IN 2005, Lawrence “Larry” Summers, the former president of Harvard University, created quite a stir by commenting that women are less suited than men to pursuing careers in mathematics and science. Regardless of whether he was fundamentally right or wrong, this issue has been hotly debated in both academic as well as non-academic arenas, especially for the past couple of centuries. It also forms an intrinsic part of the authorial motivations underlying Elizabeth Gilbert’s recent novel, The Signature of All Things.

The book focuses on the fictional life of an affluent American woman, Alma Whittaker, born in Philadelphia at the beginning of the 19th century. Although women were not permitted to engage in formal, university-level studies at the time, Gilbert fashions a heroine whose erudite passion for bryology (the botanical study of mosses) provides the book with much of its raison d’etre and momentum. From an aesthetic perspective, Bloomsbury is to be commended for including some lovely prints of orchids and other plants, both within the jacket of the book as well as at the commencement of each of its five sections.

Gilbert situates the early portion of her work in the late 18th century and gives us an engaging and thrilling account of the rags-to-riches story of Alma’s formidable father, Henry Whittaker. The cocky and ambitious son of a poor, hard-working gardener, Henry comes to the attention of a rich botanical entrepreneur, Joseph Banks, for trading stolen plants. Too shrewd to turn the thief over to the authorities, Banks realises that the boy can be useful to him, thereby setting Henry Whittaker on the pathway to a career that ultimately makes him one of Philadephia’s richest men.

While reaching adulthood, Henry serves on a ship under the famous Captain Cook, and Gilbert describes the inevitable hazards of 18th-century nautical life in a manner that is both authentic and harrowing. Henry learns a great deal about plants in general and medicinal plants in particular, eventually making his fortune out of creating a market monopoly on an early version of quinine (the major drug used against malaria). He marries a no-nonsense Dutchwoman with a passion for Euclidean geometry, and they raise their only biological daughter in a social milieu that incorporates an almost fanatical respect for intellectual debate and academic rigour. Well-versed in several languages (including classical Greek and Latin) Alma turns out to be something of a prodigy, and in this fundamental aspect of her character lies both her life’s tragedy as well as its triumph. Gilbert devotes so much time and effort to the development of Alma’s character and inner feelings that virtually all the other characters, except perhaps her father, suffer by contrast. Since she lacks for nothing in a material sense, the Whittakers adopt a beautiful orphan to provide Alma with sibling companionship. But although her sister Prudence grows up to be an important advocate for the anti-slavery and abolitionist causes, she remains a relatively one-dimensional character throughout.

Indeed, given the geographical scope of her novel, that ranges from England and the early United States to Peru, Holland, and Tahiti, Gilbert could hardly avoid colliding with important issues such as slavery and colonialism. To say that she handles these with incompetence would be doing her an injustice, especially since both her fictional as well as non-fictional works demonstrate an undeniable emotional sincerity when it comes to the plight of the disadvantaged. However, in creating a heroine who attempts to live her life in the picaresque and bildungsroman novelistic traditions of heroes such as Tom Jones and David Copperfield, Gilbert often ends up creating situations that are awkward at best and surreal at worst. Having to suffer watching her first love marry someone else, Alma, who is as plain as Prudence is beautiful, falls in love with a gentle and romantic-minded artist who loves to draw plants, especially orchids. What might have been a marriage made in heaven turns out to be quite the opposite, as Alma realises that her loving but batty husband has no sexual feelings for her. She packs him off to Tahiti, where he dies of illness. Stricken by remorse, and imbued with a genuine curiosity to discover whether he found amorous fulfillment in “exile” she hands her estate over to her sister, and journeys recklessly across the globe. In Tahiti, she lives a horrifically ascetic life by choice, amongst a group of missionaries and natives, and while her quest does provide the reader with some unsurprising answers to her husband’s destiny, it does not prevent her from coming across as genuinely ridiculous in moments.

Halfway into the book, it is evident that Gilbert has bitten off more than she can chew. The novel takes its title from Signatura Rerum, a Renaissance text by a German scholar of esotericism, Jacob Boehme. Western esotericism is a fascinating field of study that has come to prominence in academic circles only during the past couple of decades. Unfortunately, Gilbert’s knowledge of this complex material is embarrassingly skimpy, and the character of Alma’s husband, Ambrose Pike, is consequently even less developed than the others in the novel. That Ambrose is a believer in the realm of the spiritual and metaphysical is evident, but this aspect of his personality is never fully explored in the way that Alma’s association with science and nature is, and even a patient reader would get frustrated by the resulting imbalance.

Fortunately, as the novel tapers towards its conclusion, Alma re-engages with her scientific side by seeking employment under her Dutch uncle in Amsterdam’s Hortus Botanicus (botanical garden). This turn of the plot gives her the chance to study mosses until the end of her long life, and even develop a theory about natural selection, very similar to the one delineated by Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species. Gilbert takes pains to underscore the fact that had Alma not been at the mercy of the constraints of her gender, she might have been as noted a scientist as Darwin himself. While even the post-modern reader may find this highly far-fetched, The Signature of Things ultimately comes across as a valiant combination of creativity and feminism that often carries the same narrative momentum as Gilbert’s non-fictional Eat, Pray, Love, making it a palatable and entertaining read in spite of its considerable length.

The reviewer is Assistant Professor of Social Sciences and Liberal Arts at the Institute of Business Administration


The Signature of All Things

(Novel)

By Elizabeth Gilbert

Bloomsbury, UK

ISBN 9781408841891

499pp.

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