Eat, Pray, Love's Elizabeth Gilbert: Marriage Over

[Howl]

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, announced on FB Friday that she and her husband have separated.  According to CNN, 

Quote

Gilbert met her husband, José Nunes, during the travels she chronicled in her 2006 memoir. The book sold more than 10 million copies and was made into a movie which starred Julia Roberts as Gilbert, in 2010.

"He has been my dear companion for over 12 years, and they have been wonderful years. Our split is very amicable. Our reasons are very personal," Gilbert continued in the post.

She added, "At this time of transition, I hope you will respect our privacy. In my heart, I know that you will do so, because I trust that you understand how this is a story that I am living — not a story that I am telling."

On the other hand, this was announced on a Friday, the day that news goes to die. 

She's finding solace in this beautiful poem by Jack Gilbert: 

Failing and Flying

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew. 

It's the same when love comes to an end, 

or the marriage fails and people say 

they knew it was a mistake, that everybody 

said it would never work. That she was 

old enough to know better. But anything 

worth doing is worth doing badly. 

Like being there by that summer ocean 

on the other side of the island while 

love was fading out of her, the stars 

burning so extravagantly those nights that 

anyone could tell you they would never last. 

Every morning she was asleep in my bed 

like a visitation, the gentleness in her 

like antelope standing in the dawn mist. 

Each afternoon I watched her coming back 

through the hot stony field after swimming, 

the sea light behind her and the huge sky 

on the other side of that. Listened to her 

while we ate lunch. How can they say 

the marriage failed? Like the people who 

came back from Provence (when it was Provence) 

and said it was pretty but the food was greasy. 

I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell, 

but just coming to the end of his triumph.

 

Jack Gilbert, "Failing and Flying

[Mercer]

I guess the downside of making your romance extremely public is that it will also be very public when things aren't working out anymore.

[PennySycamore]

Is Jack Gilbert her ex?  I read maybe half of Eat, Pray, Love,  but the author's self absorption got to me.

[Howl]

 I think the husband is called Felipe(?) in the book, but Jose Nunes in real life.  The late Jack Gilbert is not her ex, but a poet who was a strong inspiration. 

An essay about the late Jack Gilbert from the Atlantic magazine: 

Quote

When he died last year at 87, Jack Gilbert was a lesser-known literary outsider, a man who’d garnered attention from magazines and prize committees but fought stubbornly to remain anonymous. His obituary in The New York Times called him “Off the Literary Grid” in its headline and said “he was famous for eschewing fame”; his sometime partner, the poet Linda Gregg, told The Paris Review he “never cared if he was poor or had to sleep on a park bench.” But Gilbert’s fans sometimes rue that his commitment to a free, unconstrained, and often-impoverished lifestyle helped obscure what legacy he might have had.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of The Signature of All Things, had never heard of Jack Gilbert when she discovered him by odd coincidence in 2006—thanks, in part, to their shared last name. Since then, she told me, he’s become “the poet laureate of her life.” In our interview by phone, we discussed a favorite line from “A Brief for the Defense,” a poem that defends joy against its critics and insists on the centrality of pleasure and wonder in even dark realms of human experience, and how Jack Gilbert’s ode to joy became the defining text of Elizabeth Gilbert's life.

 

 

[FundieFarmer]

Interesting. I was drawn to her book when I could've used that adventure in my own life. Didn't get through it though...there was so much rambling!

[Eternalbluepearl]

I read that book while going through my own divorce at age 25. I liked the book and thought the movie was boring. I was kind of shocked to hear of this divorce. 

[AmazonGrace]

Oh I have the movie sitting on my unwatched DVD's shelf...  It probably would have been better to watch it while they were still together :)=

[Imrlgoddess]

This movie & book did wonders for me after my divorce. Liz became one of my heroes... I was terrified of starting my life completely over with no instruction manual or set of rules. I'd lost all faith in love and faith itself, her journey helped me deal. 

Ironically, I wasn't truly surprised to hear this. Sad for her, but not surprised. The one thing I've found to be present after even an amicable split is: no matter how in love you are with the new s.o., divorce puts the idea in your head that it's always possible. 

[Playagirl]

On Saturday, July 02, 2016 at 10:24 PM, PennySycamore said:

Is Jack Gilbert her ex?  I read maybe half of Eat, Pray, Love,  but the author's self absorption got to me.

I felt the same way, though I did manage to read the whole thing. I just found her completely self-absorbed to the point that it really detracted from the story.