The Signature of All Things: A Novel

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 Whittaker.

This is an in-depth and meticulously written chronicle of one woman's life--a scientist, a botanist, in the 1800s. It is a well-researched look into the world of botanical trade, botanical pharmaceuticals and the life, loves, struggles and work of one woman. While interesting, it often gets mired down in botanical minutia.

As I came to the end of this nearly 500 page epic, I did not want to leave the world of the main character, Alma Whittaker, so deeply was I touched by her. A towering woman of six feet, big-boned, with frizzy red hair and her father's large nose, Alma Whittaker is also a towering spirit. Elizabeth Gilbert has rendered her as beautifully in prose as the exquisite and faithfully detailed drawings of orchids which another character, Ambrose Pike creates - works of art unmatched by any other artist of his day. Alma is an admixture of scholarship and guilelessness, determination and self-discipline, great kindness and humility. This novel made me laugh and cry, sometimes within the bounds of a single page. Moments of irony and absurdity are sprinkled throughout. For example, the Tahitian Sister Manu's sermons in the mission church put a decidedly South Seas spin on the "call/response" religious services of Christian evangelicals. Navigation is a recurrent theme in the novel, from her father's early days as a seaman on Captain Cook's voyages of discovery, to the Tahitian's ancient knowledge of sailing by wind and star, to Alma's own journeys circumnavigating the oceans in later life. On inner levels as well, she seems on a constant quest to find her bearings, to chart her course through the shoals and eddies of circumstance and find the True North of her life. An expert in bryology, the study of moss, her own life can be examined and catalogued equally dispassionately from many diverse angles. A privileged heiress… A scientist… A solitary figure within a narrow, circumscribed life. She is alternately oblivious and brilliant. Wise and foolish. At one point, she even fears that a prominent scientific colleague might think her to be "…(s)ome unhinged old bat with an unseemly fixation." At times, Alma is as unaware of the feelings of the people around her as she is unusually prescient to the moss and all other varieties of plant life on her father's estate. For most of her life, she is unaware of just how much she is actually loved by others. From childhood, we see her adopted sister Prudence through Alma's eyes. Prudence is beautiful, while Alma is big, ungainly and unattractive. It's an early indication of Alma's character that she is only able to feel the pain in the contrast between the two of them, and feel diminished by it in a way she'd never known before. Jealousy is totally absent from her psychological make-up. But besides being a great beauty, Prudence is also remote and inscrutable. She seems frustratingly withholding and incapable of any expression of sisterly affection. Only when they are older, does Alma learn of the true depth of Prudence's love and loyalty. With her scientifically trained mind, Alma feels compelled to tease out the truth of things, whether that be colonies of moss on a boulder on her father's vast estate, or the truth of her romantic involvement with Ambrose Pike, the aforementioned painter of orchids. In mid-life, she embarks on a journey to the South Seas, driven by a need to uncover the truth of their time together. Did he think of her at all while he was in Tahiti? Had he ever loved her? Just who was he? She must know. Her time in Tahiti seemed to go on a little too long (I agree with some readers who thought some judicious editing could have been used here). I grew a bit impatient. The whole purpose of the trip seemed unnecessary, as obviously he had moved on with his life. For a woman so engaged in a life of the mind, she seemed to be languishing in the small mission community on the beach. Only later on, did I come to realize that she had to go to Tahiti. Only by being there could Alma put her relationship with Ambrose in its proper perspective, and discover the true depth of it's meaning. I loved the dialogue. Especially moving were two brief conversations she has with virtual strangers, individuals she did not know personally, but who figured prominently in her life. As she says to one of them, "You and I are - I believe - more closely affixed to each other's destinies than one might think." In a delicate economy of words, in both life-altering conversations Alma found the validations she needed to enable her to move on, while forging a lifelong bond and attunement with the other, though it was unlikely their paths would ever cross again. The Theory of Evolution, just then being popularized in the science of the day, is also a recurring theme in the book. The adaptation of an organism to its environmental niche in human cultural and religious terms is captured in a secondary character, The Reverend Welles. Sent to Tahiti decades earlier by a British Missionary Society, his efforts toward converting the natives have mutated into a syncretic amalgam more in keeping with the Tahitians own traditions and mindset. A metaphysical thread runs throughout the novel, forming subtle lines of convergence with the then revolutionary concept of physical evolution. The title comes from the mystical teachings of an obscure Sixteenth Century German mystic, Jacob Boeme. Boeme believed that there is a Divine imprimatur within all life forms, a unique signature that captures the quintessential essence of that being. It can be revealed if one looks for it. It is the signature of all things. Ambrose Pike is a believer in Boehm's teachings, and sees in Alma a kindred spirit. Evolution to him ultimately involves the unfolding of spirit - as much as it does changes in physical form. He believes there is an inborn yearning in us to ascend ever and ever closer to the Divine, and eventually leave the physical behind. This reminded me of the writings of the great French Anthropologist/Visionary and Jesuit Priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Chardin also believed the ultimate drive behind evolution was to eventually evolve us into "Human squared", a state wherein we would more fully express our spiritual essence. As a scientist, and because of her love of Earthly creation, Alma sees no need to posit another realm beyond the known. She is also a flesh and blood creature of physical passions, which she cannot forsake in favor of a more ephemeral existence. A lot of historical research went into this book. A contemporary of Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, is also woven into the narrative. Although he is depicted as having come up with a simultaneous, though less developed concept of the Theory of Evolution than Darwin's, there is some difference of opinion as to the historical truth of this assertion. The biologist Bruce Lipton for example, in his book Spontaneous Evolution, asserts that Darwin, who Wallace somewhat naively sent his thesis to for an opinion, outright stole the idea. Although he'd amassed a great deal of naturalist data from his travels on The Beagle, for years Darwin floundered, unpublished, unable to fit his wealth of observational data within a unifying theoretical framework. In any case, Alfred Russel Wallace did, in real life, also have an interest in metaphysical matters, which he discusses with Alma. This was an age that was also seeing a flowering of metaphysical groups and ideas such as The Transcendentalist Movement, which was gaining popularity at the time, even among some great literary figures of the day and those in the sciences. Alma's thoughts at the end of the novel are a perfect melding of both her scientific training, and her openness to Earthly creation - both plant and human. It's been said that some film roles could only have been played by one particular actor of that era, and no other. The authenticity and naturalness of Alma's last act in the novel could only have been carried out by someone with her unique sensibilities. Through it she gives full, unself-conscious expression to the Divine imprimatur within her. To her signature. By it, she becomes most fully and authentically herself. I closed the covers of this epic novel with sadness that it was over, but inspired to be a better person. To be more like Alma Whittaker. I still miss her greatly. .

