The US - Germany Connection discussion

Committment by Elizabeth Gilbert.
On Chapter Two.
Some thoughts...Eleen think this is another one you are going to have to force yourself to finish/or not. Suzanne the same things that annoyed you about her in Eat, Pray, Love will probably annoy you even more in this one. She makes points and then goes yhea....but a lot. It is interesting and insightful without being engrossing or absorbing like a novel...but there is an awful lot there to talk about so....let the discussion begin.

I don't think she is overly funny or trying to be so although she does dramatize things to make a point or to be funny. I like her voice and relate to a lot of her feelings and perceptions about the complications of life and relationships. I do think they had a choice whether to get married or not and that it wasn't that America was forcing them to get married but that is what it felt (can relate to that too as I "had" to marry Eddie to get benefits for him and Evan after he left the Sheraton and it felt more like a had to than a want to) like in order to have the life she wanted here in this country close to her family. They had already declared to each other "their marriage" and Felipe would have been willing to live in another country but she was not and wasn't it some kind of new Homeland Security Rule that changed his continual visa traveling privilidges? I really like what she had to say about feeling as though when you are older and choosing that you feel as though the choices you make close off other parts of yourself. When I have more time I will look it up.

p. 78 (mid-chap 3)
I am really enjoying this book! I find a lot of humor in her voice and perspective. For example, when she was talking about visiting the Hmong, I thought she did a great job of laughing at herself and finding the humor in her situation. It is funny to be in such a foreign culture. At least I find it so- maybe that is just my humor. Whenever I talk about my trip to Japan, the main word I use to describe it is hilarious! I've never used that word to describe any other country I've visited, but Japan is so different that everything just made me laugh- at myself and at the situations I was in.
As for all of the hoopla about the citizenship and visas and whatnot, I didn't really dwell on all of that. I think being a dual-citizenship couple makes you more sensitive to the details of that, but I just kind of took it at face value as this is what happened to her. Whether she was being stupid or naive didn't really matter- to me, that wasn't the point of this book, so I was able to accept that and move on.
Now I am really enjoying all of her research and the factual/historical information in chapter 3. I love to learn interesting things from books, so this suits me well. I totally agree that gay marriage should be legal, and I love how she relates that to previous laws about interracial marriage. She makes a great argument! To think that 40some years ago in America it was ILLEGAL to marry someone of a different race is unfathomable to me as a 27-year old person who was born well after the civil rights movement. Having just read The Help, this was more internalized for me. Of course I knew about the laws and history of civil rights in America, but when you read a novel about it with characters who really speak to you, I think it helps to process and internalize what that was like.
So anyway, I think she's right that people will say the same thing about gay marriage 40 or 50 years from now. And, after reading about the history of marriage, her rebuttal of Jim Talent's comment on the historical tradition of marriage staying the same is dead on. I mean, if women could marry ghosts, for goodness sake why can't they marry other women?!

Aunt Sue, I know you didn't mean it this way, but, working with special needs kids, I made a pledge last year to speak up whenever I heard someone use the word "retarded", so I wanted to post this website:
http://www.r-word.org/

I just finished the book and have to say that I enjoyed it as well. I think we are in for a lively discussion!!! I like her take on things and the way she explores them so thouroughly and personally. since I am divorced (like her) I know that experience made me think of marriage in a whole different way and I don't think prior to my divorce I would have found the book as interesting since I was "married" and that was settled for me more or less in my own mind.
I found myself smiling at the last chapter and as I was reading it thinking she ISN'T going to seriously try and convince me that this little piece of information is what turned her finally towards marriage and as I was thinking it, she says I know I am grasping at straws...but I need to. And then she says she found her corner....the same corner...she described Felipe as needing in order for him to be content with a situation. I like the way she writes and her voice and the way she connects certain things.
On Page 166.
She writes..."So how do I square this? What am I to conclude when my grandmother says that the happiest decision of her life was giving everything for her husband and children but then she says --- in the very next breath that she does not want me making the same choice? I am not really sure how to reconcile this, except to believe that somehow both these statements are true and authentic, even as they seem to condradict one another. I believe that a woman who has lived as long as my grandmother has lived should be allowed some contradictions and mysteries. Like most of us, this woman contains multitudes." Multitudes....great word ecspecially for women!
I just found that so comforting and true that inside all of us are all these different thoughts and feelings that sometimes contradict one another and yet....My mother often said she would not have been a woman who would have married or who would have had children...and yet she did and she had three children and that and the fact that she didn't necessarily want or plan on having either is what makes her....her.
I found her mothers insight into sexuality in this country as she said a very sophisticated and stark conclusion....When you have a society in which female sexuality means everything and male sexuality nothing you have a very warped and unethical society. I liked her description of her parents marriage and how her father resembled a domesticated bear not really sure of how all of this happened but that his life was made easier because of it and how freshly ironed shirts magically appear and that he likes it until her mom tries to take (full world domination) over the 5 percent he claims for himself. Page 198
I think her telling of how Felipe's stories in the middle of the night (page 239) became her stories is what intimacy is and the intimacy of lying in bed together as a couple happens....you do start to take that person and their stories and their life on as your own...
On page 243....when she talked about all of the lingering ghosts from both of their divorces.....I could certainly relate to that....Eddie has told me he dreams about me ( I rarely dream) but he certainly shows up in my subconcious invited OR NOT...
I had never heard of the two categories of people in the world...the Greek and the Hebrew and found that interesting and the fact that we are such a mish-mash of the two explains a lot of confusion.
The one thing I think about her that I felt was a little over the top was her Dramatic aversion to the whole marriage process but that is who she is and with a bad divorce she became that ten-fold. When she wrote about not wanting to stand before people she had stood before and declare things she could not guarantee....I got a better undertanding and could definitely relate....you don't trust yourself in the same way....you don't trust marriage in the same way...after having failed at it....she wrote..."Not even I would believe my vows" because you know all too well that things happen, people change and there are no guarantees and yet you are being asked to act as if that isn't so.
The ban on gay marriage....I must say is ridiculous (Hebrew) and makes no sense to me.
Anyway...as I said in the beginning should at least be a lively discussion (as always) Looking forward to talking to you all.

