Book SummaryEat Pray Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Eat Pray Love

Elizabeth Gilbert was 30 years old when she realized her life was headed in the wrong direction. She was married to a man she loved dearly, but they wanted different things. He wanted a family, and she wanted to explore her independence. For the next four years, Gilbert moved through the emotional struggles of ending one life and beginning another. In Eat Pray Love, Gilbert shares her story of survival and transformation when all seemed lost. It is the story of her journey from darkness into the light.

Losing Everything in New York

For nearly two months, Gilbert snuck out of bed each night in her home in Upstate New York that she shared with her husband. She hid in the bathroom, feeling ashamed, confused, and guilty about wanting to be free of her marriage. One night, she became so overwhelmed that she cried and prayed for the first time in her life. She asked God for help and a sign of what to do. Suddenly, she heard a voice. It sounded like her voice but also different. The voice told her to go to bed and rest. She would need it for what was to come.

Seven months later, Gilbert separated from her husband. She wanted the divorce to be amicable, but her husband was too hurt. He refused all settlement offers and held her hostage in the marriage for years. Gilbert was confused, alone, and saddened by her husband’s hatred of her, but her spirits were lifted by a new love—David.

Gilbert fell hard and fast for David. Her husband had taken both their house and apartment in the city, so she moved into David’s Manhattan apartment right away. Their love was passionate and playful, but things changed after 9/11. The stress of her divorce and the attack on her city was too much for Gilbert, and she became needy. The more she needed David’s love, the more he withheld it.

Seeking Solace

After her first breakup with David, Gilbert fell into a deep depression. She became suicidal and started taking antidepressants. The only thing that helped was her newfound interest in an Indian Yogi Guru. She started to learn about meditation and decided she wanted to visit this Guru’s Ashram one day.

During this time, Gilbert also started learning Italian. She’d always wanted to, and now seemed as good a time as ever. She found so much joy speaking the sensual Italian words and phrases, she wondered what immersing herself in the culture might do for her. She also visited Bali during this time on assignment for a magazine. While there, she met a medicine man who read her palm. He said she didn’t need to worry so much. She would lose everything, including all her money, but she would get it all back. He also said she would come back to visit him again and teach him English.

When Gilbert returned home, she hatched a plan. She would visit Italy, India, and Indonesia over the course of a year to find pleasure in life and a spiritual awakening. She saw the common letter “I” as an auspicious sign. Her husband finally agreed to a settlement, in which he took all of her money, but she was free. Her book publisher gave her an advance to write about her year-long journey. The medicine man was right—her life was looking up already.

The Pleasures of Italy

After her divorce was finalized, Gilbert left everything behind, including her on-again-off-again relationship with David, to go to Italy. She landed in Rome and moved into a studio, where she would stay for four months. She signed up for language classes and started language exchange lessons with a young man named Giovanni.

Life in Rome was beautiful the first couple of weeks. Gilbert’s only desire while in Italy was to experience as much pleasure as possible, and her sole mission was to eat the best food she could find. Gilbert struggled at first to let go of her New England sensibilities that life was about hard work. The beauty of doing nothing, or bel far niente in Italian, went against her natural instincts. But this trip was about learning to enjoy life, so she worked hard to find the simple pleasures and appreciate them thoroughly.

Gilbert’s pleasure-seeking was thwarted, however, after only 10 days. She was walking home, admiring the architecture and open displays of love, when she was hit with the sinking sensations of loneliness and depression. She’d stopped taking her antidepressants because she was finding such joy in Italy, but she realized she was not yet healed from the emotional traumas of her past.

When Gilbert got home, guided by her loneliness and depression, she crawled under her covers in despair. Suddenly, her life seemed frivolous and sad. She didn’t know what she was doing and felt like a failure for her past relationships. She pulled out a small notebook and wrote a message asking for help. This notebook was where she had been communicating with the same voice from that night on the bathroom floor. Like always, the voice guided her to write a response. The message told her that she was loved, that she was not alone, and that she would always be taken care of. Gilbert felt her anxiety slip away and decided not to start her medication again.

