One step beyond love

Bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert of 'Eat, Pray, Love' fame tells us why women feel a special connection with her books

After hearing Elizabeth Gilbert speak at the Jaipur Literature festival, it is hard to decide whether she is more inspiring as a speaker or as a writer. Armed with a plateful of food, which she kept digging into, Elizabeth drops pearls of wisdom from her lips, as I attempt to distil them.

Elizabeth Gilbert’s, ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, has sold millions of copies and given confidence to so many women to learn to explore and live life on their own terms. Asked if the reference to her books being chick-lit bothers her, she says she does not consider it as an insult but an honour to write for women and clarifies with a quote from W C Fields: “It is not what they call you but what you answer to.” She also adds that she loves and respects the women she writes for.

What’s the price you pay?

With regard to how her writing happens, Elizabeth modestly speaks of a connection with the ‘Mother Ship’ from where her ideas trickle in. However, she is clear that though suffering and grief may be the price you pay for love, they need not necessarily be the lodestone for creativity. Gilbert is categorical when she states, “the notion that pain is linked to creativity is European, male and a Narcissistic idea.”

She is of the belief that creativity is open to all and that we all are repositories of our shared human experience, which can be delved into, to be eventually fashioned into good writing. She says that the one relationship in her life, which has not been fraught with trauma, is the one with writing. “I love it. It loves me back. I serve it and it serves me back.”

Keeping with the theme of prayer mentioned in her bestseller, it is clear that Elizabeth has a close connection with spirituality. The words ‘God’ and ‘guidance from the universe’ keep slipping into her conversation, as they do in ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, even as she admits to “not being in control.”

She speaks of the dance between her and the mystery of the universe and “not being able to make things happen that are not supposed to happen and not being able to stop things from happening that are supposed to happen.”

In this context, she refers to her love for her woman partner, Rayya, and how she forced herself to come to terms with her loss. After miring herself in sorrow, she opted to write a joyous book, ‘The City of Girls’, just to pull herself together through the discipline of writing.

Marriage benefit analysis

About her writing habits, Elizabeth says her practice involves writing for a specific person and not an audience at large. “Every book that I have ever written is written directly for one person in my life, whom I choose to entertain, educate and touch.”

Gilbert refers time and again to the ‘marriage benefit analysis’ with sociological statistics to reveal that married women take years off their lives and hand it over to men who benefit from it.

The bestselling author speaks of statistics, which reveal that men are better off for being married whilst single women have much more going for them in terms of success as compared to married women. She is annoyed by cultures across the world that pressure women by saying that they are complete only in a marriage when there is enough data to the contrary.

The humour that is a part and parcel of Elizabeth’s writings surfaces again and again in her spoken words and one cannot help but chuckle along. On the stereotyping of writers as recluses, Gilbert is quick to state, “I have the soul of a writer but the personality of an airline hostess,” which is why she is able to connect with her fans on social media sites. She keeps them abreast of all that is happening in her life even as they share their own stories with her. However, she clarifies that no writer should feel compelled to follow the same path if she is not comfortable with the idea.

Gilbert adds that nothing brings her as much as joy as to find that people who post in her comments section have connected with each other and become friends. At the end of a tete-a-tete with Elizabeth Gilbert, one cannot but walk away with a smile on one’s face on meeting an author whose writing has brought joy into the lives of so many women — one with a special gift of being able to offer them a sense of connection and sisterhood.