrote a book that to be fair was a very enjoyable one, people gravitated towards it but that doesn’t mean she has to live what her philosophies were back then forevermore?

If anyone got through that self indulgent borefest and decided to go on a journey of self discovery Id be surprised. ' eat' was ok but god it was tedious!

She lost me from the opening chapters about how awfully traumatised she felt about walking out of her marriage (she left him not vice versa) so that she needed a publisher to fund her navel-gazing for a year.

DNF the book.

Didn't watch the movie.

A whole lot of bullshit.

Eat pray love.

Not read the book, but to me its just a woman who wrote a book, and made some money from it.
I have seen the film, and see it as just that a film.
I dont read in to it i just watched it.

Tbf I think even at the time of publication most people thought it was enjoyable fluff (at best). I've not heard anyone seriously describe her as a guru. If anything it read a bit like a soap opera, I think that was the appeal. A bit of a Shirley Valentine thing of running away from real life.

Since then I'd say stuff has come out about her that is more concerning, she seems quite a messed up, manipulative person.

I haven't read her stuff and don't plan to, but I'm a bit uncomfortable with having relationships with both sexes being seen as 'rebranding'. I understand how it's easy for monosexual people (either straight or gay) to think of it that way, because it doesn't make sense to them - but some people do just fancy both sexes.

I'm also not really clear how publicising her relationship with a woman would be 'strategic'. Most readers are straight, and are mostly interested in reading about straight relationships. If anything she was probably at least slightly risking her established readership, which wanted to hear about ending up with Javier Bardem, not one's best female friend. Also makes the book harder to publicise in more conservative countries.

She tried to kill her most recent lover, a woman. And then wrote a book about it. I will leave you to Google!

EPL = perfect example of ‘auto-fiction’.

I loved it as a sanitised piece of escapism but throughout thought - what! In the whole year she had not one set back????