I think I am the only person on the planet who did not like Eat, Love, Pray. In fact, not only did I not like it, I actually kind of hated it. Therefore, when a member of our reading group suggested we read The Signature of All Things by the same author, I resisted the suggestion with all my might and charm. Alas, I lost the battle (my charm ain't what it used to be). This is why I was surprised down to my socks when I gobbled the first 300 pages of this book down like a giant bucket of popcorn at the movies. I couldn't believe this book had been penned by the same author as Eat, Love, Pray. The writing was robust, the characters were compelling, the storyline riveting and most of all, there was a historical and educational richness that made you feel like you were getting smarter and smarter with every page you turned. In this way, Gilbert's novel reminded me of the historical fiction by authors James Michener and Leon Uris. I had even started imagining my critique to my reading group that would include such accolades as "one of my favorite books of all time." Not so fast. Around page 300 I hit the skids with this book and hit them big. The reading went from sailing through chapter after chapter with the wind at my back on a sea of glass, to slogging my way through each page as if I were hip deep in a muddy bog with three bags of groceries in my arms. My sense is that Gilbert ran out of steam. In some ways, the story deflated slowly, as with the fortunes and foibles of some of the main characters, but mostly, there was a sudden shift in tone, storyline, and even the style of writing. I swear it seemed like a different person took over the writing of the last 200 pages. The longer that this workman-like writing and irksome plot continued, the angrier I got that the author had taken me to the celestial heights of reading pleasure, only to drop me to the dark depths of reading despair. Okay, that was a little dramatic, but you get my point. I wish Ms. Gilbert's editors had applied as firm a hand to the end of the book, as they did at the beginning. Now, once and for all, I am done with Elizabeth Gilbert (unless, of course, she shows up on my doorstep and politely asks me to read her next book and then I certainly will.) :-) Final note: almost everyone else in my reading group felt the same way I did. There were a couple of people who didn't like the book from the start, but for those who did, their feelings had changed drastically by the end.

This book caught me from the beginning. Based on history, it is funny, interesting, a great story. It talks about plants, people and an ugly dog. It brings back Elizabeth Britton, Ambrose Pike and maybe even Wallace. I loved it. THANK YOU Elizabeth Gilbert for this gift.

