The Signature of All Things

by Elizabeth Gilbert

A glorious, sweeping novel of desire, ambition, and the thirst for knowledge, from the # 1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love and Committed.

In The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction, inserting her inimitable voice into an enthralling story of love, adventure and discovery. Spanning much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker—a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in 1800, Henry's brilliant daughter, Alma (who inherits both her father's money and his mind), ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable gifts herself. As Alma's research takes her deeper into the mysteries of evolution, she falls in love with a man named Ambrose Pike who makes incomparable paintings of orchids and who draws her in the exact opposite direction — into the realm of the spiritual, the divine, and the magical. Alma is a clear-minded scientist; Ambrose a utopian artist — but what unites this unlikely couple is a desperate need to understand the workings of this world and the mechanisms behind all life.

Exquisitely researched and told at a galloping pace, The Signature of All Things soars across the globe—from London to Peru to Philadelphia to Tahiti to Amsterdam, and beyond. Along the way, the story is peopled with unforgettable characters: missionaries, abolitionists, adventurers, astronomers, sea captains, geniuses, and the quite mad. But most memorable of all, it is the story of Alma Whittaker, who — born in the Age of Enlightenment, but living well into the Industrial Revolution — bears witness to that extraordinary moment in human history when all the old assumptions about science, religion, commerce, and class were exploding into dangerous new ideas. Written in the bold, questing spirit of that singular time, Gilbert's wise, deep, and spellbinding tale is certain to capture the hearts and minds of readers.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Book Club, Audiobook, Historical, Nature, Literary Fiction

512 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2013

About the author

Elizabeth Gilbert is an award-winning writer of both fiction and non-fiction. Her short story collection Pilgrims was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway award, and her novel Stern Men was a New York Times notable book. Her 2002 book The Last American Man was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critic’s Circle Award.

Her memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, spent 57 weeks in the #1 spot on the New York Times paperback bestseller list. It has shipped over 6 million copies in the US and has been published in over thirty languages. A film adaptation of the book was released by Columbia Pictures with an all star cast: Julia Roberts as Gilbert, Javier Bardem as Felipe, James Franco as David, Billy Crudup as her ex-husband and Richard Jenkins as Richard from Texas.

Her latest novel, The Signature of All Things, will be available on October 1, 2013. The credit for her profile picture belongs to Jennifer Schatten.

Reviews

[Banafsheh Serov · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm on page 120 of 512 of The Signature of All Things:I was sceptical. Eat Pray Love was so indulgent and I have as little interest in botany as I do in Indian ashrams. Surprisingly however The signature of All things has so far been delightful.

19/10/13
I have to revise my initial glowing review. Although The Signature of all Things started with much promise, it descended into a pit of humdrum with no view of escape.
I cannot fault Gilbert's writing. Without a doubt she's a gifted & lyrical writer. But there's just so much botany & sexual frustration i can sift through before my interest wanes and boredom takes over.
Then there are the characters of Prudence & Retta that flare brightly for a brief period before fading from the narrative to my eternal frustration.
I probably would have enjoyed this book better if Gilbert had continued with the story of Henry Whittaker rather than the less interesting Alma.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply fantastic!!!! My God... Why had I waited so long to read this?

Geeee...I was hooked with the Prologue! Fascinating reading. There is so much to comment on...
What first? The story itself...(19th Century): The life of Alma Whittaker?? Her talents? Intelligence? Her educational growth? Personal growth? Her passion for Botany?

Or...
Do I share about the rich, amusing and stimulating other characters ...including Alma's friends and adopted sister?

Or do I share about the extraordinary- gorgeous-poetic writing. My God... This book has some of the most beautiful writing I've read in a long time. I especially loved the way plants and flowers were described ... ( I felt like I do when I'm listening to music: the way a song can put me in another zone).

Or... how about mentioning the amount of research that must have gone into this book? Incredible!

I must ask?? Did Elizabeth Gilbert win any award for this novel? This book is Pulitzer Prize quality. If it had won ....( published in 2013), it sure would have been deserving.
I don't remember off hand what 'did' win the Pulitzer that year...
Maybe one of my friends would love to tell me.

I'm so in aw and in love with this book. To be honest, I almost can't believe it's written by the same person who wrote "Eat Pray Love" and "Big Magic". ( I was down for 2 with those books)....
But "The Signature of All Things", had everything: family, friends, plants & flowers, mosses, ( science and nature), poetic writing, Philosophy, conviction, and love.

I recently read Karan Bajaj's book, "The Yoga of Max's Discontent"...( also, sooo wonderful). While BOTH these stories are very different in plot - setting - and time period...
what they do have in common is a nagging question of 'purpose' ....
Alma and Max ( both remarkable characters in their books) ...struggled with where they fit in this world.....and their journeys were tremendous inner transformation.

Absolutely phenomenal read from start to finish!

Thank you to all those who read this book before me... YOU WERE RIGHT!!!

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ambitious is the first word I think of with this novel. There were many times during my reading when I felt Gilbert nailed the intersection for which she was aiming: tension between science and the divine; strong heroine journey; historical development of science in the 1800s-- particularly women in botany; love triangles; father/mother/sister complexes; writing style born of Dickens-Austen-Alcott; and, a plethora of travel and transformation metaphors (Gilbert's evolution from "Eat, Pray, Love" is evident on at least half the book's 500 pages). I found myself dog-earring passages to re-read and taking notes for my own life....suffice it to say, I enjoyed the book. However, it falls long-winded in parts and can feel like Gilbert's trying a bit too hard. I loved when Alma started traveling, but I also felt a hole in the novel where the story of Prudence and the school at White Acre should have been. Prudence's story was as fascinating as Alma's in some ways and I can sense a lovely novel spinning from Prudence's journey when Alma left for Tahiti. Otherwise, I very much enjoyed how connected I felt to Elizabeth Gilbert's creative process and am inspired to tackle writing a historical fiction novel of my own!

[Violet wells · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel has no right to be such an immersive bewitching page turner. Its nearly 600 pages long, its narrative force relies on a single character, a plain almost loveless woman whose passion is, of all things, mosses and, though it’s very well written, there probably isn’t a single sentence of memorable virtuoso prose in the entire book. And yet…

Elizabeth Gilbert doesn’t possess the rarefied brilliance of Hilary Mantel as a prose stylist but The Signature of all Things shares lots of similarities with Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies - one complex and beguiling character is called upon to personify an entire age, an age of upheaval. Cromwell was the sensibility of the Reformation, Alma Whitaker is the sensibility of the Enlightenment. She’s something of a fictitious female Charles Darwin. She arrives at Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest before Darwin has published his book but, based on personal experience, is plagued by the doubt that humans, under the microscope, aren’t so easily categorised into theories as plants and wildlife. Self-sacrifice, especially, is the human trait that baffles her – ironic since her unbecoming appearance has forced her to some extent into stifling many of her biological human longings.

Cleverly Gilbert writes and structures this impeccably researched novel very much in the style of a classic 19th century novel. Her ventriloquism is excellent. It’s only the mischievous (and often very funny) explicit sexual content that reminds us this is a novel of our times.

Alma Whitaker, a classic Daddy’s Girl, is a brilliant dramatization of longing and aspiration against hostile odds. Especially female longing and aspiration. Certainly one of the most memorable and appealing heroines I’ve come across of late. The Signature of all Things is quite simply storytelling at its best. It’s a shame this isn’t what Chick Lit is – a novel about the longing for completion on the part of a woman that is intelligent, brilliantly crafted, organically sound and uplifting instead of the sentimental damaging tripe that genre has come to represent. Probably the perfect book to take on holiday with you.

