10 Questions for Elizabeth Gilbert

Your book The Signature of All Things is a novel. Why fiction?
I already did the hardest homework assignment of my life: I wrote the book that came after Eat, Pray, Love. I’d never felt more free as a writer once Committed was finished. It was time to write a novel and to go big with it.

The book’s name refers to a theory that there’s a divine imprint on everything. Do you have sympathy for that view?
I have a great deal of sympathy for any cockamamie theory that tries to find meaning in randomness. It was an interesting exercise for me to write from the point of view of somebody who can only believe what is proven, because I am susceptible to everything.

So where do you fall on the evolutionary debate?
I have trouble with orthodoxy in any form. I feel, having studied the 19th century evolutionary debate, a newfound sympathy for the pain that this discovery brought to people who, prior to Darwin, would have happily called themselves men of science and men of God. We now have a world full of scientists who have no faith and the faithful who have no reason, and that’s a great loss for all of us.

There’s a disdain in the book for people who make money selling medicine. Does this reflect your view ?
I think the country in general is overmedicated. I don’t want to name names of medications, but I will say that I look for a more holistic idea of health rather than an immediately pharmaceutical one. That said, if I have a stroke, I’m going to the hospital.

Your characters give all these reasons for not being more engaged in abolition. Do you see modern parallels?
There is absolutely no ethical argument in defense of eating animals, and I eat them because I like to, you know? I know it’s wrong, but I like a hamburger because I like it. Also, sainthood can be extremely irritating.

Now that you’re a wife, have you become a fan of marriage?
I like my marriage, but my marriage is very unusual. I’m not married to somebody who wants me to be a mother. History has shown again and again that marriage is a fantastic deal for men and not always a particularly good deal for women. That said, there are literally thousands of legal advantages to being a married person. With all of those benefits probably comes a certain emotional relaxation.

Do you get asked most about eating, praying or loving?
Loving. I was late [to this interview] because my hairdresser wanted to tell me about what was going on with her boyfriend. When it’s fans, it’s even more intimate. The praying is the last thing anybody wants to talk about.

I’m guessing you got a lot of suggestions for an Eat, Pray, Love sequel.
I got a lot of people wanting me to ghostwrite memoirs of their divorces. I had to very gently try to explain I couldn’t, while backing slowly out of the room.

Is your return to fiction a way to keep exploring spiritual ideas?
I think I’ll be exploring those ideas forever. I’ve spent my entire life chasing wonder, and to me that word is synonymous with spirituality. I don’t know what else there is to talk about.

What form does your personal spiritual practice take at the moment?
Um, I do things. I hesitate to talk about it, because it makes me sound like a loon. But I will say that probably the most rubber-to-the-road part is a daily struggle to try to figure out how to be a compassionate person.

You recently took on Philip Roth. Why?
I read an article written by a young writer who had shown Philip Roth his book, and Roth had said, Congratulations and now quit because it’s a horrible profession, and all you do is suffer. And my feeling was, there is only one proper answer, which is to extend your hand and say welcome and wish them all the luck in the world.