Finding Her Place in the World

While in Italy, Gilbert took many side trips to other regions of the country. She traveled through Parma, Bologna, and Montepulciano to taste the wonderful food and wine famous in those areas. She and a friend traveled to Naples to eat the best pizza in the world. Gilbert couldn’t believe how good the pizza was. Eating it was an other-worldly experience. She caught sight of herself in the window and almost didn’t recognize herself. True, she’d gained weight on her tour of eating. But mostly, the person reflected back looked happy. She hadn’t seen that person in a long time.

On the way back to Rome, Gilbert realized not knowing where she stood with David was threatening her growth. She knew she had to officially end things with him. Part of her still longed for him, but she knew they made each other...

Eat Pray Love Summary Shortform Introduction

In the opening pages of Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert described the structure of her book. She based the chapter organization around the symbol of Hindu and Buddhist prayer beads called japa malas. The japa mala is constructed with 108 beads, and each bead represents a repetition of the meditation mantra to help meditators stay focused. Thus, Gilbert provided 108 chapters in the book.

In...

Eat Pray Love Summary Part 1: New York | Chapter 1: The Ending of a Life

Elizabeth Gilbert found herself on the bathroom floor of the home she shared with her husband four years before starting her spiritual journey. It was three o’clock in the morning. This was the 47th night in a row that she’d slipped out of bed and hid in the bathroom. What thrust her out of bed was the realization that she didn’t want to be married anymore.

Gilbert and her husband had dated for two years and been married for six. They lived along the Hudson Valley in Upstate New York and were working toward a Norman Rockwell existence. They wanted children, dinners around the table, and vegetable gardens in the yard. Gilbert had a wandering spirit, but she and her husband assumed that by 30 years old, she would be ready to settle into real life. She wasn’t.

Year after year, Gilbert waited for the proverbial “ticking clock” to kick in. She believed she should want a baby. That’s what people did—they got married, had kids, and lived happily ever after. But as time stretched on, she realized her idea of happily-ever-after looked very different.

Each time a pregnancy test came back negative, she was relieved. She had friends with new babies and saw the joy they felt. The...

Eat Pray Love Summary Part 2: Eat | Chapter 2: Roman Holiday

A few weeks after Gilbert’s divorce was finalized, she landed in Rome. She left everything behind—her job, her life, her on-again-off-again relationship with David, and the few possessions she had left. The divorce settlement and legal fees had cleaned her out. But when she pitched her travel idea to her publishers, they provided an advance that was just enough to cover a year abroad. Ketut was right. She lost all her money and got it back right away.

Gilbert rented a studio apartment in the posh district of Rome surrounding the Spanish Steps. Once in Rome, she wasted no time diving into the pleasures of Italy. Her first night, she ate spaghetti carbonara with spinach and garlic. She followed the handmade pasta with an artichoke, fried zucchini blossoms stuffed with cheese, veal, plenty of bread, and tiramisu. A bottle of red topped everything off.

After this meal, she walked back to her new home. She entered her studio, turned off the light, and laid down. She thought she would spend the rest of the night the same way she’d spent each night for almost two years—crying. Instead, she realized she was okay, even bordering on content. Before she could question it, she...

Eat Pray Love Summary Chapter 3: The New Elizabeth Gilbert

Gilbert’s older sister came to Rome shortly after the interaction with David. Whatever sadness remained vanished in the whirlwind of her sister, Catherine. Gilbert and her sister were very different. Where Gilbert was a loose planner, Catherine was precise. She brought 5 guidebooks, all of which she’d read and memorized before arriving. Gilbert had embraced Rome from a wanderer’s perspective, but Catherine embraced it like an organized tour guide.

As they toured the city, Catherine explained the history of the buildings and the different architectural periods. Gilbert saw all the churches and tourist sites she’d neglected and learned more about how this beautiful city came to be.

This visit was a bit of a milestone for the sisters. They’d grown up isolated on their parents’ tree farm, but they weren’t always close. Gilbert was always intimidated by her sister. In fact, the first time she ever stood up to Catherine was when she was 28 years old. There was also an undertone of resentment in their relationship. Gilbert had been everyone’s favorite, and except for relationships, life had been relatively easy for her. Catherine was smart, athletic, and fearless, but she’d had...

Eat Pray Love Summary Part 3: Pray | Chapter 4: Finding God in India

Gilbert landed in Mumbai at 1:30 am, and two hours later, she stood at the opening of the Ashram. Through the front gates, Gilbert could hear the morning prayer, the arati, which began each day at 3:30 am. This Sanskrit hymn was her favorite, and she couldn’t wait to join it. She stashed her bag behind a tree and slipped into the temple to pray.