[Sylvia · Rating 1 out of 5]

A review in three parts:

1. I was actually enjoying this and then at 49% a spinster has a spontaneous orgasm from holding hands with a dude in a closet.

2. (ten percent later) Oh wait, and now he's a closeted gay! This went from historically interesting to 18th Century days of our botanical queer lives popcorn.gif. Not sure if want but reading rapidly anyway!

3. (when done) Oh, sweet Jesus. This book was dedicated to the great women of science, which would be a great dedication if this wasn't also a book in which a 60-ish year old virgin gives her dead gay husband's former lover a blowjob in a cave and thinks, "EVERYTHING I'VE EVER WANTED, AT LONG LAST!" I mean, I don't subscribe to the idea that women don't think about sex as much as men do, nor do I think there is anything wrong with thinking about sex, but there is something very sad and desperate about a woman who, in her lifetime, comes up with Darwinism only a scant few years after Darwin himself did - and whose biggest wish and biggest sadness of all is to have a penis in her mouth and that that penis was never her dead gay husband's.

All of that garbage aside, this was actually a fairly enjoyable read, but I've spent enough time with feminists in the last few years to just shudder instinctively at the notion that any woman's life can be reduced to the cocks she has and has not had the pleasure to know intimately. Eat, Pray, How About No.

[Priyank · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you approach this book looking for an Eat, Pray, Love experience (full of pathos and personal insight) you will be sorely disappointed.

I wanted to read The Signature of All Things because I have been a huge fan of Liz Gilbert (both as a person and for her narrative style) for a long time now, and my experience reading this book has been a mixture of enjoyment and frustration, with the scales ultimately tipping to a kind of resigned satisfaction.

The novel gets off to a fantastic start. Her characters are industriously well-formed and there is much humor to be found initially. As with her memoir Committed, Gilbert's prose sometimes feels textbook-y but her narrative style is engaging (spiced with enough plot) to allow for a largely enjoyable and, at times, riveting reading experience... At least, initially.

Everything changes, however, once Prudence enters the picture.

Gilbert's exuberant and charming tone (which drew me in when I first started reading the book) undergoes an exasperating transmutation. Through characters grow into their own (and some of Gilbert's descriptions remain entertaining, in particular the foreign language flourishes (with Dutch being the highlight)), the plot as a whole slows down, leaving many questions unanswered until the very very end of the book, testing the reader's patience (there were many times where half way through the journey of reading the book I wanted to put it down or just skip to the end to figure out what she was doing; I persevered through it mostly because I'm an ardent Liz Gilbert fan and I'd like to believe I'm "maturing" as a reader, but I can easily see other people abandoning the novel altogether for the effort and patience it demands).

A couple of elements in the narrative come across as highly contrived and inorganic, and though there are some beautiful moments of tenderness and revelation (most of which revolve, directly or indirectly, around Prudence - the gesture of the nightgown and the plot twist towards the end courtesy a fabulously-named Hanneke de Groot), there is this sense of the rewards coming in too little, too late.

A good chunk of the writing towards the middle and the end of the novel is grim, tragic, and depressing, to the point where some might argue that the narrative becomes a prolonged and repetitive examination of depression ("grief within grief") in varying contexts. Readers better acquainted with Gilbert might also metaphysically recollect that Gilbert herself has an intimate history with this mental state. While many of her observations ring true, from a personal standpoint, I sorely wanted more laughs and entertainment or at least pathos ("beauty over accuracy," to misappropriate an expression from within the book) - a wish which more or less goes unfulfilled.

Once the austerely examined Prudence arch comes to a tidy close in one swift stroke, with an almost (-almost-) fairytale-like resolution, the novel feels over even though there are pages and pages of text remaining to be considered. I had only a grudging interest in demystifying Ambrose (Alma's fathers pronouncements about him, in addition to his own shockingly-worded revelations about what he had underwent as a young lad on a ship, felt definitive -> the command to go seek out the answers to the mystery were insufficiently compelling). Indeed, the entire Tahiti section felt like one overwrought epilogue to the novel, and though there are some gems (Tahiti language and culture, and a few memorable people), they are far and few in between. We are trapped within the framework of Alma's perspective - a mature old white lady who's been through hell many times over by now and is traveling for answers (quasi-recalling EPL and Gilbert's own life, but our protagonist Alma isn't nearly as interesting as the former). Alma's search takes too long, and it becomes easy to lose interest; when the Ambrose resolution finally does happen, it feels highly implausible (making for an iconic/lurid/hilarious/surreal scene, as Alma finally gets her moment of personal release and catharsis - a part of me obscenely wonders what the whole point of Gilbert's usage of sensuality and sexuality in this novel, as localized to Alam's oral fixations and Ambrose's dispositions, even is?). Alma's thoughts and emotions are tired and somewhat over-familiar and stale at this stage; perhaps Tahiti might have been more refreshing if it were narrated from a different point of view.

Now that the plot twists are largely cleared up, the remainder of the novel, set in Amsterdam, feels perfunctory at best. Gilbert attempts to impress the reader with her fine investigations of scientific historical knowledge and a few more dabs at humor, but the multiple traumas in the middle and the ending of the novel have already shipwrecked any possibility for a satisfactorily feel-good ending. The plot has been injured beyond repair. Another dose of depression washes ashore the protagonist's life. Alma's final vindication/recognition (the "there were three of us" line) as an aged female researcher hits with half the intensity it could have. Gilbert brings the novel to a solemn close with a last few set of lines that seek empathy, but are only marginally successful in eliciting it.

In conclusion, while it is abundantly clear Gilbert is a talented storyteller, a part of me wishes she had a different (happier, or at least, more humorously expressed) story to tell. This novel, though well-written and supremely well-researched, fell short for me because of the overabundance of mawkishly sad plotlines (psuedo-ironically, neither of Gilbert's two moral guardians within the book -Beatrix and de Groot- would have approved of such unrelenting examinations of this topic), with the resolutions being hyperdelayed fictive microgratifications, which, on the whole, diminish the great potential this book started out with. I grew somewhat bored by Alma, and I wish I knew more stories about the other characters: The sternly comforting Hanneke de Groot, the prismatically icy Prudence (I'm grieving for the Polly she could've been under different circumstances), and the other nameless workers at White Acre. This book is definitely worth a read and can be an enjoyable experience: Gilbert's prose is infused with much anthropological /sociocultural /historical /scientific /botanical /pharmaceutical /medical /psychological knowledge and ticklish linguistic play (the languages within the novel themselves (latin, dutch, french, tahitian, etc.) and the stories within the story (letters, scandalous book excerpts, etc.)), however, reading The Signature of All Things has been a voyage I doubt I shall earnestly desire to make again. It's a good book and a superb examination of historical fiction, but there are other far more engrossing stories out there to chase.

[Lee Woodruff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it- that girl can write her way out of a paperbag and as someone who loves plants and flowers-- well-- its my kinda book

[Margaret · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll write more later, but these are my comments having just finished this about an hour ago.

I really didn't enjoy reading this book and would have put it down after 50 pages had I not been committed for the long haul.

A feeling of detachment pervaded every scene, almost as if the author had no grasp of her character's inner lives, even as she reported it in stilted and wooden detail. Do not blame this on her attempt to capture the flavor of 19th century English. Just read a few lines of her attempt at recreating dialogue and you'll see what I mean.

