Uncommitted

I finished reading Elizabeth Gilbert's latest, Committed a couple of weeks ago. When I first got the book, as detailed in a previous blog, I was beyond excited. I could not wait to dive into its crisp pages, hear the cracking of the book’s spine with the turning of pages. I couldn’t wait to immerse myself in its tale.

However, I admit dishearteningly, that when I put it down at its conclusion, I was quite disappointed. Granted, as Ms. Gilbert herself said at the book signing, it is difficult, if not impossible, to recreate the magic of Eat, Pray, Love a second time around. And I don’t think I expected her to. I mean these are two completely different stories at two completely different points in her life. But still…

Don’t get me wrong; Ms. Gilbert’s writings are still beautiful. They are still imbued with dripping details of exotic locations, cultures and people that only she can bring to life on paper that well. It is still fascinating to encounter people and places so intimately through her, because she gives everything a special place on her pages that commands respect and keeps her fans glued to her writing. She gives the reader a free boarding pass to visit corners of the planet that we would otherwise never get to see, understand and feel.

If it were a story only about travel, destinations, beauty, scenery, conflict of culture and the appreciation for America, then I would say her book was a winner. However, the book is about marriage. Specifically about the institution of marriage itself and how it affects cultures in all corners of the globe. This book was intended to be a kind of how-to manual for Ms. Gilbert, who is returning to marriage much like a calf to slaughter – completely unwilling and terrified.

And that is fine for her. Anyone with a soul can grasp the idea that a traumatizing divorce would make someone jaded about marriage. Ms. Gilbert certainly did have that kind of end-of-marriage, and it was by no means enviable.

What I do take issue with from this new book, is her intensely portrayed desire to never be a mother. When I finished Committed, I got the sense that Ms. Gilbert equates motherhood to a life sentence in a Turkish prison. The comparison she makes, or attributes to someone else, about agreeing to motherhood and agreeing to get a tattoo on your face being similar, was just harsh. Is her view on motherhood a socially unpopular ideology? It certainly is. And am I judging her from that point of view? To a degree, I probably am. However, her writing is powerful in that she conveys her sincere wishes about keeping her womb free and clear of any potential children to an almost spiteful point.

She goes into an entire diatribe where she lists the near-horrors of parenthood and the finer points of remaining childless. She quotes research after research and study after (highly respected) study on divorce rates among the married-with-children and the happily childless married. She nearly screams at her readers about how much happier the marriages are of the childless couples and how much longer their marriages last. I don’t need to point out which team Ms. Gilbert is on. I would hesitate to make such a blanket statement about children and marriage. If it were truly the case, the nuclear family, as we all know it, would have become extinct long ago. In criticizing her, I know that much of it can be traced back to my own as-yet unfulfilled desire to have a baby. However, as a reader I can also spot a smear campaign when I see one. And Elizabeth Gilbert comes off as someone on a self-imposed mission to save the innocent from parenthood – a state that she deems unfit for decent adult existence. A condition she find intolerable at best. It’s a good thing her mother didn’t feel this way when she decided to have her!

In writing this book, Ms. Gilbert manages to come off as callous and selfish: It’s just she and Felipe against the world and don’t anyone come in there to destroy that. She fails to acknowledge that Felipe’s wishes to not be a parent now comes on the caboose of his life, as he already has grown children of his own. And unless Felipe hated being a father, which I gather from this book is not the case; I cannot imagine why he would not want his beloved Elizabeth to experience it as well. No. Instead, these two go on and on about how a decision to have or not have kids could have become a deal-breaker, had they both not wanted the same thing. It goes on about how perfect their adult life is and, quite disturbingly, how potentially awful it could become if they did - God forbid - become parents.

I want to refrain from making comparisons to Eat, Pray, Love because, as I said, the tales are polar opposites. However, I have to point out one obvious thing. In Eat, Pray, Love we met an Elizabeth Gilbert who had been injured, but was opening herself up to the universe for guidance, for an embrace and for comfort. She was your every-woman who had gone through a life changing experience and wished to tell about it.

However, in Committed, Ms. Gilbert came off more as a self-indulgent being who sought only to twist and mold, tear apart and reestablish, reinvent and revolutionize, alter and justify the institution of marriage to suit herself. Apparently we have all been doing it wrong and here she is to save the day. Here she is to guide all of us blind, emotionally battered and flummoxed women of the world through the swamp that is marriage, as we know it today.

Well, I have news for Ms. Gilbert. Not everyone can view things through the narrow telescope she uses. Not everyone can toss fertility, or its opposite, carelessly away like so much rubbish. Not everyone gets marriage right the first, or second or third time around. And God bless the ones who keep hoping and keep trying. Bless the ones that eventually get it right.

What I would love for Elizabeth Gilbert to take away from this critique is that the very idea of a happy marriage is not only possible, but also probable. The idea of parenthood is not the end of all good things, but could be the beginning of everything. That children should not be thought of as a kind of punishment for the uterus-carrying part of society. And also, that parenting is not for the weak of heart and mind. Certainly, if she is not "man enough" to leap into the next frontier of human existence, she should just stay in her comfort zone…with Felipe.