After the prayer, Gilbert followed the worshippers into a smaller temple, where Indians and Westerners were seated in meditation. She hadn’t meditated since before she went to Italy. She sat down, closed her eyes, and began saying the mantra. Om. Na. Mah. Shi. Va. Ya. Om Namah Shivaya.

She started slowly, articulating each syllable. She repeated the mantra over and over, carefully unpacking each word. The next thing she knew, the sun was rising. She opened her eyes, looked around, and felt as though she’d been at the Ashram forever. Italy was suddenly a distant memory.

A Brief Introduction to Yoga and the Ashram

For Gilbert and the other worshippers, the practice of Yoga was not about exercise—the Hatha Yoga that so many in the West practice. The practice was about finding union between mind and body and preparing the...

Eat Pray Love Summary Chapter 5: Learning to Walk With God

The meditation hurdle was a big one for Gilbert, but it wasn’t the biggest. There was an ancient Yoga scripture called the Gurugita, or “Geet,” as Richard called it. The chant was 182 verses long and took an hour and a half to recite. It’s a conversation between Parvati, a divine goddess of creativity, and Shiva, a god and embodiment of consciousness. Their conversation revolves around the universe and its divine manifestation.

This Geet was Gilbert’s true nemesis. She’d hated it in New York and thought reciting it in India would help, but it didn’t. A moderate dislike of the words, tune, and length of the chant turned into a dreadful disgust. The residents were meant to sing the Geet each morning following the morning prayer and meditation. That it came before breakfast didn’t help matters. Gilbert often skipped the Geet. Instead, she meditated, wrote, or called her sister.

One of the main issues for Gilbert was that the Geet was considered a vital practice by her Guru. Everyone understood its power and significance. But she didn’t know how to get on board, so she asked for help from a resident monk. This monk was from New York and had been a professor of theater at...

Eat Pray Love Summary Part 4: Love | Chapter 6: Smooth Sailing in Indonesia

Soon after landing in Bali, Gilbert realized she was woefully unprepared for this portion of her trip. In all her years of traveling, she’d never landed in a country with no plan whatsoever. But there she was in Indonesia because of a 10-minute conversation with a medicine man two years ago. She had no knowledge about the customs, no friends waiting for her, and no idea of where she was heading. She also didn’t know about the one-month tourist time limit. She politely asked the customs officer if she could stay for four months. He politely replied no.

Now that she was there, Gilbert couldn’t fully recall what the medicine man had said to her. Did he say she would come back or should come back? And worse, she had no idea how to contact him or where he lived. She had his name and the name of a neighboring town—Ubud. It was as good a place as any to start.

One saving grace was that Bali was a popular tourist destination. It’s a small island, and the people speak English well. For a Westerner with money, Bali was easy to travel through. Gilbert took a taxi to Ubud and found a small hotel for $10 a night.

Gilbert likened Ubud to a Sante Fe-type community with monkeys...

Eat Pray Love Summary Chapter 7: A Future Comes Into View

Gilbert was given a reprieve from her dismal thoughts when she arrived at Wayan’s shop the morning after the party. Wayan had received word that her lease was up in a few months and the rent would be raised. She’d have to move again, but she didn’t have any money or anywhere to go. And she’d have to take Tutti out of school again. Each move jeopardized the little girl’s chances of going to university to study veterinary medicine like she wanted.

What made matters worse were two orphans Wayan had taken in not long before. The two girls, both barely adolescents, had been trafficked street hustlers. They’d been under the thumb of an adult who made them beg and then took the money. Wayan found them starving and brought them home. She took care of them like they were her own. This act of compassion by a poor single mother was more than Gilbert could believe. She was in awe.

Gilbert noticed Tutti walking around the store with a small piece of blue tile in her hand. She chanted over it and sat on it in a corner for a long time. Wayan explained that Tutti had found the tile outside a hotel construction site. She brought it home and prayed that she and her family could have a...

Shortform Exercise: Find Your Balance

Gilbert’s story is about overcoming struggles and finding your true spirit. How has her story helped you look at your struggles and happiness?

What aspects of Gilbert’s life before her year-long journey do you identify with? A broken heart? A loss of identity? Depression?