Viking, January 5, 2010
Author Elizabeth Gilbert and her Brazilian sweetheart Felipe face a stark decision when Felipe gets handcuffed and detained at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport: to marry, or to flee forever from the institution that haunts them?
In Committed, Gilbert-author of the self-described "megajumbo international best seller" Eat, Pray, Love (2006)-spends a year exploring the Western marriage tradition by delving into topics such as history, feminism, autonomy, and expectation. The subject of Committed nicely follows that of Eat, Pray, Love, which is a book about Gilbert's quest for self-healing during the year following her crushing divorce.
At the end of Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert meets Felipe in Indonesia, and the two swear eternal fidelity to each other, but-as she reveals in Committed they also swear not to get legally married again (both being survivors of bad divorces). They have spoken private vows to each other, and they have exchanged rings, and they are living together contentedly without being wed. But here enters the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which imprisons Felipe overnight in Dallas and sends him packing back to Australia, his country of legal citizenship.
Author Elizabeth Gilbert and her Brazilian sweetheart Felipe face a stark decision when Felipe gets handcuffed and detained at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport: to marry, or to flee forever from the institution that haunts them?
In Committed, Gilbert-author of the self-described "megajumbo international best seller" Eat, Pray, Love (2006)-spends a year exploring the Western marriage tradition by delving into topics such as history, feminism, autonomy, and expectation. The subject of Committed nicely follows that of Eat, Pray, Love, which is a book about Gilbert's quest for self-healing during the year following her crushing divorce.
At the end of Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert meets Felipe in Indonesia, and the two swear eternal fidelity to each other, but-as she reveals in Committed they also swear not to get legally married again (both being survivors of bad divorces). They have spoken private vows to each other, and they have exchanged rings, and they are living together contentedly without being wed. But here enters the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which imprisons Felipe overnight in Dallas and sends him packing back to Australia, his country of legal citizenship.
Readers need not know the Eat, Pray, Love backstory to join Gilbert where her new book's narrative begins: in a small village in northern Vietnam. Gilbert is sitting around a kitchen fire with a group of local women, trying to ask them questions about marriage in a language she doesn't speak or understand. She's enlisted a precocious twelve-year-old as a translator, but her own interpretation of the conversation is at turns insightful and funny. Gilbert maintains this relationship to her subject matter through the book. She's a guide, of sorts, who will make us laugh and think and brood over the question of marriage in ways we haven't before.
Gilbert happens to be in northern Vietnam because she's joined Felipe in his exile. The couple has applied for a fiancé visa and plans to return to the U.S. to marry, since the Dallas-Ft. Worth Homeland Security officer informed them that this is the quickest way to solve their dilemma. But it turns out, the process takes nearly a year, and Gilbert finds herself "wandering haphazardly across Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Indonesia" with the man she loves.
Gilbert happens to be in northern Vietnam because she's joined Felipe in his exile. The couple has applied for a fiancé visa and plans to return to the U.S. to marry, since the Dallas-Ft. Worth Homeland Security officer informed them that this is the quickest way to solve their dilemma. But it turns out, the process takes nearly a year, and Gilbert finds herself "wandering haphazardly across Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Indonesia" with the man she loves.
Ever-resourceful, Gilbert decides to use the time to "put a little effort into unraveling the mystery of what…this befuddling, vexing, contradictory, and yet stubbornly enduring institution of marriage actually is."
Eat, Pray, Love fans will have a difficult time not comparing this book to its immediate predecessor, which spent 57 weeks in the #1 spot on the New York Times paperback bestseller list and has been published in more than thirty languages. Gilbert herself struggled with how to write another book after such a stunning success. The idea of trying to satisfy an audience of millions of readers troubled her, so she decided to vastly limit her audience and chose to write Committed for twenty-seven readers that included a small circle of her closest female friends, relatives, and neighbors.
Gilbert's imagined audience undoubtedly sets the tone for this book, which remains intimate and conversational despite its inclusion of research and historical matter. Gilbert navigates nicely through these shifting waters. She quite easily discusses, for example, how her parents have divided up their garden patch-an example of autonomy-and how a British author named Sir William Robert Ferdinand Mount has convinced her that marriage is a subversive act.
Eat, Pray, Love fans will have a difficult time not comparing this book to its immediate predecessor, which spent 57 weeks in the #1 spot on the New York Times paperback bestseller list and has been published in more than thirty languages. Gilbert herself struggled with how to write another book after such a stunning success. The idea of trying to satisfy an audience of millions of readers troubled her, so she decided to vastly limit her audience and chose to write Committed for twenty-seven readers that included a small circle of her closest female friends, relatives, and neighbors.
Gilbert's imagined audience undoubtedly sets the tone for this book, which remains intimate and conversational despite its inclusion of research and historical matter. Gilbert navigates nicely through these shifting waters. She quite easily discusses, for example, how her parents have divided up their garden patch-an example of autonomy-and how a British author named Sir William Robert Ferdinand Mount has convinced her that marriage is a subversive act.
Committed captures more than the self-exploration and brokenhearted globetrotting that defines Eat, Pray, Love. Yes, this book is still adventurous and far-flung, as Gilbert and her guy wander through Southeast Asia, but many of the family stories in Committed keep this subject matter tethered closer to Gilbert's American home.
This exploration of marriage is intense and personal, so while Gilbert's approach may be a good model for readers to follow, her findings support the idea that any good inquiry must be as unique as the person behind it. And any good marriage is defined as such by those who remain committed to it.
This exploration of marriage is intense and personal, so while Gilbert's approach may be a good model for readers to follow, her findings support the idea that any good inquiry must be as unique as the person behind it. And any good marriage is defined as such by those who remain committed to it.
