Summary(via Goodreads):
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.
This insomniac's opinion:
I have a love/hate relationship with Liz Gilbert. Meaning that I loved Eat, Pray, Love and hated Committed. Despite this juxtaposition of feelings, I was anxious to read the new Gilbert.
I very much enjoyed this novel. It was a sweeping novel which takes place over the long life of it's protagonist, Alma. I admit that I am not very interested in botany, and that did make for some slow sections. However, I loved the whole of the novel and was endeared to nearly all of the characters by the end. Thoroughly readable and worthwhile piece of fiction to pick up and read!
Worth staying up all night to read?
Yes!
Rating:
4 stars
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