Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

Richard from Texas, a devotee at the ashram, has held many and varied jobs, and he provides Liz support and guidance. When he observes how much food she takes from the buffet, he calls her “Groceries.” He recognizes her control issues and confronts her with her ego. When Liz complains her ex-husband and David, her lover, didn’t behave the way she wanted, Richard tells her she didn’t get her way and it “pissed” her off. When she laments that in losing David, she lost her soul mate, Richard tells her David came to reveal another layer of herself, “to shake you up, drive you out of that marriage that you needed to leave, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light could get in” (165). He says she needs to get tough: “You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be” (165).

Richard has a frank approach to life. His marriage is over, and he appears to be over it. When he prayed to God to “open his heart,” he got open-heart surgery. He also gives Liz advice about her love life, that the best way to be over somebody is to get under someone: “You need a droughtbreaker, baby. Gotta go find yo’self a rainmaker” (297). Richard’s inner strength highlights the fragility Liz chooses to project about herself; and in the light of his perceptions, we see her self-deception. She is tough, except when she thinks she isn’t, and she obsesses over her emotional bruises. He tells her she needs to choose her thoughts the same way she selects her clothes.

Ketut, a ninth-generation medicine man, is the reason Liz returns to Bali. He drew a picture of her with four legs, no head, and a face in the heart. It meant she needed to stop approaching the world through the intellect and start approaching the world through the heart. This is how he practices his medicine. He prescribes herbs and rituals, chants mantras over water to make it holy, draws magic pictures to offer guidance, and performs ceremonies. He turns no one away. Liz has come back to Bali so that he can teach her how to find balance in her life. When he finally remembers her, he tells her that now she is “pretty.” Then she was “ugly.” He reinforces the physical well-being restored to Liz with all the eating in Italy and praying in India.

The meditation Ketut offers Liz, to sit in silence and smile, contrasts with the strict devotional practice of the ashram. Ketut wants her to do both. He considers yoga too hard, too serious. It scares away good energy. When you smile, you attract good energy. He wants her to smile even in her liver. He believes there are evil spirits that must be driven away, their invasion into the body sometimes determined by the day you are born. He eats one meal a day, drinks one cup of coffee, and meditates before sleep to bring healthy energy to his core from the five elements of the creation of the universe–water, fire, wind, sky, and earth. He regards the universe as a circle and instructs Liz in the Four Brothers meditation so that she knows she is guarded. His influence and teaching bring Liz inner peace.

Brazilian Felipe is 52, a man of the world, fluent in several languages, handsome, and secure with himself. Gilbert says that he needs a woman in his life, not to care for him, but rather “so that he can have someone to care for, someone to consecrate himself to” (343). He doesn’t present a challenge to Liz because he exerts no pressure. They spend hours together, telling each other their stories, at ease with their identities. His approach is casual, asking if they should have an affair. After dinner one night, he simply invites her into his bed. Her preoccupation with celibacy melts away, and they discover they are a “perfectly matched, genetically engineered success story” (325).

Felipe has been in Bali long enough to know the Balinese ways. When Wayan drags her feet about buying the house, he warns Liz to force Wayan to complete the purchase before she leaves Bali. He guides Liz with wisdom and business savvy. He acknowledges that Liz must leave, that unlike the ex-pats on the island, she has ambition and a career. He doesn’t press for marriage, for a formal union. He offers a workable arrangement that takes their responsibilities and logistical requirements into account: America, Australia, Brazil, and Bali. Liz came to Bali seeking balance, and his suggestion feels very natural as the memoir concludes.

Wayan, like Ketut, is a healer, and like Liz, divorced. When Ketut tells Liz she needs a doctor to heal her cut knee, Liz finds Wayan and her daughter, Tutti, and becomes a “regular” at the shop/restaurant/home they occupy. Wayan’s divorce places her outside the strict structure of Balinese society with its emphasis on clan and place, leaving her vulnerable financially and socially. Liz becomes involved with Wayan and her family and raises money to buy a house for her. The reader comes to know Wayan as a mother, healer, spiritual guide, sexual coach, and wily Balinese. Liz must enter Wayan’s Balinese game-playing to force her to purchase the property.

Wayan takes credit for bringing Felipe into Liz’s life. She believes she prayed him in. We learn that sex education is among her greatest skills and gain further insight into the Balinese culture as she itemizes the practical measures she uses for stimulation. She reveals her “wily” side in her treatment of the sterile husband. She brings in a young man off the street to impregnate the wife. The husband never knows he is sterile, so he can’t blame the wife for infertility and divorce her. Wayan introduces Liz to Armenia who introduces her to Felipe, which may have been Wayan’s plan all along.

These four men play instrumental roles in moving Liz forward in her development and healing. One might call them facilitators: Giovanni becomes Liz’s language partner for learning Italian. They meet to converse almost daily, and they eat and talk. They never exchange intimate personal information. When Liz receives the email from David confirming their break-up, Giovanni responds to her tears by telling her if she didn’t cry, she would be a robot.

Luca takes Liz around the back streets of Rome to dives she would never find. He introduces her to Italian soccer and invites her to his birthday party which he chooses to celebrate as an American Thanksgiving. This allows Liz to express her gratitude for the Italian experience.

Giulio tells Liz the word for Rome is “Sex.” This causes Liz to search for her word. She discovers it in a Sanskrit text: antevasin, one who lives at the border.

Yudhi works for the owner of the cottage Liz rents in Bali and spends evenings with her playing the guitar. He was deported from America after 9/11 as a potential terrorist because he was from Indonesia, even though he is a Christian. He has an American wife, loves American ways, and is homesick for New York. When he draws a map of New York City in the sand and he and Liz point out their favorite spots, the reader is reminded that she will soon return home, but he may never visit New York again.