Direkt zum Hauptbereich

Elizabeth Gilbert - The Signature of All Things

"Moss grows where nothing else can grow."

This is a novel about a female scientist, Alma Whittaker, who never got recognition for her work.
Born in 1800 to a wealthy familiy in Philadelphia, immigrants from England and Holland, early in her childhood she started to be interested in botany and became a selftaught explorer of nature and a scientist. She even published some books about her findings and ideas.For over 50 years she basically never left her home. Its gardens were so huge, she found enough to explore there and ultimately specialized in mosses, which suited her well. Because moss changes so slowly, nothing ever seems to happen.
Alma Whittaker never was one to search the stagelight. She wasn't particularly beautiful and never was loved by a man. She did marry though, another botanist, specialized in orchids, a gifted artist, who painted the most beautiful pictures of orchids, and, it turned out later, also of a nude young man on Tahiti. The marriage never happened in the true sense, if you know what I mean. Because her husband wanted to be a spiritual being and married her to mainly be with her soul and her exceptional spirit, that suited his so seemingly perfect. But she could not bear it and when he did not want her sexually, she sent him away, as an employee of his fathers company, to supervise a vanilla plantation on Tahiti.

Usually it is easy for me to write about a book I read. About this one, I find it a little difficult to write. It was a long book. Truth is, it never truly captured me, like some books will, when I start reading and hardly can stop, because the story draws me to turn page after page. Well, this book captured me again and again, and this is probably, among other reasons, why I kept reading it, but again and again it lost its grip on me. Then again: is it necessary to be captured by a book? To have it turn me page after page almost desperately to find all the conclusions for all the opened boxes?
The Signature of All ThingsElizabeth Gilbert must have worked hard for this book. It is rich, a long and beautiful story really. I do love the language. To read Elizabeth Gilbert is almost easy, because her language sounds so entertaining, funny and you just swim along on its flow, though the subject is science, philosophy, questions of meaning and much much more. Since I have an M.A. in philosophy, I was drawn to this book. Its questions are my questions like: when we die, are we truly gone? Is it possible to find the meaning of life? Why can people be good without gratification?
Also the character fascinated me: this Alma Whittaker, who isn't beautiful, who never had a man, who serves her father and family for most of her life and than takes off for Tahiti, where she finds her deceased husbands' truth, who moves to Holland and becomes the curator of mosses at the Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam, reuniting with her mothers family, who comes to Darwins conclusions almost at the same time, he did, but never publishes them, because she is not satisfied with the ideas yet, who becomes almost 90 years old and never gets recognition. She lives a humble life. And she still says: "I have been the most fortunate woman who ever lived. My heart has been broken, certainly, and most of my wishes did not come true. I have disappointed myself in my own behavior, and others have disappointed me. I have outlived nearly everyone I ever loved. ...I am fortunate because I have been able to spend my life in study of the world. As such, I have never felt insignificant. This life is a mystery, yes, and it is often a trial, but if one can find some facts within it, one should always do so - for knowledge is the most precious of all commodities."
To me, this sums her up pretty good. And I like her. But she never is one of those heroines I could truly fall for. Maybe because I am into beautiful heroines who find true love and recognition in the end? Yes, true, until the last page, I waited for this to happen. Maybe because I fall for heroines who in the end make no mistakes and turn out to be the best person in the entire book? Also true. Though she turns out to be pretty good! Actually it is hard not to admire her strength and intelligence.
This is a novel about a female scientist, yes, true, but also about patience, concentration, devotion. "All I ever wanted to know was this world. I can say now, as I reach my end, that I know quite a bit more of it than I knew when I arrived. Moreover, my little bit of knowledge has been added to all the other accumulated knowledge of history - added to the great library as it were. That is no small feat, sir. Anyone who can say such a thing has lived a fortunate life."

