Focus on the journey my butt

It's December and this past week I've been fermenting the last leg of my main character's self-discovery journey on the Camino to Santiago, and hover at 65%. I say "self-discovery" because I've realized that overall, that's the overarching theme in my novel. There are many books and films out on this topic, but none resemble my own (thank God).

I was just reading the reviews of Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert on Amazon.com, and it terrified me how some reviewers lambasted her. I hope she never reads some of the vicious remarks people have written. They were lambasting her for two reasons: 1) she received an advance from her publisher before taking off for a year on her journey toward self-discovery to Italy, India, and Indonesia, and 2) they say she is too narcissistic. I don't know, isn't the point of self-discovery for people to focus on themselves? I haven't read the book, so I''m withholding judgment for now. I sympathize with their concerns, but still, I wish people would show a little more tolerance towards others, even if they have been given a helping hand. And furthermore, it's not like she hadn't traveled a lot under spartan conditions before getting any help from her publishers.

I've researched other notable works on second chances and self-discovery, and I've come to realized how influenced I am by Herman Hesse's books Siddhartha and Steppenwolf which I read in my twenties.

I'd like to deepen my understanding of a person's self-discovery by watching Woody Allen's paragon of reinvention, Shirley Valentine which is about a middle-aged woman who is dissatisfied with her marriage, travels to Greece alone and ends up finding herself again.

On a lighter note, there are the films Bread and Tulips (Pane e Tulipani), Under the Tuscan Sun and more recently, The Holiday, all of which I've seen over the years and enjoyed very much.