During the three years since the publication of Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir Eat, Pray, Love, more than six million readers around the world have found resonance in her chronicle of personal discovery. This intensely driven writer learned to live in the moment in Italy (Eat), explored her spiritual self in India (Pray) and found her soul mate in Felipe, a Brazilian living in Bali (Love). The two planned to spend the rest of their lives together, but previous bad marriages made them determined to skip actual matrimony. Fate is capricious, however, and it intervened in 2006; because Felipe’s visits to the U.S. had been too frequent, he was banned from entering the country. If Felipe was ever to return, it could only be as Gilbert’s husband. This unexpected turn of events was the impetus for Gilbert’s new memoir, Committed.

“I was working on a novel about the Amazons,” says Gilbert, who was shocked by the sudden urgency of marriage. “I was well into its research and didn’t have any intention of writing another memoir. But when this came up, my spirits were so viral. I did not want to enter this union feeling about [marriage] the way I felt about it. I loved this guy way too much to enter into something so serious with such a profound sense of dread. Really, the most efficient way that I know to work through something is to write about it. And then, pretty quickly, as soon as the idea came to me, I realized this is a very interesting topic.”

“I left with a new respect for marriage, simply for no other reason than for its almost Darwinian survival.”

Which is why Committed is not only a memoir, it’s also a history of marriage through the ages and a social commentary on the institution. Gilbert even harks back to Plato’s Symposium and its discussion of soul mates: “Once upon a time . . . we humans did not look the way we look today. Instead, we each had two heads and four legs and four arms—a perfect melding, in other words, of two people joined together, seamlessly united into one being. . . . Since we each had the perfect partner sewn into the very fabric of our being, we were all happy.”

But in our happiness we neglected the gods, so Zeus punished mankind by tearing us apart, forcing us to spend the rest of our lives looking for the vanished half, our other soul. “This is the singular fantasy of human intimacy: that one plus one will somehow, someday, equal one,” Gilbert writes.

Speaking from the home she and Felipe now share in Frenchtown, New Jersey (dishes clattering in the sink and her dog barking occasionally), Gilbert elaborates on Plato’s concept.

“It is the most beautifully put metaphor. That along with Schopenhauer’s porcupine tells you pretty much all you need to know about intimacy. You just put those two things together, the urge to merge combined with the reality of how prickly it almost always is, negotiating your space versus somebody else’s space.”

Gilbert muses on the reasons people marry, many of which in this country, she believes, have nothing to do with true commitment.

It’s important that “we know the difference between the desire to get married and the desire to have a really great party,” she says with a laugh. “Especially when we are young, those two things can blur and you spend a great deal more time planning the party than you do planning the marriage.”

She contrasts this with a couple she knew growing up, the Websters, who married because he, as a farmer, needed a wife and she, as a woman, needed a provider. Love, passionate or otherwise, had nothing to do with the decision. For years they worked their farm, raised their family, shared good times and bad. When her health declined, Mr. Webster took over care of his wife, bathing her, feeding her, seeing to her needs until her death—not the actions of a person devoid of love for his spouse.

“We, having elevated the idea of romance and infatuation to such a high state, feel like the happiest day of your life should be the day you get married. That in itself should be the pinnacle. What the Websters probably knew, even to such an extent that they certainly never defined it, never even had to say it, because they just knew it, was that where a marriage begins is not nearly as important as where it ends up. You can begin from a place of great pragmatism and then over the years grow into a very deep, wordless affection and loyalty, which I found very moving to remember.”

Thinking about the Websters, Gilbert adds, “Felipe has this very specific word called bate pape that means ‘chit chat.’ It’s his favorite word for what the whole purpose of intimacy is. He said when he was a kid, his favorite memories of childhood were lying in bed, listening to his parents chit chat, make bate pape. And that’s where their intimacy was based. It wasn’t necessarily in high-flung sexual passion, although it might have been at one time. It was just about having someone to sit with at the breakfast table and have a cup of coffee with and talk about nothing and everything. And that’s a stubborn, consistent human need.”

