# Eat Pray Love (the movie): is Elizabeth Gilbert a \[expletive\] or is it just me? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 1, 2010, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510 "2010-12-01T04:31:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![fennarama](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d6d6ee/32.png) [@fennarama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fennarama)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2020, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/221 "2020-02-07T13:44:44Z")
It’s not the movie, she is self-involved and clueless… > **[Elizabeth Gilbert: "When I wrote about women’s emotions and women’s journeys...](https://www.salon.com/2013/10/05/elizabeth_gilbert_when_i_wrote_about_women%E2%80%99s_emotions_and_women%E2%80%99s_journeys_i_got_shunted_off/)** > > The author talks about her new novel, her journalism career and the backlash against "Eat, Pray, Love" ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2020, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/222 "2020-02-07T15:06:57Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > Unless you think that no one ever should divorce unless there’s actual physical abuse or cruelty. Well, there are those that believe that. Think of all the centuries of arranged marriages, and the expectations of the last couple hundred years that every single woman alive will end up married and procreating [whether or not they want to unless they join a convent] Divorce simply was not done, and in many case not legally available unless there was some form of abuse going on. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2020, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/223 "2020-02-07T15:32:30Z")
> [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](#): > > There’s plenty out there on blogs and such, covering the aftermath. The hunky 2nd husband was a homely looking old dude, who most likely married her for a Green card. She wrote about it, too. What little I read of her writing, it seemed to be a rather unromantic boring relationship that would not last for someone like her. I’m sure it ended because there was little passion (perhaps from either side), despite the Hollywood story and her attempts to make it look good as justification for her divorce/journey. It was a bit more complicated than that. She left her husband for a woman who she had been friends with for many years. They became partners but never formally married. She died of pancreatic cancer less than 2 years later. Gilbert sold her beautiful home near here and I had heard bought another in town but now it seems she’s living in NYC. I guess that’s why I don’t here so much about her anymore. She used to be the most conspicuous famous person in the county. ---
**Author:** ![actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/actualliberalnotoneofthose)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2020, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/224 "2020-02-08T21:25:56Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > It was a bit more complicated than that. She left her husband for a woman who she had been friends with for many years. They became partners but never formally married. She died of pancreatic cancer less than 2 years later. > > Gilbert sold her beautiful home near here and I had heard bought another in town but now it seems she’s living in NYC. I guess that’s why I don’t here so much about her anymore. She used to be the most conspicuous famous person in the county. Yeah, I remember hearing about that but I think what I posted about her marriage certainly factored into why she was so willing to leave it. It wasn’t close to the Hollywood version used as justification for her journey and “happy ending.” ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2020, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/225 "2020-02-10T03:30:49Z")
I find this thread fascinating, not least because my wife of 25 years did what Gilbert did: decided to leave the marriage for no particular reason, and left with half our wealth (I was the breadwinner, she was several years unemployed at the time), and somehow felt victimized and sad. I don’t blame her for the first, even though the hurt it caused me is still felt years later. But the latter is ridiculous. Anyway, re Gilbert’s character flaws, I saw this [in her wikipedia entry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Gilbert): > [@](#): > > In a 2015 article for The New York Times titled “Confessions of a Seduction Addict,” Gilbert wrote that she “careened from one intimate entanglement to the next—dozens of them—without so much as a day off between romances.” She acknowledged, “Seduction was never a casual sport for me; it was more like a heist, adrenalizing and urgent. I would plan the heist for months, scouting out the target, looking for unguarded entries. Then I would break into his deepest vault, steal all his emotional currency and spend it on myself.” She realised that, “I might indeed win the man eventually. But over time (and it wouldn’t take long), his unquenchable infatuation for me would fade, as his attention returned to everyday matters. This always left me feeling abandoned and invisible; love that could be quenched was not nearly enough love for me”. I mean…wow. That’s really messed up. For any gender. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2020, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/226 "2020-02-10T03:38:17Z")
“…love that could be quenched…” I think she is talking about passion, not love. Passion burns itself out, love doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2020, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/227 "2020-02-10T03:47:11Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > “…love that could be quenched…” I think she is talking about passion, not love. Passion burns itself out, love doesn’t. Love, like passion, is not preserved in amber. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2020, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/228 "2020-02-10T03:53:16Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Love, like passion, is not preserved in amber. If it were you wouldn’t be able to fondle it. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2020, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/229 "2020-02-10T04:12:06Z")
[Moderating] I’d prefer to at least keep sexist expletives out of thread titles. Accordingly, I have edited this one. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2020, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/230 "2020-02-10T04:12:36Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > “…love that could be quenched…” I think she is talking about passion, not love. Passion burns itself out, love doesn’t. Well, she did describe it as infatuation in the previous sentence. The woman does sound like an attention vampire or something. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2020, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/231 "2020-02-10T05:28:30Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > If it were you wouldn’t be able to fondle it. Ooo but imagine the Jurassic Park sequel that could make… ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2020, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/232 "2020-02-10T22:51:24Z")
I found more of “confessions of a seduction addict” [here](https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/elizabeth-gilbert-confessions-of-a-seduction-addict-20150630-gi1e27.html). > [@Liz Gilbert](#): > > Seduction is the art of coercing somebody to desire you, of orchestrating somebody else’s longings to suit your own hungry agenda. If the man was already involved in a committed relationship, I knew that I didn’t need to be prettier or better than his existing girlfriend; I just needed to be different. > > My guilt about the other woman was no match for the intoxicating knowledge that somewhere on the other side of town somebody couldn’t sleep that night because he was thinking about me. > > You might have called me a serial monogamist, except that I was never exactly monogamous. > > In my mid-20s, I married, but not even matrimony slowed me down," she reveals. "Predictably, I grew restless and lonely. Soon enough I seduced someone new; the marriage collapsed. So clearly she left her first husband for someone else, and had been doing so before and after their marriage, and never stopped. ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2020, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/233 "2020-02-10T23:58:25Z")
> [@fennarama](#): > > It’s not the movie, she is self-involved and clueless… > > [https://www.salon.com/2013/10/05/elizabeth\_gilbert\_when\_i\_wrote\_about\_women’s\_emotions\_and\_women’s\_journeys\_i\_got\_shunted\_off/](https://www.salon.com/2013/10/05/elizabeth_gilbert_when_i_wrote_about_women%E2%80%99s_emotions_and_women%E2%80%99s_journeys_i_got_shunted_off/) It’s weird that you just now revived this thread that last died in 2016 with an article from 2013, but it’s even weirder that you used that article to show that she’s self-involved and clueless. I mean, I haven’t read much of her oeuvre, but she comes across pretty well in that interview, I think. What exactly set you off? ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2020, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/234 "2020-02-11T03:08:30Z")
Yeah, I didn’t get fennarama’s point either. I’m glad this zombie came back though, I found it interesting and hadn’t heard much about EPL or the author before. And, hell, it took these 10 years to finally answer the thread title’s question via post #232: yes, she is. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510.md?page=11)