The Signature of All Things
I’m not a big Elizabeth Gilbert fan. I found her famous
memoir, Eat, Pray, Love annoyingly
self-involved. I liked the eating part in Italy, the guru/praying section in
India less so, and the love part in Indonesia too gushing. I turned my nose up
at her next book, Committed: A Skeptic Makes
Peace with Marriage, which detailed her capitulation to that institution.
So, I’m not sure why I decided to read Gilbert’s latest
book, The Signature of All Things.
But I did and I’m glad. It’s a sprawling (599 pages) novel that could have
benefited from editing and trimming. But maybe not. After all, it addresses the
whole of the known physical world and our place in it.
The core story follows the education and career of a 19th
century botanist, Alma Whittaker. Born into wealth and a family that values
discipline and learning over love and compassion, Alma develops her natural
gift as a scientist, completely self-taught. Ungainly and unattractive, she
relies on her considerable intelligence to make her way in the world.
And does she ever make her way. First, she explores her
immediate home environment, learning about mosses in a deep and profound way.
Then, she travels from her sheltered home in Philadelphia to Tahiti—this time
seeking enlightenment about her late husband rather than exploring the natural
world. But the natural world persists in calling to her in mysterious ways.
Over time, Alma develops a theory of evolution, very nearly
mirroring Charles Darwin’s. But she grapples with a central weakness in her
theory, so refuses to publish her views. Also, she is a woman and a relative
unknown in the late 1800s scientific world—so who would listen to her anyway?
For me, the most fascinating part of this book was exploring
the ways Alma develops her theory and makes peace with the reality that she
will never be acknowledged for it. And the sections describing her passion for
mosses and other elements of the physical world are beautiful. The book’s
weakness? At times, too much exposition, and at other times, too much Gothic
heavy breathing.
Still, Gilbert has given us a rich portrait of a female
scientist who persists in her quest for knowledge and a rich life of the mind.