Gilbert’s venture into the historical and social implications of marriage in Committed, especially as it pertains to women, ranges far and wide, from the 11th century, when ideas about marriage were more liberal than today, to modern Europe, where there is far less emphasis on matrimony than in America. It all makes for interesting and informative reading.

Readers who are hoping for more memoir, less research, might be disappointed in this new book. But it accomplishes what Gilbert set out to do—to bring peace to her decision to marry Felipe.

“I certainly went in with a great deal of aversion and hostility to this institution and I left with a new respect for marriage, simply for no other reason than for its almost Darwinian survival—the fact that this thing endures. Anything that lasts that long, including cockroaches and crocodiles, you have to admire. There’s something kind of remarkable about that. What could be called a kind of fusty, decrepit old institution continues to reinvent itself and re-evolve with every century, every generation,” Gilbert says.

“So instead of feeling like I’m being stamped into this form that doesn’t suit me, I can feel like I’m part of a very long story that’s always being rewritten. And now I have the rewriting of that tale.”

Rebecca Bain is a freelance writer and editor in Nashville.

RELATED CONTENT
Review of Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Review of The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert
Review of Stern Men by Elizabeth Gilbert

Attitudes toward assisted suicide for the terminally ill are seldom lukewarm—people either believe strongly that this course of action should be sanctioned or, just as strongly, that no one has the right to end another’s life, even for medical reasons and at that person’s request. Zoe FitzGerald Carter firmly believed in an individual’s right to take this difficult step until her own mother decided it was time to die. The anguish Carter felt, her conflicting emotions and the upheaval it caused in her family are painstakingly chronicled in her first book, a memoir titled Imperfect Endings: A Daughter’s Tale of Life and Death.

“It really was an incredibly difficult year,” says Carter, speaking from the home in Berkeley, California, that she shares with her husband and their two daughters. “I felt like my life had been derailed, and it was death and dying 24 hours a day. I started feeling very isolated from my husband and children because I felt like the predominant emotional event in my life was not with them. It was with this maddening, endless, difficult discussion with my mother which at some point I realized was only going to end when she died.”

There was never any doubt about whether Carter’s mother was terminally ill. Twenty years earlier, she had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and she was already dependent on around-the-clock assistance for the smallest of tasks. It was obvious that she would soon be unable to get out of bed at all. Her pain was increasingly resistant to drugs. So why did Carter refuse to go along with her mother’s decision?

“I live in Berkeley, and there are people who’ve read this book and they say, what was your problem? Why didn’t you just help her kill herself? You should have helped her go, it was what she wanted. And I don’t know if it’s because they haven’t experienced anything like this or it’s all about politics and assisted suicide should be legal, end of story. I think it’s probably because people have this idea—oh yeah, if I get sick, take me out back and shoot me. But I think when they get down to it, it’s a lot more complicated than that.”

It certainly proved complicated for Carter and her two sisters. While none of them wanted their mother to cease to be a living, breathing part of their lives, their responses to her decision to end her life were quite different. Her sister Hannah became Carter’s lifeline, the only person who shared her conflicting emotions. Katherine, the oldest sister, basically checked out of the whole scenario, saying their mother’s decision to die, her constant shifting of her “death date,” her demands that her daughters be by her side when she died, were all a shameless bid for attention—which Katherine refused to give her. It was important to Carter that this division among the sisters be chronicled in Imperfect Endings.

“I do think when a parent dies that what happens among the siblings, if there are siblings, is a really big part of the story: who shows up, who doesn’t show up, the different ways that they show up. The whole histories that we have in our families oftentimes emerge and intensify, and alliances and animosities and old regrets get reactivated and ratcheted up in these situations.”

Part of the impact of Carter’s book comes from her juxtaposition of chapters; she weaves her past into her memoir, giving the reader a more satisfying context to use as a contrast with the present. It becomes a reminder that an imperfect childhood often becomes irrelevant when a parent is dying. Musing on why this was important for her to bring out in her book, Carter says a relationship with a dying family member differs from any that has preceded it.

“When you’re with somebody who’s dying, you really do love them in this very pure way. You just love them and you’re there for them. It’s very healing. A lot of my anger and pain around my mother’s decision really dropped away at the end.”

