Castlebar Book Club
The Book Club meets once a month (usually the second Tuesday of the month) in Castlebar Library at 8.00pm. Check events page for next meeting or check out the club's Previous Book Club selections
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Signature of All Things, Gilbert's sixth book and her second work of full-length fiction, is quite simply one of the best novels I have read in years. It tells the story of Alma Whittaker, "born with the century" in 1800, in the midst of a Philadelphia winter. Her father, Henry, is a self-made titan: one of the three richest men in the western hemisphere, with a fortune built on a thriving import-export business dealing in exotic plants.
As a child, Alma is clever, sharp but un-pretty, having the misfortune of looking precisely like her father: "ginger of hair, florid of skin, small of mouth, wide of brown, abundant of nose", Gilbert writes, before leavening the observation with a typical flash of wry humour: "Henry's face was far better suited to a grown man than to a little girl. Not that Henry himself objected to this state of affairs; Henry Whittaker enjoyed looking at his image wherever he might encounter it."
Growing up surrounded by her family's expansive estate, Alma becomes fascinated by botany and shows herself to have a shrewd business mind. She devours books and has fervid erotic imaginings but no appropriate suitor. Her adopted sister, Prudence, is the beautiful one who attracts many admiring male gazes, but she is difficult to know: an icy, self-contained girl who holds intimacy at bay.
Alma yearns for friendship, for love and for knowledge. Gilbert renders her longing with exquisite precision, conveying both Alma's naivety and her frustration in an age when women were not permitted to admit to any kind of sexual need. In place of romantic fulfilment, Alma becomes fascinated by the study of mosses and, in many ways, these plants reflect the intricate but slow-moving quality of Alma's own existence.
"The world had scaled itself down into endless inches of possibility," Gilbert writes. "Her life could be lived in generous miniature."
Alma is portrayed as a true, enlightenment-age woman but as her intellectual knowledge increases, so too does her emotional longing. Some of the most tender, brilliant passages in The Signature of All Things come from Alma's well-meaning bafflement at the illogicality of other people's behaviour which cannot be ordered and understood like specimens under a microscope slide can be.
When Ambrose Pike, a gifted lithographer who makes glorious pictures of orchids, comes to stay at the Whittaker family estate, she falls in love, but the relationship does not provide the answers Alma was hoping for. From this point, Gilbert really hits her stride. When Alma's father dies, she sets off on an epic journey of discovery to examine the flora and fauna of Tahiti. But as much as she wants to understand the outer world, Alma also seeks clarity over her own inner contradictions.
Each passage of this sprawling novel is written with an astonishing eye for just the right amount of period or environmental detail. The character of Alma Whittaker is so believable, so deeply drawn and so likable for its complexity and open spirit, that it is impossible not to be engrossed by every twist and turn of her thoughts and imaginings. In fact, one of Gilbert's most impressive achievements is making Alma's journey a universal one, despite anchoring her protagonist's life in a different time and sending her to the furthest corners of the unexplored earth.
Over the course of 500 pages, Gilbert creates a bejewelled, dazzling novel that takes the reader all the way from the greenhouses of 18th-century Kew Gardens to the rugged beauty of Tahiti. The result is a book that is epic in scope but human in resonance.
At the same time, The Signature of All Things brings to the fore all those forgotten women of science, whose trailblazing work was swallowed up by more famous men. But it also asks us to consider whether a life lived in the shadows, comprising of a million, small, unnoticed actions, is worth any less than a life of big gestures and public recognition.
In the end, the reader is left with a sense that the one could not exist without the other. After all, for every tropical orchid there is a hard-working moss, creeping unseen along a stone.
The Guardian
It's not surprising to hear that Gilbert spent three-and-a-half years on research alone. The book is as knowledgeable as its protagonist is. But more than the research evident at the heart of this book or the skill with which Gilbert embeds that knowledge within the story, is the sheer joy of a story well told.
Reading this novel took me back to the experience of childhood reading, the feeling of disappearing so completely into characters and worlds that your own life ceases to exist. And so it was with reading this book that the pot boiling over on the cooker was left unchecked and the wet laundry untended. With each new character that was introduced onto the page came a sense of excitement of who this person would blossom into under the masterful imagination of Gilbert.
The only character that did not truly come alive for me was Prudence, who maintained her mask of imperturbability, even after we discover she is not so unfeeling. The character of Ambrose Pike on the other hand is such a divinely complex man, full of contradictory beliefs and actions that you end up wanting another book dedicated to his character alone.
The Signature of All Things certainly puts an ocean between Gilbert the memoirist and Gilbert the novelist. Will readers of Eat, Pray, Love enjoy this? Not necessarily. Will lovers of big, historical novels and fans of authors like Hilary Mantel enjoy it? They will devour this fine achievement of history, science and storytelling.
Irish Independent
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.
New York Times
This is a big novel in all senses – extensively researched, compellingly readable and with a powerful charm that will surely propel it towards the bestseller lists.
The Telegraph
Gilbert's observations, of both characters and locations, make this an unexpected joy and in Alma she has created a truly unforgettable heroine
Irish Examiner
Gilbert reminds readers she can do, and undo, narratives through impeccably observed and original stories
Independent
Gilbert shows herself to be a writer at the height of her powers
O Magazine
Magnificent ... I was just a few pages into the book when I felt myself relax, aware that I was in the safe hands of a master story-teller
The Irish Times
Reader Resources:
Dedicated to book clubs, ReadersPlace.co.uk (Random House) is a website where reading groups can find inspiration, have their say on books, and connect with other book clubs and authors.
- CompletelyNovel.com links readers as well as new writers, offering a one-stop author-reader experience.
- Reader's Review site with active discussion board
- Book Group Links:A selection of sites compiled by the Salt Lake City Library.
- Great Books Foundation: The grandfather of them all
- Reading Group Choices Online: Over 550 guides from publishers. 150 can be printed from the site
- Reading Group Guides:A very useful selection of reading group guides from Random House Publishers
- Writer's Resourcesite for writers of all abilities
- Reader's Area of this site