In Eat, Gilbert’s year-long journey is spurred by an ugly divorce. She’s seeking self-healing and wisdom on her trip. In Committed, she’s struggling with the need to marry the man she met on her Eat, Pray, Love journey. [He's not an American citizen, and thanks to some fun with INS, they must either marry or live the rest of their lives outside the United States, problematic for them both.]
I was excited to read Committed after enjoying Eat so much. I don’t understand the critics who’ve called this book self-indulgent. Of course it’s self-indulgent. So was Eat, Pray, Love. This is serious navel-gazing. Gilbert notes as much and doesn’t apologize for it. So that’s pointless criticism to me.
I will say, don’t pick this up if you don’t like chick lit. It’s not chick lit exactly, but I can’t see a lot of men I know choosing this over a military history, for instance. My love of this book was quite personal, though. Gilbert struggles mightily with the mental anguish the failure of her first marriage caused. I divorced my first husband years ago, but it’s difficult to explain to others to this day, though I remain convinced it was in both our best interests. [I mean, not that it's any of your business.]
It’s easy to understand a divorce when someone cheats or commits another egregious fault like spousal abuse. I think that if those things have never happened to you [as they never have to me], you are alarmed not by a divorce that follows one spouse’s indiscretion — but you are terrified by divorces that have no visible explanation. If it can happen to them….
And Gilbert starts in such a hard place to contemplate her second marriage. The end of her first was so painful that she cannot think of marrying again, and her new partner is also pleased to be forever connected, forever unofficial about it. When the United States Homeland Security administration tells them they must marry for her partner to re-enter the U.S., they are truly conflicted, but decide to go ahead with plans as soon as he is allowed back.
I think even some people who loved her first book will find her difficulties with remarriage to be disingenuous, but I believed every word. I don’t have any way to know how much my thoughts about marriage have changed simply because I am older, how much was shaped by my first marriage [though I must assume quite a lot there], and how much by what I want for my children. I just know that I think about it almost completely differently now than I did when I first married in 1993. So I found Gilbert’s journey and philosophizing both genuine and interesting. Your mileage will vary, depending on your perspective, I suspect.
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