Despite the gravity of the subject matter, there are sections of Imperfect Endings that are quite funny. The visit from the “Exit Guide” from the Hemlock Society is one such example: Carter’s snobbish mother cannot bring herself to allow this man to orchestrate her demise, not because she is bothered by “getting gassed,” but because he’s a good ol’ boy from Tulsa named Bud. This is, as Carter writes, a serious social handicap: “My mother is a solid Washington Democrat, a liberal even, but she’s also a cultural and intellectual snob, and this man is definitely not a member of the tribe.”

In the end, Carter’s mother (at the suggestion of her doctor) decides to refuse all food and water until her body ceases to function. It is this action that sways Carter to accept her mother’s choice of death and brings her to her mother’s bedside for the final time.

“I mean she didn’t eat, day after day after day. This was not a ‘dark night of the soul’ kind of moment where she took a bunch of pills and killed herself. This was something she talked about and thought about for a year and then persisted in, day after day at the end. . . . I saw her absolute commitment and unblinking strength during that fasting time.”

One cannot help but wonder, with all Carter went through, whether she would ever put her own family through such an ordeal. She says yes, but only if her daughters agreed that it was the right thing to do and were comfortable with the decision.

“I do believe assisted suicide should be legal, but you have to recognize that nobody wants to do it. Nobody wants to be in a place where they feel that is the best option. It’s not easy. And there is a price you pay for it. I do feel like there’s a price my sisters and I paid emotionally and psychologically by participating in my mother’s death. I think it’s a tricky issue.”

But, as Carter says, it was a privilege to be by her mother’s side when she ended her years of pain, although it’s not a topic she brings up at cocktail parties or the school’s PTO.

“People are uncomfortable talking about death. People think it’s all just a big downer, and it’s scary and awful. I don’t think it’s all just scary and awful. I think there’s something very life-affirming about going through a death with somebody. There’s nothing like death to remind you of one of the most profound things about life, which is that it doesn’t go on forever. That sense of gratitude for being alive and awareness of the gift of life is a wonderful thing to experience.”

Rebecca Bain is a writer in Nashville.

In her new memoir, Spent, fashion journalist Avis Cardella shares her struggle with compulsive shopping—and how she eventually beat the habit. We asked her a few questions about why we shop, why she shopped and why we should all be more conscious about our spending.

There have been many compulsive shoppers throughout history, from Mary Todd Lincoln to Princess Di. Which do you most identify with, and why?
I can relate to many compulsive shoppers in different ways, but the shopper I feel I most identify with is Andy Warhol. Warhol was a compulsive shopper and something of a hoarder. Upon his death, his apartment was discovered to be over run with “stuff” including many unopened shopping bags. However, this isn’t why I relate to Warhol. I relate to Warhol because his art is based on desire and therefore on commerce. He understood commerce in this way—and he understood consuming.

This to me is thoroughly modern. Even though there have been reports of compulsive shoppers in the past, I think of this addiction as being modern. The scaffolds of social and economic supports that exist for a shopping addict to thrive are fascinating: easy credit, status chasing, shopping as entertainment, mall culture, are a few examples.

You mention the buying habits of celebrities, who conspicuously consume items like purses and shoes. Is this compulsive shopping, or someone who has the means simply indulging in collecting luxury items? Where do you draw the line between collection and compulsion?
Certainly, anyone who enjoys to shop and does so without any negative impact to his or her life is not a compulsive shopper. I do mention some celebrities in Spent, and their shopping habits, because I think we often look to celebrities for setting a standard. We want to see what they are buying and how much they are spending in order to emulate or approximate their style.

In terms of drawing a line, the thing mental health professionals say to look out for is when the shopping impinges on normal aspects of your life. If you obsess about shopping, if you are shopping when you should be working or taking care of other responsibilities, if you continually use shopping to avoid life and certainly if you are going into unmanageable debt, there is a problem.

Many Americans struggle to pay bills and afford basic necessities—were you worried that a shopping addiction might come across as frivolous to readers, or do you think the need to consume will resonate with everyone?
I wrote Spent because I wanted to understand why I had been consumed by the desire to consume. Why are we all consumed by desires to consume? I think many people today, not just shopping addicts, are questioning their relationship to spending and what fuels their desire to buy.

