In the absence of Maura (We missed you!), I will touch on the highlights of our discussion.
- One of the questions for discussion from the publisher quoted author Gilbert as saying that American is"an entertainment-seeking nation, not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one." Our group agreed, noting how often we feel guilty for "doing nothing" when we should be enjoying a chance for solitude or an attempt to rest and reflect. Europeans, we decided, are much more able to just relax and enjoy when the opportunity presents itself.
- A member commented on the brilliant structure of the book: one chapter for each of the 108 beads on the japa mala, Indian prayer beads. We also decided that the order in which the author visited her countries was well chosen: Italy to eat too much, learn to relax, and gain weight; then India to the ashram where she ate vegetables and brown rice and scrubbed floors--surely an accidental weight-loss program!
- During her stay at the ashram, Gilbert decides to become silent. Her goal is to become"The Quiet Girl." At that point she is assigned the job of Key Hostess, a job where the assignment is to greet new guests and be "social and bubbly and smiling all the time." She must talk! The universe has a sense of humor, and a sense of a person's true personality.
- Another discussion ranged around the author's quest for a word that describes her. She had been told that cities have a defining word: "Rome's word is SEX" for example. She finally decided to choose "Anteavasin" for herself. The word means "one who lives at the border." She sees herself as one who has left her normal life to become a seeker after wisdom, but one who has not yet arrived. The club decided that her word was really one on which she focused in Italy: Attraversiamo. It means "Let's cross over." The two words seem related in meaning.
2 comments:
Gilbert lost favor with some in the book club because in the end, she finds love again. In her defense, Gilbert spent a year of her life doing nothing but trying to put the past behind her, working through her pain, reconnecting with her inner self, devoting the whole of her days to prayer, meaningful interaction, and soul-searching for truth and knowledge of how we fit into the universal scheme of things. Not many of us have the luxury of taking a year off to do this, which is why it can take us the better part of a lifetime to make the leaps she has made in just one year, to overcome the bitterness of a failed relationship, or to enlighten ourselves on a path of inner peace and happiness.
It's not like she jumped from one relationship to another (although David was the epitome of a rebounder). Gilbert shunned going out to the party where she met Felipe, the Brazilian, but eventually gave in to the peer pressure to "get out and circulate." Then she kept a safe distance from him after they met; she didn't just plunge into a love affair, she led in with her big toe, one foot, then the other, slowly followed by body and soul. Sometimes no matter how hard we fight it, when the right love comes along, its power is too strong to deny. What does one gain in trying to fight it, instead of giving in to love? In our time, it Pollyannaish to be a romantic? Who are we to say that two persons from two different continents who found each other on a third continent weren't meant to be together? Isn't life about seeking happiness? Did not Thomas Jefferson recognize this when framing our constitutional right to "the pursuit of happiness?"
Isn't it interesting what we remember. I remember thinking, maybe saying, that Gilbert had a good thing with her traveling romance: she had a loving relationship, but also time to herself when he was out of the country. I think I was spending the session feeling envy!
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