Last year sometime I read this book, Harley Loco by Rayya Elias. I heard of Rayya Elias, because she became the Lesbian love and eventually the spouse of author Elizabeth Gilbert. Elizabeth Gilbert of the "Eat Pray Love". A phenomenon as a book, a memoir, and a phenomenon because it was so honest, emotional and aspirational and relatable.
Like me millions of women (maybe men too) were inspired, excited and enamored. It was so bleak, sad and yet so hopeful and triumphant. Who does not like that arc? Like no one...because everyone loves a story with that journey, and if it's true, it is a recipe to fall in love with.
At the beginning of Eat Pray Love, the author having walked out of a dead end marriage, a failed hopeless love affair, set out on a Journey of self love & self discovery, and at the end of it, seemed to not only find the rainbow, but a pot of Gold.
She was healed, happy and found new mature love! So, when nearly 10 years later, 9 of which she was married to her husband Jose' Nunes, she announced her split and divorce from Husband because she had realized she was romantically inclined towards a female friend Rayya Elias.
And she also said interestingly that she may not have acknowledged those feelings in herself, had she not been forced to face that her best friend was dying. Rayya Elias was diagnosed with Terminal Pancreatic and Liver cancer.
She passed away after a period of painful illness on Jan 4 2018.
I tend to believe that liz Gilbert is honest and sincere in her expression of her feelings. It is not the first time heterosexual men/women have realized that they care for someone from their own gender.
Maybe Sexuality is gender fluid. Maybe love is a by product of emotional intimacy and so is sexual feeling. Who knows. we live in a very confusing world, where every social order is spoken as if it is normal and then another story tells how it is not normal for that particular story! Ha ha.
So because I was surely curious and while I have sometimes been put-off by the Florence nightingale, self-help guru, world's love savior activist avatar of Liz Gilbert, I still resonate with her gift of expression and many of her spoken and experienced truths as a reader. That connection is true, and holds true regardless of private political opinions or personality of the writer. And therefore I did want to read the book (another memoir, a genre I just love) of her love interest...
I bought the kindle version of Harley Loco and I think in less than a week, if not 2-3 days, I finished the book. I even wrote a messenger review to the author that must have been complimentary. Can't find it on FB.
But today came across this review on her book. And felt...the article writer just wanted to sound clever or something but what was the review? A 1000 words and nothing tangible conveyed. Did he like it? He seems to accept with disdain that some might like it. He harps that the memoir did not capture history of it's times well....well..WTF? It is a memoir, not a documentary of the decade .....I hate such pretentious reviews by pricks.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10091954/Harley-Loco-by-Rayya-Elias-review.html
Here is another, better review that captures some of what I felt.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/14/harley-loco-rayya-elias-review
After reading the book, I understood Rayya had pain and bewilderment and took to paths that were wrong, but I guess I no more understood why, she took to that path, any more than Rayya herself would have. But she was remarkably honest, gutsy and genuine and it speaks to that, that in the end, she was truly truly loved.
It is amazing to see the love Liz Gilbert had for her. Has for her. At
once tender and fierce and loyal.
I pray Liz emerges from this somehow happy and strong.
Like me millions of women (maybe men too) were inspired, excited and enamored. It was so bleak, sad and yet so hopeful and triumphant. Who does not like that arc? Like no one...because everyone loves a story with that journey, and if it's true, it is a recipe to fall in love with.
At the beginning of Eat Pray Love, the author having walked out of a dead end marriage, a failed hopeless love affair, set out on a Journey of self love & self discovery, and at the end of it, seemed to not only find the rainbow, but a pot of Gold.
She was healed, happy and found new mature love! So, when nearly 10 years later, 9 of which she was married to her husband Jose' Nunes, she announced her split and divorce from Husband because she had realized she was romantically inclined towards a female friend Rayya Elias.
And she also said interestingly that she may not have acknowledged those feelings in herself, had she not been forced to face that her best friend was dying. Rayya Elias was diagnosed with Terminal Pancreatic and Liver cancer.
She passed away after a period of painful illness on Jan 4 2018.
I tend to believe that liz Gilbert is honest and sincere in her expression of her feelings. It is not the first time heterosexual men/women have realized that they care for someone from their own gender.
Maybe Sexuality is gender fluid. Maybe love is a by product of emotional intimacy and so is sexual feeling. Who knows. we live in a very confusing world, where every social order is spoken as if it is normal and then another story tells how it is not normal for that particular story! Ha ha.
So because I was surely curious and while I have sometimes been put-off by the Florence nightingale, self-help guru, world's love savior activist avatar of Liz Gilbert, I still resonate with her gift of expression and many of her spoken and experienced truths as a reader. That connection is true, and holds true regardless of private political opinions or personality of the writer. And therefore I did want to read the book (another memoir, a genre I just love) of her love interest...
I bought the kindle version of Harley Loco and I think in less than a week, if not 2-3 days, I finished the book. I even wrote a messenger review to the author that must have been complimentary. Can't find it on FB.
But today came across this review on her book. And felt...the article writer just wanted to sound clever or something but what was the review? A 1000 words and nothing tangible conveyed. Did he like it? He seems to accept with disdain that some might like it. He harps that the memoir did not capture history of it's times well....well..WTF? It is a memoir, not a documentary of the decade .....I hate such pretentious reviews by pricks.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10091954/Harley-Loco-by-Rayya-Elias-review.html
Here is another, better review that captures some of what I felt.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/14/harley-loco-rayya-elias-review
After reading the book, I understood Rayya had pain and bewilderment and took to paths that were wrong, but I guess I no more understood why, she took to that path, any more than Rayya herself would have. But she was remarkably honest, gutsy and genuine and it speaks to that, that in the end, she was truly truly loved.
It is amazing to see the love Liz Gilbert had for her. Has for her. At
once tender and fierce and loyal.
I pray Liz emerges from this somehow happy and strong.
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