I was very conscious of the fact that shopping addiction has been depicted as being silly and frivolous in the media, and I wrote my story with honesty and seriousness because I know that it wasn’t frivolous at all. I believe this will resonate with a large part of the population.

How big a role do fashion and women’s magazines play in the growing number of women with a shopping addiction? In your own story?
There is very interesting research and theory on this subject and I’ve only read a fraction of it. I think there’s so much to question and observe on this subject. For the sake of brevity, here I’ll just respond to my own situation. There was a point when I was shopping compulsively and my self-esteem was low, and I may have placed too much emphasis on the pursuit of the perfected images I saw in fashion magazines. I know from my own experience how easy it was to fall into this pattern. I realize that we are bombarded with perfected images today and mostly from advertising that relates obtaining a product to obtaining the perfected self.

Lately, magazines seem to be trying to address concerns about unrealistic images and their impact. One thing I’ve learned though, is that it is possible to simply read fashion magazines to instruct and inform about new things or something that may be relevant to your life and understand that those perfected images are not real.

Do you still write freelance articles for fashion magazines, or is researching and writing about the industry a “trigger”?
I do still work as a freelance writer but write about fashion infrequently. But writing about fashion is not a trigger for any compulsive shopping today. When I’ve analyzed my own shopping addiction I realized that the event that precipitated excessive shopping was my mother’s death. I couldn’t cope with that tragedy and shopping came to the rescue. It was an activity in which I could hide. Part of my hiding meant hiding behind a mask of perfection. Therefore, clothing, accessories, and cosmetics became the tools of creating that perfect me.

Today, I no longer feel that need to hide or desire to escape and this leaves me to relate to fashion in a healthier way. I love clothing and dressing up but not in order to avoid my feelings or my self. Sometimes I’m in a store and do worry if one purchase will set off an avalanche and I’ll want to buy the entire place. However, that has never happened. I think it’s just a residual feeling. I do wonder, at times, if an emotional trauma, could trigger shopping again. But I’m guessing that I’ve traveled far from where I was 20 years ago and it probably wouldn’t be the case.

Of the 1990s, you say "fashion had replaced drugs as the defining cultural pulse point of the decade." How do you think that changed (or did it) in the 2000s? What do you see fashion’s role in society being during the 2010s?
There seem to be more ways to shop than ever! Online, on television, on your smart phone! 2010 looks like the year of exploding shopping opportunities. I think fashion and shopping is still a big cultural pulse point. I’ve noticed many things that indicate this is not going away anytime soon: hauling videos, reality shows about the fashion industry, websites such as polyvore.com where you can log on and be your own fashion editor.

That said, I do find more people talking about reevaluating their shopping. A consciousness about what acquiring all this “stuff” means, to us as a culture is creeping into more conversations. I’m hoping to open a dialogue on this: What is the difference between wanting and needing? When do we have enough? What are we searching for? I do still enjoy fashion and shopping and have found a healthier relationship to both. So, I know it is possible to rethink our relationship to consuming.

Describe the moment when you realized the depth of your problem with shopping.
I think the moment in the beginning of my book when I’m buying all that lingerie was when I realized I was in trouble. I wanted to believe that shopping was normal and that the way I related to it was perfectly normal. But that day, as I walked out of Barneys with my 20 pairs of underwear, and various other items, in my black glossy bag, it struck me that that kind of shopping was anything but normal.

At the end of Spent, you write about your shopping habits now—you allow yourself to “truly desire” something before making a purchase. Are there any items you currently have your heart set on? What designers or types of clothing/accessories are you drawn to today?
I’ve been so immersed in my book promotion and tour that I really have not had too much time to think about wanting anything! Regarding what I’m drawn to, I find myself drawn to things that have longevity. For example, a classic handbag that I’ll wear for years as opposed to the latest “it.” item. So my mandate now is craftsmanship, good materials and good design. I’m not as interested in a particular label as I am in things being well designed and well made.

You often talk about the way you used clothes to try on different personas and figure out who you were. What do you think your clothes say about you now?
I wear more color now and I think that’s a reflection of my being a happier person.