What a wonder is The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert, lush, verdant and efflorescent like the plants that fill its pages. You can’t help but get pulled in and up by the narrative in the way all living things reach for the sun. The characters are robust and noteworthy, from the daring, adventuresome and iron-willed Henry Whittaker, whose personality is as extreme as the some of the climates in which grow his favorite botanicals, and who endures much at great personal cost to rise above his very lowly beginnings, to his brilliant and stoic wife, Beatrice, who leaves her Dutch family to move to the United States with Henry and make their mark on the world, to their only natural offspring, Alma, as strong-willed as her father, and erudite as her mother. As a child, Henry had tasted real poverty and loathed it. His less than illustrious start instilled in him the determination to escape from poverty and build a botanical and pharmaceutical empire. Despite Henry’s father’s employment as a gardner at the Kew botanical gardens, the jewel of the English Crown, the family lived in squalor, and for that Henry blamed his father. Through courage, determination and his refusal to be kept down, Henry moved to America and became king of the botanical import world, building an empire which he then passed down to Alma who became his equal in most all ways, although it takes her the span of the novel to figure that out. From a young age, Alma strove for an intellectual understanding of the world around her. She spent the bulk of her childhood, analyzing and cataloguing the curious flora and fauna at White Acre, her father’s estate in Philadelphia, riding her pony into the woods to collect specimens and returning to study them under a microscope. Alma was neither comely like her adopted sister Prudence, nor impish and entertaining like her friend Retta. She saw little chance of ever forming a marriage bond so work was it, and being Dutch by ancestry, she thrived in that undertaking, throwing herself into it both physically and with her broad sweeping intellect. Just when she thought there was nothing left to discover, Alma stumbled upon a category of botanicals she had heretofore overlooked: mosses. The discovery couldn’t have come at a better time. With the death of Alma’s mother, the care and keeping of Henry Whittaker had passed to Alma and, stuck at White Acre, Alma was in need of a new endeavor to rescue her from the boredom of knowing a place too well. Mosses filled that hole, giving her decades of research to keep her occupied in her newfound role. Yet despite all indications to the contrary, Alma will travel farther than she ever dreamed possible before it’s all done. The Signature of All Things is a gargantuan undertaking and so much more than a well-researched bit of historical fiction. You will have to look pretty hard to find a heroine that’s as true to herself, and a book more remarkable in evoking that truth. Signature is alive with the enigmatic spirit of nature, a paean to the goddess energy in all living things, animal, mineral and vegetable. The very pages come alive with the spark of the divine that creates and imbues the world and everything that lives in it, or as Gilbert calls it, The Signature of All Things.

Surprisingly a most enjoyable and very interesting book. I was a skeptic going into the reading based on one book I had previously read by Gilbert. I was pleasantly shocked by the depth of her writing, research and complex thought processes in composing this particular story. The scientific, botanical, and spiritual concepts and research in the novel are impressive. The novel starts in 1760 with the birth of Henry Whittaker born outside London into poverty who as a young boy works his way up in life to become a wealthy world renowned horticulturalist. He marries a Dutch woman, Beatrix Van Devender and they move to Philadelphia with the governess Hanneke de Groot. Henry and Beatix have a child, Alma, and adopt an orphaned child, Prudence. Alma is a naturally curious, scientifically oriented and bright girl. Academics, science, horticulture and the study of nature are her true passions. Men are attracted to her for her mind but not her femininity, or possibly lack thereof, qualities. She becomes a renowned bryologist but her theory of competitive alteration, which closely mirrored Darwin's theory of natural selection, went unpublished. Alma married Ambrose Pike a gifted man who was a botanical illustrator. Ambrose was grappling the concept of earthbound science versus the design of all things by a supreme intelligence. He was attracted to Alma for her mind but not her body. Their marriage fails because Alma cannot reach the spiritual plateau that Ambrose is seeking. He goes to Tahiti and dies. Alma is distraught over his death and the demise of their marriage so she goes to Tahiti to discover the fate of Ambrose's death. There she meets a gentleman, Tomorrow Morning, who helps her understand more about Ambrose and the man they both loved. Alma was a woman alone in the world with her thoughts, sciences and the binding closet for her sole sexual expression. Men with great minds loved her for her intellect. As an elderly woman she made peace with these human facts. While she desired to be loved sensually as a woman, her greatest love and enjoyment in life came through her exploration and acquisition of knowledge and the testing of theories. She knew her mind was equal to one of the greatest men of her time, Charles Darwin. A truly lovely book. Gilbert takes the reader deep into the thoughts and psychology of Alma Whittaker. I was swept up in the journey of Henry from London, to Amsterdam, Philadelphia, Tahiti and Alma from Philadelohia, to Tahiti and Amsterdam. I learned much from this book and it made me think at a deep level. Well done Ms. Gilbert! “the signature of all things”— namely, that God had hidden clues for humanity’s betterment inside the design of every flower, leaf, fruit, and tree on earth. All the natural world was a divine code, Boehme claimed, containing proof of our Creator’s love. This is why so many medicinal plants resembled the diseases they were meant to cure, or the organs they were able to treat. Basil, with its liver- shaped leaves, is the obvious ministration for ailments of the liver. The celandine herb, which produces a yellow sap, can be used to treat the yellow discoloration brought on by jaundice. Walnuts, shaped like brains, are helpful for headaches. Coltsfoot, which grows near cold streams, can cure the coughs and chills brought on by immersion in ice water. Polygonum , with its spattering of blood- red markings on the leaves, cures bleeding wounds of the flesh. And so on, ad infinitum." "She thought again about the four distinct and concurrent varieties of time, as she had once named them: Divine Time, Geological Time, Human Time, Moss Time." "In fact, the Tahitians say that all the useful plants on this island resemble parts of the human body, as a message from the gods, you see. This is why coconut oil, which is helpful for headaches, comes from the coconut, which looks like a head. Mape chestnuts are said to be good for kidney ailments, for they resemble kidneys themselves, or so I am told. The bright red sap of the fei plant is meant to be useful for blood ailments.” “The signature of all things,” Alma murmured." “I will tell you why we have these extraordinary minds and souls, Miss Whittaker,” he continued, as though he had not heard her. “We have them because there is a supreme intelligence in the universe, which wishes for communion with us. This supreme intelligence longs to be known. It calls out to us. It draws us close to its mystery, and it grants us these remarkable minds, in order that we try to reach for it. It wants us to find it. It wants union with us, more than anything.” "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!"

