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

Liz has befriended Javanese Yudhi, age 27, who looks after the cottage she rents from an Englishwoman. He is a Christian in a Muslim nation. Even as a child, his mother didn’t want him to play with Muslims, so he stayed inside and learned to play the guitar. His father was a fan of Elvis. His dream was to live in America, so he took a job with the Carnival Cruise Line working below decks. When his contract was up, he stayed on in New York, living with an Indonesian man he met on the ship and working in a sandwich shop in New Jersey with a Mexican who taught him Spanish. He meets a group of musicians and an American girl, Ann. He marries her.

Then 9/11 happens. He is put in detention in New Jersey and finally shipped back to Indonesia, suspected of being an Islamic terrorist. He came to Bali to see if he could make a living, but the Balinese do not like him because he is Javanese. He is still separated from his wife, who may or may not join him in Bali where he is out of place. He talks like an American, a New Yorker; and he is such a fine guitar player that Liz thinks he should be a famous musician. He asks Liz, “Dude, why is life all crazy like this?” (276).

Liz asks Ketut the same question: “Ketut, why is life so crazy like this?” He replies in Balinese that man is both a demon and a god, both darkness and light, both virtuous and malevolent. Man decides which side he will bring forth in his life. Rather than worry about craziness, he tells Liz she can find peace in meditation whose purpose is “peace and happiness.” He will teach her the Four Brothers meditation. The Balinese believe we are born with four brothers who surround us in the womb. The child is taught that the four brothers are always there. They comprise the four virtues a person needs to be safe and happy: intelligence, friendship, strength, and poetry. They can be called upon at any time, and they collect the soul at death and carry it to heaven. Ketut teaches Liz the names of her four brothers and tells her to memorize them and to say their names throughout the day, asking for their help whenever she needs it. He says to call on them before she goes to sleep to shield her from demons and nightmares.

Liz tells him about a recurring nightmare of a man standing next to her bed with a knife. Ketut tells her the man is one of her four brothers who represents strength, there to guard her. It isn’t a knife but a dagger. He tells her she is lucky she can see him. He gives her the secret nickname her four brothers use for her. She must say it every time she speaks to them: Lagos Prano, which translates as “Happy Body.” When a monkey drops out of the tree and confronts her on her bike ride home, she says, “Back off, Jack—I got four brothers protecting my ass” (278).

Liz gets hit by a bus the next day. It throws her off her bicycle, and she gets a deep cut on her knee. It becomes infected. When she finally shows it to Ketut, he tells her to go see a doctor. She thought he was the medicine man. The accident and the knee allow her to meet Wayan, which may have been what Ketut intended.

Wayan Nuriyasih is a healer, a woman in her late 30s who practices hands-on medicine. Her storefront shop serves as a restaurant, home, and clinic. She treats Liz’s knee with herbs to heal the infection and asks her the three Balinese questions: Where are you going, where are you coming from, and are you married? When Liz says, “not yet” about marriage, Wayan gets the truth out of her, that she is divorced. So is Wayan. Her husband would get drunk and beat her. Finally, her four-year-old daughter, Tutti, said she should get a divorce.

Divorce is devastating for a Balinese woman. It puts her outside the family, “the source of strength, financial security, health care, daycare, education and—most important to the Balinese—spiritual connection” (282). A woman moves from her family compound into her husband’s. If she leaves, she is an outcast. Wayan took her healing power with her, however, and after two years managed to get custody of her daughter, Tutti. They move from place to place every few months, living a life filled with worry. Tutti, eight years old, comes home from school and observes Liz needs lunch. Tutti serves each course, declaring its ingredients. She speaks fluent English, and Liz tells her she is clever.

Tutti wants to be a veterinarian and has wondered, “Mommy, if somebody brings me a sick tiger, do I bandage its teeth first, so it doesn’t bite me?” (284). Liz sends up a sudden prayer the Tutti will someday bandage the teeth of a thousand tigers. She says she will come back again the next day for lunch. Wayan wipes the last of the herbal goo off her knee and observes she hasn’t had sex for a long time because the cartilage in her knee is so dry. She tells her she needs a “good man,” and she will find one for her. When Wayan says she never talks about her divorce, Liz tells her that “the hardest part of your life is behind you now” (285). She leaves trembling, “all jammed up with some potent intuition or impulse that I could not yet identify or release” (285).