Hi.
I thought the passage you chose was actually one of the most profound and utterly relatable ones for me. We do have so many choices....and at my age and in my situation as a divorced woman with the enormous conscious decision of to marry and whom to marry to be made much later in life and at a much more enlightened and wise (?) time of my life I do often times find myself paralyzed by indecision because of all the choices. Add internet dating and websites like Plenty of Fish where there is a seemingly somewhat better choice at the click of a mouse and then well.....Chaos and confusion abound and multiply, things are much simpler in the land of wherever that place is that the frogs live. Of course ultimately you HAVE to decide....the indecision is sheer torment....but you have to do what I think the author is trying to do....find some peace with the choice. I think Suzanne, her voice aside...you would find her someone of value...someone who did not take decisions or choices lightly...who embraced life and people and tried her best to find her way without harm or reservation but conscious and alive and questioning and growing and learning. Imagine if your life was suddenly turned upside down and at every bend and turn there was an important decsion to be made...to stay together or not...where to live....in which country...what to do for work...who to embrace and who to let go....and there where multitudes of choices not just one or two but multitides (that lovely word again) and every choice would have a different effect and a different outcome and once you chose one well for awhile at least the others would no longer be an option. It can be overwhelming.

I too am curious about what Ellen will add hoping she will back me up in my assertion that you are a female abnormality.... : ) xo

I think the fact that we don't see the author in the same way affects the reading of the same words and thoughts. I did not see her as a self centered narrcicist. I think she was trying to say that her generation (our generation) of people/women were able to be a little more self-centered than women of the past (farm wives, Hmong women, 1950's housewives, etc.) She like the women before her is a product of her time and culture. I think she saw the beauty in what her grandmother did with her coat and that is what she was trying to illustrate with the story. She said that her grandmothers happiest memory was when she was so needed by her family. That surprised her a little bit but I don't think the concept of loving and giving was lost on her. I think she uses these stories to give voice and offer real life examples of giving and loving within a marriage and/or family situation. I think she realistically looks at the sacrifices her mother and grandmother made...her mother gave up a very satisfying and meaningful cutting edge career with Planned Parenthood and her grandmother gave up an independant, interesting life when she chose to marry and become a farm wife...I don't think she looks at them as SACRIFICES with no reward or merit for either woman or tries to paint these women as victims of these sacrifices. She is trying to figure the whole thing out and their sacrifices and the sacrifices of many women ecspecially during a time when hard choices often had to be made are a part of figuring it out. I think the grandmother knows that there is merit to both choices and not that her granddaughter would have been incapable of sacrificing the way she did but that now in this day and age maybe she wouldn't or shouldn't have to.

Over the last year or two, I've really found a love for non-fiction books. I always thought they were boring or dry, but you just have to find the right topics. I really appreciate that I can learn so much in reading non-fiction. In this book, I loved that Elizabeth Gilbert did so much research on the history of marriage and what marriage means in different cultures. I thought it was especially interesting to read about the history of marriage in the Christian church. It was very surprising to me that marriage was so frowned upon in early Christianity and that Christian marriage has evolved so much from that time. Ghost marriages were interesting to read about. I also liked that she talked about animal species and seagull divorces. I was really able to appreciate all of the research that went into this book.
Aside from the research, I loved that she was entering this marriage with so much thoughtfulness. She's really taking her time and thinking about this decision. She's looking at it from every angle and really trying her best to prepare for her marriage in a mature and thoughtful way. I admired her for that. I think the wedding vows did mean a lot to her, and that's why she was having trouble saying them again after she had broken them once. I think too many people say these vows 2 and 3 times without really thinking about what they're saying and promising. I think she is right to enter this 2nd marriage more cautiously than the first, and I admire her for at least recognizing that she failed and doesn't want to make the same mistake twice. If everyone would think this way before getting married (or remarried), the divorce rate might not be quite so high.
I will say that I did roll my eyes a little when she started talking about the "auntie brigade". That was one point where I saw a glimpse of that side of her that some of you may have found to be unlikable. But overall I really enjoyed this book.

Elizabeth.
I forgot about the Christian history and found that interesting as well. I can't remember but I believe it helped clarify some things regarding the origins of celibacy in the Catholic Church. It was interesting to find out that marriage wasn't always regarded as "the ideal" and that some religions and societies felt threatened by its power and importance in peoples lives.