![Picture](/uploads/1/3/7/9/1379571/6723885.jpg)
Ego crap aside, Gilbert is funny. Her writing envelopes my hard-to-rustle humour zone. I loved the first part of this novel where she is gorging in Rome and enveloping herself with the pleasures of all of the deadly sins that are not sexual. Her spiritual journey, although dull at times, is meaningful and has purpose behind it. Despite my research or Ashrams tainting my high regard for the spiritual experience, I found the book inspiring. If she made up her journey, good on her. It doesn't really matter to me because I took what I liked and left the rest from this reading experience. It helped that I was traversing her experiences on the beach in Cuba for the most part. The romanticism was probably heightened. Oh well.
Gilbert had some fun with this travel narrative and explored/divulged a lot of raw realities of her life in return. I think that, even if she's full of beans in some places, she's still creating of buffet of criticism toward herself and the mistakes she's made and for that, I tip my hat to her. I have to admit that sometimes I wanted to page punch some paragraphs concerning her Brazilian lover who fawns over her like she is a Petrarchan mistress in a meadow of fauns.
Fauns aside, it was a nice little read.