Book Review: Committed
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
This Might At First Seem Like a Review of Eat, Pray Love. It’s Not. I’m Just Long-winded Like That.
I might be the only woman in the world who did not finish Elizabeth Gilbert’s famed Eat, Pray, Love. I did read the Italy part of the book, and part of India, too. And that much of the book affected me in a major way. For instance, before I’d picked up that book, I’d thought Italy was overrated. It was the place where everyone else went. Therefore I did not need to go there. No, people like me? We went to unusual places, like South Africa and Iceland. We did not go to Italy.
This summer, I will turn 40. Thanks to Gilbert, I’m going to celebrate that milestone by going to Italy—Tuscany to be precise—so I can take some cooking classes, not to mention eat a lot of fattening food and drink a lot of wine. I suppose I’ll have to eat a cream puff in Gilbert’s honor as well. I don’t know how I’m going to fund this trip. But I do know that it’s going to happen.
Before I picked up Eat, Pray, Love, it had never occurred to me to write about my life. My life? BO-RING. That’s really what I thought. But Gilbert’s voice was so fresh and so fun and so something that it made me think, “Maybe I could have as much fun with my writing as she is having with hers.” Now I blog and I have a memoir coming out in January.
Indeed, the half of Eat, Pray, Love that I did read changed me.
I suppose the half that I didn’t read might have changed me even more had I not gotten bored in India. At some point after reading about meditation and floor scrubbing and that Texan guy, I closed the book, put it down, and let it sit for months.
That book sat unloved for so long that I eventually felt sorry for it. I gave it to my mother.
I don’t know if she ever opened it.
What I do know is this. People tell me that I should not have stopped at India. They tell me that I really ought to have kept going. They say that Indonesia is the best part of that book. They’ve even said that my life will be forever incomplete unless I resume my reading and get to the end of the book.
I found this intriguing. Wouldn’t you? So not long ago, when I noticed Eat, Pray, Love on my mother’s bookshelf, I asked her if I could have it back.
I put it on my bookshelf. There it sat.
And it sat there for months as I read other novels, other memoirs, and other self-help books.
Then a friend mentioned that she’d always wanted to read Eat, Pray, Love. I gave her my copy. The book deserved to be loved. Maybe she would give it the love that I had not.
Alas, I am still Indonesia deficient.
But that did not stop me from buying and reading Committed, Gilbert’s follow up to Eat, Pray, Love. I bought it for two reasons. One, it’s about marriage. I write a marriage blog. Duh.
Two, I have developed a wicked crush on Elizabeth Gilbert. If I were a lesbian, I’d be stalking her.
The crush started long after I didn’t finish Eat, Pray, Love. It started about a year ago, after I watched Gilbert’s TED lecture about trying to write a book after one has already written the biggest book one will probably ever write. I laughed. I cried. I commiserated.
I wanted to get in her pants.
And I began looking forward to her upcoming work with bated breath. I planned to read Committed and then write Gilbert, telling her, “It’s a fantastic book. You worried all this time for nothing. It’s even BETTER than Eat, Pray, Love. I didn’t even finish Eat, Pray, Love, but I finished Committed!”
And finish it I did. I finished it in just 1.5 days.
Committed is based on the year Gilbert spent coming to terms with the fact that she had to marry Felipe, who, had I read to the end of Eat, Pray, Love, would have already been familiar to me as the Brazilian guy she meets in Indonesia.
Gilbert had to marry Felipe because he was not a US citizen. Homeland Security barred him from ever entering the US again unless he married Gilbert.
Gilbert spent a year traveling through Southeast Asia with Felipe as the two waited for attorneys in the US to take care of the essential paperwork that would allow the two to marry. As they traveled, Gilbert fretted about the meaning and purpose of marriage. Could she possibly do it again? Would a legally binding marriage destroy their relationship? Was she cut out for marriage?
Oh, she had a lot of questions. How can one know for sure that one will not cheat on one’s spouse at one point in the next 60 years? Why do some people have affairs and others stay monogamous? Is it possible to love just one person and only one person for life? What is the difference between infatuation and love? Is there really a way for a woman to marry a man without losing a big piece of her self in the process? Why do some people fall out of love?
Her questions led her to interview women who lived in the small villages in Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. She also interviewed her mother, her friends, her sister—basically anyone who might have a take on the meaning and importance (or lack there of) of marriage. She read philosophical texts, historical texts and religious texts.
As I read, I found myself staring into space and thinking deeply about the many questions she raised. I imagined myself sitting down to beer and a slice of pizza with Gilbert. I would soothe her fears by telling her about my bad marriage gone good. This is what, during that imaginary meeting over pizza, I told her:
Elizabeth, yes, you might lose a part of yourself during marriage. Yes, you’ll probably have to compromise. Yes, you might one day find yourself doing things for him that you never in a zillion years thought you would find yourself doing. For instance, you might one day find yourself nicely folding his tightie whities and putting them in a neat pile in his drawer. Yes, you the intelligent, creative career woman might do that. Indeed, marriage changes a woman. But in exchange for whatever parts of yourself that you lose, you will gain something in return. Marriage, in its healthiest essence, is a partnership—it’s a business partnership, a child rearing partnership (if a couple chooses to spawn), and it’s a spiritual partnership. It’s about two people growing together and sacrificing together and supporting each other.
Elizabeth, let me tell you this. Five years ago I worked like a dog so my husband could start a business. Would I have done that had we not been married? I don’t think so. Lately, he’s been doing 80 percent of the household chores because I’ve been focused on my career. Would he do that were we just living together? I don’t know for sure, but I kind of doubt it.
Elizabeth, marriage allows you to take greater risks.
Marriage gives you the security you need to help each other chase down dreams.
In marriage, two halves do not make a whole. But two wholes can add up to a greater sum than two.
This, of course, doesn’t happen in all marriages. In some, the opposite takes place. In some, two halves remain two halves that are glued together by co-dependence. In others, two wholes add up to two wholes that have nothing in common.
But, Elizabeth, Felipe sounds like a wonderful husband who is a complete person. And you sound like a wonderful wife who is a complete person. Because of this, I know that your 1 plus 1 will add up to more than 2. It might not add up like that today or tomorrow, but it will eventually add up to 2.5 or 3 or possibly even 4. And, when it does, you’ll understand what marriage is all about. Trust me.
