I was never turned off by the book’s subject, “one woman’s search for everything across Italy, India, and Indonesia”.
But I am increasingly pissed off by the backlash against it in articles and blogs and on Twitter, a backlash which frames Gilbert’s memoir and its spin-off movie as “full of itself”, “self-indulgent”, “fun to hate”, and “smacking of self-obsession and therapy culture”.
If I hadn’t been kicked out of the society of cynical liberals for saying LOL, I’d certainly be kicked out for what I’m about to say next:
If more people meditated, travelled alone, and yes, underwent therapy, the world would be a much better place.
Yeah, I said it.
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It’s one of the most-read memoirs ever, so of course I had to write about it at some point… In this post (on my Wordpress blog) I call Elizabeth Gilbert’s critics “cynical, emotionally stunted sexists”. Which ought to cover it.