I am a botanist, with an interest in the history of botany. I have no quibble with the author's depiction of the nature of botanical science. But while I'm sure that there were other 19th Century biologists whose research anticipated Darwin's work, Gilbert's attempt to recreate the manuscript of one such biologist fell very short of the mark.

I'm glad it's over, and like the 3,000 women (no men) who have read and rated this book, I'm gonna sign off and go check out my quim.

[AudreyLovesParis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am going to keep this review deliberately vague, because there is nothing I despise more than checking out a review of a potential book and having the whole damn plot laid out before me. It just ruins the whole reading experience, as far as I am concerned. With that being said, this is not an "Eat, Pray, Love" kind of book, nor is it like her God-awful second novel, the name of which escapes me, which was a horrible disappointment.

It is so difficult to describe and categorize this book. It is part sweeping saga, part textbook, part philosophy. Elizabeth Gilbert is a talented writer, but at times I felt like I was studying for my final university exam on mosses (you will just have to read the book to understand this).

I really felt sad at times for the protagonist. She had so many advantages in life, yet through poor choices or no choices, her life veered off in a totally different direction than what she had hoped or imagined. Yet, in the end, there was some resolution to her needs and wants, and it all came full circle.

I really do believe the questions that come up near the end of this novel would be excellent fodder for some lively book club discussion. I know I felt myself wavering on the cusp of both sides, and will wrestle with that question for some time.

I recommend this book, but do be aware that the middle is awfully tedious reading at times.

[Olive Fellows (abookolive) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Click here to hear my thoughts on this book over on my Booktube channel, abookolive.

[switterbug (Betsey) · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the opening pages, it is evident that Gilbert can write with lyricism, confidence, and substance. I was afraid that her mass popularity would lead to a dumbed down book with pandering social/political agendas or telegraphed notions. I am thrilled to conclude that this was not the case. Gilbert is a superb writer who allows her main characters to spring forth as organically as the natural world that they live in. This is a book of well-considered people of the times, who are emblematic of daring and discerning ideas, as well as an absorbing story that will keep the pages flying. The 18th and 19th century comes to life, and botany keeps the composite parts anchored to the earth. It is a both beautiful and intermittently appalling story of humanity and nature.

The book begins with British ex-pat Henry Whittaker, a boy of humble origins, who, by the time he is an adult in the 19th century, turns himself into a captain of industry in the botanical and pharmaceutical industry, particularly quinine. As a boy, he pilfered from the Royal Botanical Kew Gardens and sold to others, and showed his mettle as an entrepreneur. The director, Sir Joseph Banks, eventually apprehended him. Whittaker’s penance was to be sent on faraway travels, in order to prove himself worthy and edify himself in the realm of plants.

When Whittaker returned, he made it his life’s work to eclipse Banks and become a wealthy self-made industrialist of the natural world. He got himself an educated Dutch wife, left Europe for good, and settled in Western Pennsylvania, where he built an elaborate estate that truly did rival the Kew Gardens, called White Acre. All alike envied his ostentatious mansion on the hill, and were impressed by his breathtaking, unparalleled gardens. He sired one daughter, Alma, and adopted another, Prudence. Whittaker became one of the richest men in North America, or anywhere. But, more important than riches, to him, was the power to command others, and the talent and skill to master your work. Education was the tool to that end. Therefore, his children received a scholarly education at home.

Henry's prominence on the pages segues into his daughter's, Alma. The beautiful Prudence becomes an outspoken abolitionist, while Alma grows into a scholarly, tall, large-boned, homely, and privately carnal woman who becomes the flourishing main character. I would list her as one of my favorite protagonists of contemporary times, as unforgettable as Teresita Urrea of THE HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER, although of polar sensibilities. Alma is so fleshed out that I can smell her, and every moment in her life is organically rendered. As she becomes her father's daughter as a scientist, (but with a gentler disposition), the reader is taken ever further into her inner and outer journeys. She is not just a botanist and taxonomist, but in many ways, a philosopher, a noble thinker, with a sexual and sensual hunger.

Gilbert doesn’t portray Alma as flawless or unbelievable. Rather, Alma is a construct of her environment and her gifted mind. She is also metaphorically imprisoned by the life of a proper woman in the 19th century. However…

Alma’s portrait is the fruit of this elegantly written, lyrically cadenced, engrossing tale. Gilbert braids in the enigma of life from botany to the human body, and folds in science, mysticism, spirituality, psycho-sexuality, all in a vibrantly flowing historical novel. Some of the characters make a brief or lucid appearance, and then fade, but Alma grows more luminous with each passing chapter. A few sections focus on scientific philosophies and the question of creationism and evolution (the way a discussion would happen in the 1800’s), but it fits radiantly into this story. But, mostly, it is Alma who pollinates this ripe and exhilarating tale. I still see her bending over a leaf, or examining moss with a microscope, or hunched over her scholarly tomes and writing her books on the mysteries of plant life. Being at her father’s beck and call, but carving out a solitary but teeming life.

The title of the book refers that all life contains a divine code or print, and was put forth by a 16th century German cobbler and early botanist, Jacob Boehme, one rejected by the Whittakers, for the most part, as medieval nonsense. He had mystical visions about plants, and believed there was a divine code in “every flower, leaf, fruit, and tree on earth. All the natural world was a divine code.”
You can see it in a curling leaf, a nesting bird, and when the stamens of one plant stick it to its receptacle. Every unique living creature, according to Boehme, contains the eponymous title. Alma meets an orchid painter who embodies this belief, and who pulls her into the world of mysticism. As an explorer and thinker, she is compelled to understand this notion.

Alma’s professional and personal life leads her to contemplate the “struggle for existence.” As the reader follows Alma on her odyssey of the natural world and beyond, the wonder of life becomes ever transcendent--that “those who survived the world shaped it—even as the world, simultaneously, shaped them.”

This exquisite novel feels like a gift to humanity. It has heart, soul, and earthiness. And Alma.

[B the BookAddict · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many thoughts, so little time - so....

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of that turnip of a book – Eat, Pray, Love, has written an absolute peach of a big, sprawling novel in The Signature of All Things.

Luscious, ambitious, lyrical, satisfying; nothing in this novel will fail to keep you spellbound. I could wax lyrically all day about this book.

Thank-you to Sally Howes for recommending this to me. Most Highly Recommended. 5★

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I lovedlovedloved this historical novel about a woman's life in nineteenth century Philadelphia. I knew I was going to like this book by its very first page, which begins thusly:

Alma Whittaker, born with the century, slid into our world on the fifth of January, 1800.

Swiftly — nearly immediately — opinions began to form around her.

Alma's mother, upon viewing the infant for the first time, felt quite satisfied with the outcome. Beatrix Whittaker had suffered poor luck thus far generating an heir. Her first three attempts at conception had vanished in sad rivulets before they'd ever quickened. Her most recent attempt — a perfectly formed son — had come right to the brink of life, but had then changed his mind about it on the very morning he was meant to be born, and arrived already departed. After such losses, any child who survives is a satisfactory child.

Holding her robust infant, Beatrix murmured a prayer in her native Dutch. She prayed that her daughter would grow up to be healthy and sensible and intelligent, and would never form associations with overly powdered girls, or laugh at vulgar stories, or sit at gaming tables with careless men, or read French novels, or behave in a manner suited only to a savage Indian, or in any way whatsoever become the worst sort of discredit to a good family; namely, that she not grow up to be een onnozelaar, a simpleton. Thus concluded her blessing — or what constitutes a blessing, from so austere a woman as Beatrix Whittaker.