Liz now divides her days into three parts: mornings with Wayan, afternoons with Ketut, and evenings reading or talking to Yudhi who comes to play his guitar. She has essentially achieved the balance she sought, and she prays a lot. She remembers her guru teaching her that happiness is something you achieve through personal effort. Liz has come to regard her practice as “Diligent Joy,” clearing out all her misery so she is free to serve and enjoy other people.

She enjoys her time with Ketut. He knows 16 meditation techniques. One of them takes him “Up” to the seventh level, to Heaven where everything is beautiful. He has another meditation where he goes down to Hell. Hindus don’t talk about Heaven and Hell. They see life in terms of karma where you get recirculated until you figure out how to overcome your mistakes. Heaven and Hell are here on Earth. Ketut tells her Hell is like Heaven because the universe is a circle, up and down all the same. Ketut says love is in both places, so you might as well decide to go “Up,” to be happy on your journey.

Liz spends time in Wayan’s shop, seeking the method to grow thicker, shinier hair. Wayan’s remedy involves a banana tree and its root. Wayan will bless the root juice at the temple and rub it into Liz’s skull. This will grow hair even if you are bald. Wayan tells her she is praying for a good man for Liz. Liz says she doesn’t need one and that her heart has been broken too many times. Wayan has a cure for a broken heart: Vitamin E, sleep, water, travel away from the former lover, meditation, and acceptance of destiny. Liz says she has been doing all of it except for Vitamin E. She only wants peace with herself. Wayan tells her she needs sex.

Then a gorgeous Brazilian woman, Armenia, who speaks seven or eight languages, comes into the shop. She has negotiated peace for the United Nations and now represents indigenous artists all over the world selling their products over the internet. Wayan asks Liz why she doesn’t dress sexy like Armenia. Liz says she isn’t Brazilian and asks Armenia to explain what it means to be a Brazilian woman. Armenia says she always tries to look nice and feminine, even in war zones and refugee camps, and always wears makeup and jewelry in the jungle, because “there’s no reason to add to everyone’s misery by looking miserable yourself” (292). She invites Liz to a party that night hosted by a Brazilian ex-pat with a traditional Brazilian feast—cocktails, dancing, and piles of pork.

Liz fishes a spaghetti-strap dress out of her backpack and rides her bicycle to Armenia’s house where she loans her jewelry and perfume. She stores Liz’s bike, and they ride together in her car. Liz gets a little drunk and finds herself flirting, first with an Australian journalist, then with an older Brazilian man, the host, who laments he can’t dance, play soccer, or play a musical instrument. She replies, “Maybe so. But I have a feeling you could play a very good Casanova” (294). He actually can dance, and he calls her “darling,” but then she notices he calls everyone “darling. She flirts with a man named Ian but returns to the older Brazilian, whose name she now knows is Felipe. He suggests they move on to an all-night restaurant with “beer and bullshit.”

Just before dawn, Felipe drives her home. He tells her she has been speaking to the biggest bullshitter in Ubud. When she asks if Ian is a bullshitter, Felipe says he is talking about himself. He asks for her phone number. She only has an email. He says she will have a wonderful few months in Bali. She says she only has one dress. He says, “You’re a young and beautiful darling. You only need the one dress” (296).

Liz awakens in the morning, wondering if she is young and beautiful when she thought she was old and divorced. She finds herself agitated by the idea of men. She thinks she doesn’t know how to flirt anymore even though she was a big flirt in her teens and 20s. She fantasizes about a relationship with Ian. Then she remembers the advice of Richard from Texas: “You need a drought breaker, baby. Gotta go find yourself a rainmaker” (297). It makes her think about David which makes her think about her ex-husband, and she begins brooding. Then she remembers Felipe and thinks maybe she should just relax and have some fun.