The Signature of All Things: A Novel Author: Elizabeth Gilbert | Language: English | ISBN:
B00BPDR3F6 | Format: EPUB
The Signature of All Things: A Novel Description
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.
- File Size: 4029 KB
- Print Length: 513 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0670024856
- Publisher: Viking Adult (October 1, 2013)
- Sold by: Penguin Group (USA) LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00BPDR3F6
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #561 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction > Sagas - #7
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical Fiction > United States - #10
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction > Historical
- #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction > Sagas - #7
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical Fiction > United States - #10
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction > Historical
Let me start by saying that I have indeed read "Eat, Pray, Love". Yep, that's the camp I belong to. Also, I totally loved it. Yep, that's the sub-camp I belong to.
Though I am not much into fiction, I was mildly curious to find out how Ms. Gilbert would walk out of memoir mode and segway into the world of fiction (not sure if this is her first fiction but it's the only one I have picked up).
Would she be able to enrapture, intrigue and delight us with a tale borne out of her imagination, as she had with her own true story in "Eat, Pray and Love"?
Well, the answer is a resounding yes!
And by golly, does she have a tale to tell.
Set in the 18th -19th century, the story revolves around Alma, the daughter of the very wealthy Henry Whittaker. From her father, Alma has inherited a penchant for plants. She spends most of her waking hours trying to make sense of the botanical world around her, perhaps in an attempt to understand her own existence. But through the course of her life, she is made to realize how little she knows about her own world, her own self.
The story has been skillfully woven into a rich tapestry of adventure, emotions and science. Something also needs to be said about the amount of research that must have gone in; the book is peppered with facts that have been laid out in a manner almost poetic.
"Alma learned to tell time by the opening and closing of flowers. At five o'clock in the morning, she noticed, the goatsbeard petals always unfolded. At six o'clock, the daisies and globeflowers opened. When the clock struck seven, the dandelions would bloom. At eight o'clock, it was the scarlet pimpernel's turn...."
Facts infused with poetry or perhaps poetry infused with facts?
With all the flotsam and jetsam that floats by each day, it is heartening to read a book that engages, entertains and edifies one's view on life, all at the same time. Such is "The Signature of All Things" by Elizabeth Gilbert. As you might recall, she became famous for her memoir, "Eat, Pray, Love" which sold 10 million copies, was made into a movie starring Julia Roberts and which has made her rich enough to begin rebuilding (including buying houses for friends) a small town in New Jersey where she lives with a husband whom she married to ensure he could stay in the U.S.A. on a green card. You might think that would be enough to handle in the past few years, along with setting up a shop of imported wares like Buddhas and other Asian things that her husband manages.
But no, apparently, that's not been enough to occupy her time/life. With the publication of "The Signature of All Things," Elizabeth Gilbert reveals that she has been busy researching 18th and 19th century botanical history, including the commerce of ocean trade between the West and obscure locations yielding up medicinal plants and potions that ebbed and flowed with plagues, fevers, malaria and other illnesses that could not be treated otherwise than with exotic potions and herbs. She has constructed a tale (that's the only word for it) of a family, and especially a heroine named Alma Whittaker who is not pretty but is very intelligent, feisty and hard-working who perseveres through a life of disappointments and wishes that go unfulfilled in unwinsome ways.
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