Oh yeah, this book is fantastic. It's a birth-to-death story: We watch Alma grow up, we learn how her father became one of the wealthiest men in Pennsylvania, we see Alma develop a passion for botany and scholarship, we witness her loves and her broken hearts, we watch her care for her parents as they get older, and finally, we get to go on an amazing journey with her to the other side of the world.

The richness of the world that Gilbert recreated here is amazing. I think historical fiction is a genre that is particularly challenging — the author has to balance historical accuracy without bogging down the storytelling — and Gilbert made it look easy.

The Signature of All Things had been on my to-read list for a few years, but I bumped it up after reading Gilbert's book on creativity, Big Magic. In it, she discussed how she became interested in gardening and flowers, which eventually led to Alma's story. She also mentioned her dissatisfaction with one of the characters she created, but she didn't name names. Even though I think I know what she was talking about, I didn't care. I still loved the richness and depth of this novel, and I was completely absorbed in it. Once again I was impressed by the author's versatility. Anything Gilbert writes, I will read. Highly recommended.

Favorite Passage
"Then — in the seconds that remained before it would have been too late to reverse course at all — Alma suddenly knew something. She knew it with every scrap of her being, and it was not a negotiable bit of information: she knew that she, the daughter of Henry and Beatrix Whittaker, had not been put on this earth to drown in five feet of water. She also knew this: if she had to kill somebody in order to save her own life, she would do so unhesitatingly. Lastly, she knew one other thing, and this was the most important realization of all: she knew that the world was plainly divided into those who fought an unrelenting battle to live, and those who surrendered and died. This was a simple fact. This fact was not merely true about the lives of human beings; it was also true of every living entity on the planet, from the largest creation down to the humblest. It was even true of mosses. This fact was the very mechanism of nature — the driving force behind all existence, behind all transmutation, behind all variation — and it was the explanation for the entire world. It was the explanation Alma had been seeking forever."

[dawna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elizabeth Gilbert

I can't say enough good things about this huge, ambitious and accessible novel. I read it based on an interview I saw with Liz Gilbert, where she talked about her inspiration for the story (a family heirloom book from the late 1700's detailing the voyages of Captain Cook), and because I think Gilbert is an amazing writer, whose talent and scope is far beyond the pigeon-holing she's garnered from Eat, Pray, Love (which I also loved).

It's far, far too good to give a detailed review with many specifics, I wouldn't want to spoil the pleasure of reading it for oneself...in fact, this is one of the books that makes you wax rhapsodic (at least inside your own head) about the pleasures of being a reader. I will say however, that the many themes present in the book, feminism, existentialism versus transcendentalism, colonization, botany, exploration, the fragile and mystifying nature of ALL relationships, not just romantic ones, and self-discovery, have likely never been covered more beautifully, amusingly and engagingly. As a writer myself, I was stopped in my reading tracks hundreds of times by a gorgeous turn of phrase or a description that was so precisely apt I was thunderstruck. Nearing the end of the book, I became aware of a delightfully terrible tension between my desire to find out how it all played out and ended, and my unwillingness for it to end. I'm in awe of the research that must have gone into its creation, and the story created all kinds of new curiosities to be satisfied by further reading. In fact, I wish Gilbert had included a list of recommended reading, which I rarely recall upon finishing a novel. It simply is the best novel I've read this year. Though I'm sure it won't please everyone who knows of Gilbert because of either the memoir or film of Eat, Pray, Love, (I also fervently hope that those who were/are snarky about Eat, Pray,Love don't let that stop them from reading this) I found it brilliant, thought-provoking, and a very great pleasure of a read.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Elizabeth Gilbert, so it pains me to say that I could not wait for this book to be over. I listened to it, and it was read very well, but I couldn't skim parts that I may have if I was reading it, which made it that much more torturous.

There were certainly moments of brilliance, and it was obvious that Gilbert put a lot of time and research into the novel, but there was too much detail, about too many subjects, which made it incredibly drawn out and tedious.

While I was not expecting Eat, Pray, Love, it did make me realize that the thing I love most about Elizabeth Gilbert, is HER voice, not the voice of a 19th century Bryologist, who I did not find very likeable or believable.

I hope her next novel has a more contemporary voice.

[Margitte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alma Whitaker was born in the first sentence of the book. Genetically she was predestined for her life, like we all are. But her life would be different, as in totally different than the norm, made possible by the two determined people who would structure her intellectual, social, emotional and historical journey through life, particularly the Golden Age of 19th Century Botanical Exploration. It was the period in history which ensured unimaginable wealth to the patrons of plants and medicines. Botanist of this period traveled the world in their quest to become the first founders of the wealth hidden in the forests of the world. They were opponents of the worst kind: ruthless, often dangerous, and shamelessly greedy in their egotistical, even narcissistic, pursue of fame and fortune.

This is a contemporary novel about the typical female botanists who graced the history of the 19th century.

To completely understand Alma's conduct and journey, the author took the time to properly introduce her parents to the reader - over many pages, I might add!

Mother: Beatrix van Devender from Amsterdam

P.49: "Her name was Beatrix, and she was neither plain, nor pretty, which seemed just about right for a wife. She was stout and bottomless, a perfect little barrel of a woman, and she was already rolling toward spinsterhood. Decidedly this woman was not a coquette. She was no ornament of the drawing room. She dressed in the full spectrum of colors that one associate with common house sparrows.

Henry perceived her as a living slab of ballast, which was precisely what he desired."

Her father: Henry Whittaker:
Henry was born in 1760 to a poor father who was an orchardsman at Kew Gardens. Henry despised his father's lack of ambition since he was a very young boy. He had no other motive in life other than the pure ambition to become as rich and influential as his father's boss, Sir Joseph Banks.

To escape the harsh poverty of his parents, Henry became cunning, fearless and relentless. He would even resort to thievery, stealing plants, which was a hanging crime in Britain at the time. He was caught and as punishment was sent by Sir Joseph Banks on the Captain Cook voyage around the world as an assistant botanist.

One of his main purposes was to spy. He visited all the cities, as well as experienced the events leading to the murder of Captain Cook. He became knowledgeable enough to go his own way and start his own botanical pursuits after all the years of accumulating plants and information from his botany task masters. His training included crossing most of the oceans, survive hardship on the decks of ancient sea-faring vessels, endure tough climates, disease and weather conditions, and explore the dangerous forests and mountains of the southern hemisphere. He discovered as much of himself and his survival skills, as the multitude of plants and business opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry. He had the right instincts, a street-smartness, to make his dreams come true on a grand scale.

Henry soon established himself in Philadelphia, on an estate he had built to impress as well as to intimidate, and became the world's biggest supplier of quinine resulting in almost immeasurable riches for him. But he needed a wife.

"Henry was not handsome. He was certainly not refined. In all truth, there was something of the village blacksmith about his ruddy face, his large hands, and his rough manners. To most eyes, he appeared neither solid nor credible. Henry Whittaker was an impulsive, loud, and bellicose man, who had enemies all over the world. He had also become in the past year, a bit of a drinker. What respectable young woman would willingly choose such a character for a husband?

He had principles for sure, just not the best variety of them."

He was a driven man who never did anything that was not to his advancement. Beatrix was the perfect choice. She was from a Dutch family, all of them botanical scientists, who managed the Hortus Botanicus Gardens in Amsterdam for generations. She herself was a scientist.

P. 50: "The only accurate word for their union was a partnership based on honest trade and plain dealing, where tomorrow's profit are a result of today's promises, and where the cooperation of both parties equally contribute to prosperity."

Alma, the only surviving child from the marriage, ended up being over six feet tall, muscular and ugly, to be frank - a perfect female embodiment of her dad. It was thus naturally assumed that she would not be suitable breeding stock in the world of the high society. They were not part of that world anyway. Her parents did not take the normal route with her upbringing at all. Her world was filled with books, knowledge and the pursuit of excellence. She never knew what it was to play. It was expected of her to converse with academics around the dinner table, and never went to bed with a loving parent reading a children's story. She was surrounded by knowledge. The estate was arranged and developed as her own private university. She was destined to become an intellectual success in a man's world. The level of intellect she was expose to, was not common for children, particularly not for little girls. But her parents made sure that her life would be different.

Since women, at the time, were associated with a love of flowers, botany was the only science in which women were allowed to participate, although in a limited way, since men were quick to feel threatened by female intellectuals. The female botanists of the time were all fabulously rich, had male family members who were established in science, and tended to be childless.

Before she was 5 years old, Alma could speak 5 living, and two dead languages. She was also tutored in science, needlework, art, music, dancing, maths and history. It was inevitable that she became an analyst - a rational and impartial individual, a super empirical thinker, who enjoyed intellectual pursuits and prized independence. She had strategic thinking skills, self-confidence and impressive knowledge. (Her abilities would nowadays place her in the top 2% of the world's population, which was very rare for women in the Nineteenth century, and still is uncommon in our modern world.)

Alma was as economically driven as her father, as cold and steely, as her mother, and was further raised as a member of the Lutheran Church, since there were no Dutch Reformed Churches in America(In South Africa it is still one of the biggest churches since time immemorial). Beatrix, who originated from the strict Calvinistic environment, staunchly and coldly believed that every individual should be a master of their own selves, no matter what and that included women. Emotion did not fit into her version of a family life.

In a dramatic late night scene, Prudence was introduced to the family. She moved in as a foster child after a family tragedy played itself out in her parents's home, but was immediately adopted by Beatrix. Suddenly, Alma, who was socially isolated from the rest of the world, who never had any friends of her own age, had someone to compare herself with, and realized for the first time that she was not beautiful. She also realized that the extraordinary beautiful, yet cold, distant Prudence was not her intellectual equal either. Thus begins a life of comparison and competition for the two girls. The only joy they both experienced was to work hard at whatever they set out to accomplish.

Love, which like a stranger appeared from the bitter cold, did not manifest itself easily in the usual places, and were not obvious in this family unit. Neither did the secrets of science and religion become a simple journey for anyone.

Ambrose Pike entered her life and introduced her to her own antithesis in a earth-shattering way.

"There was Ambrose Pike, a man whom God had blessed fourfold with genius, originality, beauty and grace. "

For him life was heaven, with him a divine creature, an angel, by his own devotion and choice. For Alma, however, life was a continuous battlefield in which only the fittest would survive as she discovered through 30 years of moss research. Everything on earth had a perfectly organized place on a scientific grid of truths. Endurance would determine the outcome of this encounter. But for the first time ever, Alma met love head on and she did not know what to do with it. Whatever she ever suspected of this 'condition' came from forbidden academic scriptures hidden in secret compartments of their impressive library.

Comments: I do not want to indulge too much in the course of the plot or narrative and will leave it there, although the book is, like Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible, a trip trough the deep, dark, mostly unhappy labyrinths of the Nineteenth century journeys of scientific discoveries and final divorce between religion and science. The two opposing poles were like scientists who had no divinity and the faithful who had no reason. The interpretation of the botanical discoveries simply could not forge a collective bond which was dearly needed to survive a marriage ceremony.

The plot is multifaceted, but linear, which makes it an easy narrative. Fascinating and profound. Informative and entertaining.

The two elements, which are the alpha and omega of story writing, are both used in the book, namely
1) a stranger is coming to town, and
2) the protagonist is going on a journey.

These two plot indicators divide the book into two halves. The first half would be the early childhood and educational journey of Alma, the protagonist, into adulthood and her first serious love affair. The second half is about Alma the explorer, the apple that did not fall far from the paternal tree. But in a surprising twist, she also completed the circle which her mother started when she left her family as well as Holland forever and never looked back.

Relationships, loyalty, science, religion and a few other human concepts, are put under the microscope. Darwinism forms a major component in the underscoring of Alma's work. Her work did not only defined who she was, but constantly also became her savior from disappointment, heartbreak and loneliness. It was the one scenario that she was able to completely control when everything she ever believed in was challenged.

The book's title has a very profound, and to me, interesting origin:

"Nothing brought more goodness and assurance to Alma Whittaker's life than the heartening certainty of material boundaries.

Ambrose regarded her carefully before continuing.
"When I was nineteen years old, I discovered a collection of books in the Harvard library written by Jacob Boehme. Do you know of him?"

Naturally she knew of him. She had her own copies of these works in the White Acre library. She had read Boehme, though she never admired him. Jacob Boehme was a sixteenth-century cobbler from Germany who had mystical visions about plants. Many people considered him and early botanist. Alma's mother, on the other hand, had considered him a cesspool of residual medieval superstition. So there was considerable conflict of opinion surrounding Jacob Boehme.

The old cobbler had believed in something he called ' the signature of all things' -- namely, that God had hidden clues of humanity's betterment inside the design of every flower, leaf, and tree on earth. All the natural world was a divine code, Boehme claimed, containing proof of our Creator's love."

There are just so many facets to this book. The staggering amount of research was obvious from the very first moment. I never wanted to skip-read anything. The prose was firstly, a testimony to this author's sheer joy in building word castles, and secondly a celebration of her use of Germanic Romanticism to construct the plot. I was constantly pulled into the masterful prose. T

he 'show, don't tell'-principle, worked splendidly. It had me constantly jumping from one emotion to the next. There is a melancholic joy, a profound pathos, achieved in the book, and that is a special skill !

What struck me the most of this book is how accurate the author built the characters around their individual backgrounds. She understood the strict, correct, unemotional world of Calvinism, yet had the insight to recognize the love and responsibility for children's education behind the cold, calculated, disciplined front of its followers.

On the other hand, Henry Whittaker was a true British philanthropist and adventurer who wiggled his way through the challenges of life with wit and straightforward ruthless ambition. He never denied or wanted to hide his aspirations in life. He was actually one of my favorite characters in the book.

Alma is the perfect combination of both her parents' good and bad points. I grew up in the Calvinistic milieu and understood this characters so well. In fact, having an Irish father and a German mother, I totally identified with this family and their cronies and just blended in perfectly in the story. Since I am also actively involved in plants as an amateur botanist, this was indeed the book for me!

A rich cast of endearing characters were added as support to the plot. From distant, cold persona, to warm, loving 'mensches'. But a few surprises were hidden under the thick layers of Alma's well-groomed and civilized conduct. It really gave deeper meaning to a lonely girl who found her true friends in the microscopic forests of her moss research. And in the end, Roger the dog, taught her the lessons about love she never thought she wanted to learn.

The author, being the narrator, wrote the book from a modern perspective, yet managed to capture the essence of life in the nineteenth century. Every aspect of the story line felt authentic. I simply loved the way this book was planned and executed.

Yes, you've got it right, it was a most enjoyable and profound read. Absolutely wonderful! Yet, I close the book with a sadness I cannot describe. There are still so many Almas out there, and this is their story. After everything she learnt and lived, she simply did not fit into the ultimate Darwinian mode of specie survival. It did not matter how much she survived, and how many mountains she conquered, she unintentionally redefined the Darwinian concept of the survival of the fittest. She had everything going for her, she conquered the world, yet one important element was missing - a genetic trick, she could not escape. And to find out what it was, you will have to read this book! Indirectly it follows the saga from the very beginning to the ultimate end without being spelled out. And that left me infinitely sad. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book isn't for everyone. Some may find it too long. Others may find parts of it hokey - or embarrassing. Some may find it reaches too high and, for that stretch, falls short of the mark in the pursuit. I wouldn't disagree with anyone who felt these ways. But for me, it's a beautiful, big, thoughtful book. A book that takes, in the space of one fictional life with nods to real historical unfolding of events and theories, the hope of understanding a meaning of us, greater than us. A book that strives to find some connection between the parts of us that desire order, reason and evidence and those parts that resist both in mystery and the unknowable. It's a book about a philosophy of how to live - stubborn, fighting, lucky, like the things in nature that endure the resistance of outward forces - or yielding, believing, conceding, in mystery. It's a book about what it's like to be a woman who searches for something more than herself, to make a deeper meaning of her life. The philosophy and the life a mirror of pursuit.

Many images will stay in my mind from it. The most vivid, I think, will be of young Alma running jagged through the crowd of her father's partygoers, arranged in celestial orbits and constellations on their warm lawn, holding on to her torch-comet fire, weaving in and out of the people around her and, all along, longing for a place and purpose among them.

If we can live a life the burns bright in some way, we must be lucky. And stubborn. This book will stay with me because of that truth. It will stay with me because from the first sentences, I felt I could tell it was written with deep conviction and hope - a hope to connect to readers, I think, like me. It's such a difficult feat to connect to people, truly. Another theme of this book. It feels to me like a gift when a book does. I hope this book does that for you - most likely because it did for me.

And if not this one, then another.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

A richly satisfying feast for me. It transported me completely to a fascinating time and place, Philadelphia in the mid-19th century, and into the mind of a woman who lives in the world of botany, one Alma Whitaker.

The saga has a great start with the life of her father Henry, whose lower-class life in London gets transformed by an opportunity to work for the famous naturalist Joseph Banks, first as a caretaker at his Kew Garden project and later as a sort of spy on exploratory voyages such as Cooke’s. When snubbed by Banks on his ideas for making money off of a medicinal plant that produces quinine, he takes the scheme to the Dutch, makes money, and moves to America to make a ton of more money with a botanical drug empire. With him Gilbert captures the essence of the marriage of capitalism and the American Dream for me. We get the illusion of understanding what drives him, a sympathy tempered with the heartless truths that he didn’t care if the medicines didn’t work and that he was making money off of devastating epidemics such as yellow fever.

Alma’s development was fascinating to experience. Where she was homely and bright, her adopted sister Prudence was beautiful and average in intellect. Each was continually shamed by Henry and their cold Dutch mother for their deficiencies, but each blossomed in ways the parents never intended. A bubbly, irreverent daughter of aristocrats, Retta, is a surprising addition to their circle, bringing the world of play to their serious world.
“We are fiddle, fork, and spoon. We are dancing with the moon. If you’d like to steal a kiss from us, you’d better steal one soon!”

The progression of triumph and tragedy in these lives makes a story you want to linger over, and I won’t spoil it here. But what made the saga above average for me was the intrusion of ideas and epiphanies into the tale, which emerge out of Alma’s life as a framework for the trajectory of her life. A lot of the ideas relate to spirituality, which is largely missing in Alma’s outlook. She is so pragmatic in her life and pursuit of publishing on her botanical discoveries, yet she feels awed by the beauty and intricacy in the web of life.
I could read the language hidden inside trees. I saw angels living inside orchids. I saw a new religion, spoken in a new botanical language.

She cannot resist being attracted by someone who sees the same patterns as an expression of the divine (as referred to in the title of the book). But while her virginal existence has respite in the secret wonders of self-pleasuring, the man she comes to adore, Ambrose Pike, a painter of orchids, exists in an otherworldly plane. No moping here, waiting for a Mr. Darcy, as she is made of sterner stuff, in line with the Dutch perseverance of her mother and the family household manager from the old country:
Well, child, you may do whatever you like with your suffering,” Hanneke said mildly. “It belongs to you. But I shall tell you what I do with mine. I grasp it by the small hairs, I cast it to the ground, and I grind it under the heel of my boot. I suggest you learn to do the same.”

Another key message she imbibes in her upbringing keeps her on her feet:
“Nothing is so essential as dignity, girls. Time will reveal who has it and who has it not.”

Alma envies the men who travel the world to make their discoveries of new species. Exotic and sensual orchids from far away jungles and plants with medicinal properties known only to remote tribes. Yet in her own back yard on the banks of the Schuykill River she finds a worthy subject of study neglected by others: mosses.

“Tell me, though, Miss Whittaker, what is it you admire in mosses?” “Their dignity,” Alma replied without hesitation.

She finds incredible variety in their forms and adaptation among the microenvironments in the boulder fields. Their mode of reproduction is obscure, yet they thrive where nothing else can and over long time turn rock into soil. They grow so slowly, existing on a timescale somewhere between the vast epochs of geological time and the flash of human time. She has a field to herself, no threat to the academic world of men, as she charts all their varieties in classic Linnean methods. She finds comfort in living on “Moss Time.” As a former biologist, I loved her sense of wonder and dedication to study of hidden complexities behind living forms:

You see, I have never felt the need to invent a world beyond this world, for this world has always seemed large and beautiful enough for me. I have wondered why it is not large and beautiful enough for others — why they must dream up new and marvelous spheres, or long to live elsewhere, beyond this dominion ... but that is not my business. We are all different, I suppose.
...
She would probably die of old age before she understood even half of what was occurring in this one single boulder field. Well, huzzah to that! It meant that Alma had work stretched ahead of her for the rest of her life. She need not be idle. She need not be unhappy. Perhaps she need not even be lonely. She had a task.

Eventually, in late life when she gets a chance to visit the wonders of the South Sea islands, she has an epiphany about competition for survival as a driving force in the progression of species. Her work on this theory has no pathway to scientific publication and gets superseded by Darwin’s publication on natural selection and evolution. How she deals with this makes a fitting feminist closure to this tale of “what if” regarding women’s lost opportunities in science.

This is an old-fashioned saga free of modern literary experiments in form and language. I can’t tell how many of my friends might be bored with its slow progression. At first impressed by the diversity of Gilbert’s writing, I come to see continuity in my reads of her novel about Maine lobsterman, “Stern Men”, and her memoir of self-discovery, “Eat, Pray, Love.” In interviews, she defends the latter book as possibly a more important work given the positive impact of the self-help model presented on the lives of readers. Alma’s fictional life might be seen as another form of self-help guide. Beyond that, it does well to add to the limited selection of good books on the lives of scientists in the context of their times. I admit disappointment that more on the detailed issues at play in Alma’s studies were not woven in, but I accept how challenging that would be without overwhelming the average reader.

[Phrynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started out enjoying this book very much and I was glad because I had been avoiding reading it for a while due to the fact that I disliked Eat, Pray, Love so much.The Signature of All Things is a very different kind of book however and it is mostly interesting, well,written and populated with intriguing characters. Sadly though it is too long and the last section just meanders along without direction. Which is a great shame because I was left thinking it was just an okay book when in fact a large part of it was excellent. So there was good and there was not so good which makes me think I will go straight down the middle and give it three stars:)

[Candace · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first time reading Elizabeth Gilbert—I’m one of the six people in the universe who didn’t read “Eat, Pray, Love”—and I’m glad I didn’t approach this novel with any preconceived ideas. I’m sure it’s nothing like her previous bestseller, but if that book can propel this book high on the lists that would be great. “The Signature of All Things” is a lovely novel, beautifully written with great scope and rich characters.

The novel is full of small delights of writing. Money, Gilbert writes, follows Alma’s father around “like a small, excited dog.” The nineteenth century enchantment with science and the natural world is expressed fully and with the sense of wonder Alma and her family felt. Alma is educated in the 19th century way by her autodidact botanist father Henry and her classically educated Dutch mother, who want her to be able to understand the world on many levels. She does, and she doesn’t.

Where the novel falters is in the secondary characters, notably Alma’s adopted sister Prudence and their friend, Retta. Both characters are meant to offer contrasts to Alma’s cerebral, carnal aspects, but as people they are not believable, nor are their marriages. The novel becomes a little unmoored—as does Alma—once she leaves White Acres for the greater world. These are strange false steps in an otherwise assured work.

But you know what? Who cares! It might take a little suspension of disbelief in the last third or so of “The Signature of all Things” but each page is still a pleasure and otherwise it might just be too perfect. May this quality novel have the success of Elizabeth Gilbert’s other books. It would be nice to see it at the top of the NYT bestseller list.

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you loved “Eat, Pray, Love” be warned that this is a very different book: not only a novel, but a sweeping historical and scientific novel, 500+ pages of great writing. Think Barbara Kingsolver meets James Michener and Charles Darwin. Utterly divine, but totally different than the memoir.
If you did not love “Eat, Pray, Love” and if you love a big juicy interesting read, you will love this one, because Elizabeth Gilbert, when released from neurotic navel-gazing, is a smashing writer with brilliant insights
I hated to say farewell to the protagonist, Alma Whittaker. A botanist in the 1800’s [who even imagined female botanists at that time?] she is a force of nature. Raised by an ambitious father and a stoic hard-edged mother, her intellect is prized, and she ends up taking command of the family’s personal and professional lives, including their massive homestead and her father’s thriving pharmaceutical business. Alma takes control of many things, including her libidinous passions, and like so many true intellectuals, she is curious and wise about the ways of the world, in this case the plant world, but often completely ignorant of personalities and penchants.
But Gilbert’s Alma is neither arrogant nor dismissive. She is a student of all things, including her own nature, and she learns from her mistakes with a determination rarely seen in anyone much less a woman of the 19th century.
The title stems from the writings of Jacob Broehme, a 16th century German who had mystical visions about plants, which he dubbed the signature of all things. Broehme contended, and what is commonly accepted among medicinal herbalists and shamans, that hidden clues for human well-being are embedded in the design of flowers, leaves, fruit, and trees. As such, basil is shaped like liver, walnuts like brains, etc.
Alma also comes to believe in the concept of multiple timeframes. Human time as a limited narrative based on collective memory and recorded history. Geological time, about which Charles Lyell and John Phillips had written, that moves at a snail’s pace. She also accepted the idea of Divine time, which is eternal, and she ultimately postulated what she called Moss time, blindingly fast in relation to geological time because mosses expand so rapidly by comparison to geographical phenomena. Over a lifetime of study, Alma “observed these great, inaudible, slow moving dominions of green as they expanded and contracted. She measured their progress in fingernail lengths and by half decades.”
Trust me, mosses, and algae, are fascinating!
Once Alma recognizes that she will devote her life to science, she rejoices in the possibilities: “Alma’s existence at once felt bigger and much, much smaller – but a pleasant sort of smaller. The world had scaled itself down into endless inches of possibility. Her life could be lived in generous miniature… She would probably die of all age before she understood even half of what was occurring in this one single boulder field… it meant that Alma had work stretched ahead of her for the rest of her life. She need not be idle. She need not be unhappy. Perhaps she need not even by lonely.”
And what a life she lives! From Pennsylvania to Indonesia and to Holland, Alma leaves an indelible mark on the people in her midst, and on the reader, and in the pages of this remarkable novel lies profound universal and personal truths, as well as emotional and scientific fascinations.
I read a lot of good books and I can tell you this one is a true winner. Brava Elizabeth Gilbert and thank you.

[Evie · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Lastly, she knew one other thing, and this was the most important realization of all: she knew that the world was plainly divided into those who fought an unrelenting battle to live, and those who surrendered and died. This was a simple fact."



This was a delightful audio book to listen to! At a length of 21 hours and 43 minutes, it seemed like a daunting book to tackle prior to investing in my wireless noise canceling headphones. It's made audio books a delight once again. Now I can listen anywhere! While I clean, drive, take the train, on dog walks and even at the gym, I am traveling vicariously to different lands and periods of time.



This book was read by the lovely Juliet Stevensen. I had no idea that she had so many audio productions under her belt. I always remember her a Mrs. Elton in the film, Emma. In this book she maintains American, English and Dutch accents throughout. Impressive! I'm keen to look into her other narrations.

At the center of this novel is Alma Whittaker, a young woman born into an eccentric, wealthy family of botanists in Philadelphia at the turn of the 18th century. This can really be called a sweeping historical saga, as it also covers the life of both her parents, Henry and Beatrix, and over 100 years of the biological sciences, colonialization, and history. It's kind of a difficult book to describe in a few words. In fact, I'm not sure that I followed where it was headed at all times.

No doubt Alma's advancements in her specialized field of plant life is what enchanted me most. I really liked her character. I understood her longings and could only imagine how difficult it must have been to be so ahead of her time, but not given proper consideration because she was a woman. With the final part of the book in the balance, I was sure this would be a 5-star book had it not been for the last part. I'm still scratching my head. I guess instead of tying up all the loose ends and relationships in Alma's life with her theory, it only left more questions in my mind.

I guess I mostly wondered what the point of it all was? Alma lead an extraordinary life, but was it extraordinary because of her contributions to science or her theory? Hmmm. I respect Gilbert's vision, but it felt a bit like there were too many balls in the air. Still a wonderful read. Exceptional prose, well researched, and most importantly, she succeeded in transporting me in time. I haven't read Eay, Pray, Love or any of her other works, but I now look forward to them.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

"If ever a book were doomed to birth in a suffocating caul of expectations, this is it (a fact Gilbert has addressed gracefully in a popular Ted Talk). “Author of the No. 1 New York Times best seller ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ ” appears prominently on the front cover, and, compounding the expectations, the book’s publicity proclaims it a neo-19th-century work in style and substance. In fact, the prose is modern and accessible, leaning on plot rather than language to draw readers in. Gilbert has established herself as a straight-up storyteller who dares us into adventures of worldly discovery, and this novel stands as a winning next act. “The Signature of All Things” is a bracing homage to the many natures of genius and the inevitable progress of ideas, in a world that reveals its best truths to the uncommonly patient minds."

Barbara Kingsolver in the New York Times Book Review

What a surprising and thrilling ride this was. Elizabeth Gilbert has done what so many writers must dream of doing: to write a book exclusively for oneself, casting away all expectations, brushing away the fear of not fitting in the 21st literary canon, squashing self-doubt and ignoring the siren song of more "modern" and "post-modern" prose.

Here is a natural-born storyteller at the height of her power, writing at the top of her lungs, finding the route to what is none other than this: unabashed joy.

Alma Whittaker, born in 1800, is a multi-faceted, flawed, brilliant, selfish, moving, outrageous and sublime heroine for our times.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who knew Elizabeth Gilbert had it in her? I’ve read and loved all of her nonfiction (e.g. Big Magic), but my experience of her fiction was a different matter: Stern Men is simply atrocious. I’m so glad I took a chance on this 2013 novel anyway. Many friends had lauded it, and for good reason. It’s a warm, playful doorstopper of a book, telling the long and eventful story of Alma Whittaker, a fictional nineteenth-century botanist whose staid life in her father’s Philadelphia home unexpectedly opens outward through marriage, an adventure in Tahiti, and a brush with the theories of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace.

The novel’s voice feels utterly natural, and though Gilbert must have done huge amounts of research about everything from bryophytes to Tahitian customs, nowhere does the level of historical detail feel overwhelming. There are truly terrific characters, including mystical orchid illustrator Ambrose Pike, perky missionary Reverend Welles, and a charismatic Polynesian leader named Tomorrow Morning.

We see multiple sides of Alma herself, like her enthusiasm for mosses and her sexual yearning. For a short time in her girlhood she’s part of a charming female trio with her adopted sister Prudence and their flighty friend Retta. I loved how Gilbert pins down these three very different characters through pithy (and sometimes appropriately botanical) descriptions: “Prudence’s nose was a little blossom; Alma’s was a growing yam,” while Retta is “a perfect little basin of foolishness and distraction.”

Gilbert also captures the delight of scientific discovery and the fecundity of nature in a couple of lush passages that are worth quoting in full:

(Looking at mosses on boulders) Alma put the magnifying lens to her eye and looked again. Now the miniature forest below her gaze sprang into majestic detail. She felt her breath catch. This was a stupefying kingdom. This was the Amazon jungle as seen from the back of a harpy eagle. She rode her eye above the surprising landscape, following its paths in every direction. Here were rich, abundant valleys filled with tiny trees of braided mermaid hair and minuscule, tangled vines. Here were barely visible tributaries running through that jungle, and here was a miniature ocean in a depression in the center of the boulder where all the water pooled.

The cave was not merely mossy; it throbbed with moss. It was not merely green; it was frantically green. It was so bright in its verdure that the color nearly spoke, as though—smashing through the world of sight—it wanted to migrate into the world of sound. The moss was a thick, living pelt, transforming every rock surface into a mythical, sleeping beast.

Best of all, the novel kept surprising me. Every chapter and part took a new direction I never would have predicted. Like The Goldfinch, this is a big, rich novel I can imagine rereading.

Readalikes:

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren: An enthusiastic, wide-ranging memoir of being a woman in science. There’s even some moss! This was a really interesting one for me to be reading at the same time as the Gilbert novel.

Euphoria by Lily King: Based on Margaret Mead’s anthropological research among the tribes of Papua New Guinea in the 1930s, this also has a wonderfully plucky female protagonist.

The Paper Garden by Molly Peacock: This biography of Mary Delany, an eighteenth-century botanical illustrator, examines the options for women’s lives at that time and celebrates the way Delany beat the odds by seeking a career of her own in her seventies.

The Seed Collectors by Scarlett Thomas: A quirky novel full of plants and sex.


Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Shahine Ardeshir · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I was about one third through this book, I realized two things: One, that I enjoy reading to learn something, even something small, that I didn't know before. And two, that I was unlikely to learn much from this particular read.

Reading should (in my opinion) teach you something, or at the very least, entertain you. Which is why I usually prefer non-fiction, and which is also why if I do read fiction, I expect it to be exceptional. This book was not educational nor entertaining and nothing about it was exceptional. I picked it up solely because I (along with millions of other readers) loved Gilbert's Eat Pray Love and Committed, and I found her to be an honest, witty and bold writer. I found none of that in this book. It was long, staid, mildly amusing at best and boring at worst: It generated no emotions, good or bad, and no curiosity either.

I read this book much like I watch an episode of a long-standing soap opera on TV: With no interest in what happens next or emotional connect to any of the characters, but solely because I didn't feel like getting up to change the channel. I would highly recommend, therefore, that you avoid tuning into this channel in the first place, and do yourself a favour.

[Paula K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprised this made the Bailey's prize long list. Way too long. This book could have been cut in half. I enjoyed the first half in which Alma's father was very present. What a character! The romance part was uninteresting, but the scientific info about botany throughout the book was excellent.

3 out of 5 stars.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Henry Whittaker was a self made man, a man who exacted a great deal of thought from those around him, quick of mind and eager to seize any money making enterprise centering on botany and the medicinal uses of said plants. His only daughter is Alma, equipped with an exacting nature and brilliant mind herself, she finds a virtual playground of plant and animal life on the family estate in which to learn and thus becomes a scientist in her own measure.

This story is Alma's, although their are other interesting characters in the background, the story belongs to her. Therefore, in order to embrace this story one must embrace the multi-layered character of Alma. Maybe it was because I have been sick this past week, but I was in the mood for a family generational novel, and found this book both interesting and comforting. I loved her story, found it full of quirks and follies, loved her mind and the way it worked and loved watching her figure things out.

It helps if the reader likes botany, history and introspective novels. All of these are part of this novel, the slow moving moss, the less than welcome reception Captain Cook received from the natives (gulp) and so much more. As much as I disliked Eat, Pray, Love, I surprisingly like this novel. She can write, she can research and in this novel that shows.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

To be honest, I listened to this book after joining Audible. The richness of Gilbert's writing and Juliet Stevenson's voice made this one of the best book experiences I've had in a long time. Alma Whittaker is a strong, interesting, and vulnerable character whose journey in life is so layered that I found myself rushing to get back to the book and I was deeply saddened when I finished. Yet I was so satisfied when the book was over that I think back on the book fondly as if reminiscing about a long missed friend or relative. Elizabeth Gilbert has woven together astonishing facts about horticulture, history of 19th century America, spirituality, ideas on evolution, all with a a group of strong, interesting characters. Just when I thought I knew or understood the events and characters, Gilbert would surprise me and keep me riveted. This is a longer book (500+ pages) and I always wonder if I'll lose interest in longer books, but she was able, for me, to propel me and the story forward leading to a lovely ending. I have to chuckle because I kept thinking that this book was Alma's Eat, Pray, Love! But then I realized that any good story is a deeper search for self where change, reflection and a certain sense of peace is found.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gilbert has beautifully written the odyssey of a fictional botanist, Alma Whittaker, spanning the mid 1700’s to mid 1800’s. This odyssey is one to be savored. It’s a 500-page tome of greatly researched botanical historical fiction. There is not much action or dialogue, yet the reader is almost mesmerized with each word. This is not a fast read; yet the reader cannot wait to get back to the story. Alma is born to a wealthy family in Philadelphia. She is highly educated for a woman of that time. She finds a passion in reading, learning, and discovery. She is a true pioneer of her time. Gilbert develops her character in such detail (all her characters) that the reader can easily visualize each scene. There is a mix of science and spirituality. Any description of the plot does no justice to this amazingly crafted novel. I read this for book club, not for any interest in the history of botany. I am truly grateful we picked this book. This is one of the best works of historical fiction I’ve read in a long time.

[da AL · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this! I listened to it on cd - the narrator was terrific. So much research must've gone into this. Realy well done, in every way!