What a beautiful story! So much in one book, the story of Alma will stay with me for a long time to come.

I couldn't put this down. I read Eat Love Pray and liked it, then hated the movie, and it made me a little skittish about Elizabeth Gilbert, though I am not sure how involved she was with the movie. I took a leap of faith and bought The Signature of All Things and am ready to start rereading it. She writes so well about our relationship to the natural world, the power of a curious mind, the benefits and challenges of aging and loving and pursuing knowledge of the sake of learning. There were a couple times it made me catch my breathe.

A escritora teve a excelente ideia de trabalhar, além de vários romances simultâneos, o momento em que as luzes do Ocidente começaram a desvendar e estudar as descobertas que o ciclo das navegações trouxera. Muito além do milho e das batatas as descobertas sugeriram novas e mais provocativas considerações. Tudo com o uso de vocabulário denso e agradável. Lidas as primeiras 50 paginas, não há como interromper a leitura.

One of my favorite books. Absolute love!

نسخة أصلية من الكتاب 👍

The best-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love could have decided based on the book's success to play it safe and write more autobiographical books about her life and spiritual journey. After reading The Signature Of All Things, it is apparent to me that Elizabeth Gilbert did not play it safe. In fact this 600+ page novel is quite an ambitious undertaking. Having read both Eat, Pray, Love and Committed and loving both books, I was a bit dubious about The Signature Of All Things. If I am honest, it just did not sound like a book I wanted to read. What I had gleaned was that the book was a period novel based on the science of Botany with the main character being a female Botanist. Oh dear! Yet, the conundrum was that I really did yearn to read more by Elizabeth Gilbert. Still, I kept putting it off until after hearing more and more of the book's success and it being printed in different countries and in many languages I finally succumbed to reading the book. I am truly very glad that I did! I am also glad that I knew so little about the book when I began reading it for this book really surprised me. It is so much more than just a period novel about a Botanist. This book causes the imagination to bloom in panoramic proportions so that what you envision is breathtakingly beautiful. Besides that, it is exceptionally well-researched. Those with an adventurous spirit will find themselves soaring. Contemplatives will find their minds being further challenged while lovers of science will find satisfaction. Partly into the book, I thought I knew what the book was about; then surprise after surprise enters into the story. It isn't as if the story changes direction. It was more like a flower bud opening layer upon layer of petals so that each time something new was revealed it added to making the story more captivating. I found myself often wondering, "NOW where is this story going?" My conclusion is that The Signature Of All Things is Elizabeth Gilbert's current masterpiece. How she will top this, I don't know but I will never again hesitate to read more by her!