But there was something else that kept me at a distance, which was the story. It is too long, too complicated for me at times. I get lost in all those different routes, Gilbert takes. It exhausts me. After reading Stoner, the example of a concentrated storyline, this Alma Whittaker makes me dizzy with all the shifts and turns.(Though I am even thinking, that Alma is a sort of soulsister somewhat of this guy Stoner, in her dignity, her humbleness, her concentration, her devotion to the one thing, that interests her in life, something about her reminded me of him and please do tell me, if you agree or disagree with me.)
One thing though I have to say: Gilbert succeeds in bringing the whole thing to a closure that did not leave me unsatisfied and for this, I have to lift my hat! She is a great writer and can work her way through 500 winding pages of tons of characters, of places, of ideas and questions and bring it all down to an end, that left me somewhat happy.
So yes, I tell you, read the damn thing and tell me, what you think about it. I gave it 4 stars on Goodread, and my critique with the winding story and my exhaustion and all this is basically what kept me from giving it a 5 and from putting it on my list of favourite books of 2014 or alltime. But else, it was a pretty good read and maybe, I am a little too strict here. I am interested to hear, what you think about it. Mail me or comment here.

© Susanne Becker

Kommentare

Kommentar veröffentlichen

Beliebte Posts aus diesem Blog

100 bemerkenswerte Bücher - Die New York Times Liste 2013

Die Zeit der Buchlisten ist wieder angebrochen und ich bin wirklich froh darüber, weil, wenn ich die mittlerweile 45 Bücher gelesen habe, die sich um mein Bett herum und in meinem Flur stapeln, Hallo?, dann weiß ich echt nicht, was ich als nächstes lesen soll. Also ist es gut, sich zu informieren und vorzubereiten. Außerdem sind die Bücher nicht die gleichen Bücher, die ich im letzten Jahr hier  erwähnt hatte. Manche sind die gleichen, aber zehn davon habe ich gelesen, ich habe auch andere gelesen (da fällt mir ein, dass ich in den nächsten Tagen, wenn ich dazu komme, ja mal eine Liste der Bücher erstellen könnte, die ich 2013 gelesen habe, man kann ja mal angeben, das tun andere auch, manche richtig oft, ständig, so dass es unangenehm wird und wenn es bei mir irgendwann so ist, möchte ich nicht, dass Ihr es mir sagt, o.k.?),  und natürlich sind neue hinzugekommen. Ich habe Freunde, die mir Bücher unaufgefordert schicken, schenken oder leihen. Ich habe Freunde, die mir Bücher aufgeford

Und keiner spricht darüber von Patricia Lockwood

"There is still a real life to be lived, there are still real things to be done." No one is ever talking about this von Patricia Lockwood wird unter dem Namen:  Und keiner spricht darüber, übersetzt von Anne-Kristin Mittag , die auch die Übersetzerin von Ocean Vuong ist, am 8. März 2022 bei btb erscheinen. Gestern tauchte es in meiner Liste der Favoriten 2021 auf, aber ich möchte mehr darüber sagen. Denn es ist für mich das beste Buch, das ich im vergangenen Jahr gelesen habe und es ist mir nur durch Zufall in die Finger gefallen, als ich im Ebert und Weber Buchladen  meines Vertrauens nach Büchern suchte, die ich meiner Tochter schenken könnte. Das Cover sprach mich an. Die Buchhändlerin empfahl es. So simpel ist es manchmal. Dann natürlich dieser Satz, gleich auf der ersten Seite:  "Why did the portal feel so private, when you only entered it when you needed to be everywhere?" Dieser Widerspruch, dass die Leute sich nackig machen im Netz, das im Buch immer &q

Writing at the Fundacion Valparaiso in Mojacar, Spain

„…and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.“ Mary Oliver I am home from my first writing residency with other artists. In Herekeke , three years ago, I was alone with Miss Lilly and my endlessly talkative mind. There were also the mesa, the sunsets, the New Mexico sky, the silence and wonderful Peggy Chan, who came by once a day. She offers this perfect place for artists, and I will be forever grateful to her. The conversations we had, resonate until today within me. It was the most fantastic time, I was given there, and the more my time in Spain approached, I pondered second thoughts: Should I go? Could I have a time like in Herekeke somewhere else, with other people? It seemed unlikely. When I left the airport in Almeria with my rental car, I was stunned to find, that the andalusian landscape is so much like New Mexico. Even better, because, it has an ocean too. I drove to Mojacar and to the FundacionValparaiso