Committed Elizabeth Gilbert | ISBN : 1-59413-453-7

Committed

Author: Elizabeth Gilbert

Publisher: Thorndike Press

Publication Date: 25 January, 2011

ISBN: 9781594134531

Pages: 471

Subjects: Biographies, Social science, Family and relationships

Available as: Trade Cloth, 978-0-670-02165-9 Trade Cloth, 978-1-4104-2276-7 Trade Paper, 978-1-59413-453-1

Description:

Effectively sentenced to wed in order to live in America with her Brazilian-born partner (both were survivors of horrific divorces) Elizabeth Gilbert tackled her fears of marriage by trying with all her might to discover through historical research interviews and much personal reflection what this stubbornly enduring old institution actually is. In Committed she attempts with wit intelligence and compassion to "turn on all the lights" when it comes to matrimony

PW Publishers Weekly

Review Source: Publishers Weekly

Review Date: 2010-02-22

Gilbert's sequel to the megabestselling Eat, Pray, Love is a serious, sincere, yet ultimately tedious slog of a listen. Debating whether or not to marry her boyfriend, the author embarks on a one-year study of marriage's evolution, cultural variations, pitfalls, and pleasures. It's earnest and heartfelt, but there's no story. Gilbert's encapsulations of her research cannot sustain the reader's interest, and her forays into amateur anthropology in Southeast Asia are crude and uncharitable: she vacillates between tropes of the happy savage and crowing that the Hmong women she interviews will never know her level of education, health, and agency. But these considerable flaws belong to the material alone; Gilbert's reading is unimpeachable. Her voice is low, warm, slightly hoarse; her attitude is confiding and self-deprecating, and her charm does much in making the book's less palatable sections go down easily. A Viking hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 23). (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved