Exactly NOT like "Eat, Pray, Love"

For three weeks this summer I was a teaching assistant for a writing course at an academic summer camp. The program focuse on academically advanced kids; the ones I was teaching are in middle and high school. One student, I'll call her Francesca, began every workshop with, "I really liked it because it was about (blank) and I also have experienced (blank)." After hearing this a few times, the instructor told the student that while being able to relate to a piece of writing is a start, we must go beyond that and actually look at the work itself, at its guts, its craft. In order to understand it, we go beyond the surface. If the only comment I can come up with is, "I liked this because it reminds me of me," my powers of discernment are faulty.

I have noticed a similar phenomenon in my personal life. When I decided to travel after my teaching stint, a few well-meaning friends said, "Oh, just like Eat, Pray, Love!" It is true that I am similar to Elizabeth Gilbert in a few ways. I am blonde. I am a writer. And there may be even more commonalities between us. Yes, my divorce was final June 25th. And yes, I love to eat and am beginning to deal with that compulsion. I also enjoy an expanding spiritual life. And yes, I am a writer working on a project that requires traveling. But my trip resembles "Eat, Pray, Love" as much as my brother's last camping trip resembled Krakauer's "Into the Wild."

If this experience is compared to anything, I would rather it be compared to Annie Proulx's "Fine Just the Way It Is," or Ian Frazier's "Great Plains." Or Richard Ford's "Rock Springs." William Least Heat-Moon's "Blue Highways." This trip is not just about me. It is about place, about family, about environment. Saying one experience or one piece of writing is "just like" another is dismissive and devaluing and indicates that the work is no longer itself, but a brand; evocative, but essentially meaningless. A caricature of itself. Suddenly when a woman between the ages of forty and seventy takes a trip, it is dubbed "Eat, Pray, Love."

With 7 million copies of E,P,L in print, Gilbert has reached writer rock star status. I won't say that being on just about everybody's best seller list for a year or more isn't appealing. But I will not devalue my work by saying it's just like someone else's.