{"id":687,"date":"2017-03-29T03:24:48","date_gmt":"2017-03-29T03:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skyesherman.com\/?p=687"},"modified":"2017-03-29T03:24:48","modified_gmt":"2017-03-29T03:24:48","slug":"the-signature-of-all-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skyesherman.com\/the-signature-of-all-things\/","title":{"rendered":"Carry-On Reads: Elizabeth Gilbert’s “The Signature of All Things”"},"content":{"rendered":"

A work\u00a0that’s part novel, part travelogue, set in Tahiti and 19th-century\u00a0America, written by the\u00a0spellbinding\u00a0mind behind Eat, Pray, Love<\/em>? Yes, please<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Gilbert.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Quick summary:<\/strong> I tried 10 times to write something better\u00a0than the GoodReads<\/a> summary, and I just couldn’t. So here it is: “Exquisitely researched and told at a galloping pace, <\/em>The Signature of All Things soars across the globe–from London to Peru to Philadelphia to Tahiti to Amsterdam, and beyond. Along the way, the story is peopled with unforgettable characters: missionaries, abolitionists, adventurers, astronomers, sea captains, geniuses, and the quite mad. But most memorable of all is the story of Alma Whittaker, who–born in the Age of Enlightenment, but living well into the Industrial Revolution–bears witness to that extraordinary moment in human history when all the old assumptions about science, religion, commerce, and class were exploding into dangerous new ideas. Written in the bold, questing spirit of that singular time, Gilbert’s wise, deep, and spellbinding tale is certain to capture the hearts and minds of readers.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Reading this book while visiting Cambodia and Thailand made it especially immersive.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My take:<\/strong> This isn’t a quick read (the story is expansive, in more ways than one) but the time invested is more than worth it, and Gilbert has a way of sustaining the intrigue even when the story moves slowly at times. As much as I love her writing style, the settings of this book were what captured my attention. Though I loved getting a taste of London in its colonizing heyday, and early America as its elite established themselves, what I’ll remember most is when the story (quite literally) sails to\u00a0primitive\u00a0Tahiti–undiscovered and unadulterated except for a few eccentric\u00a0missionaries. Maybe it’s because I was reading this book with Thailand’s remote\u00a0Koh Samui island as my backdrop<\/a>, but I could almost sense the drum beats, shrink from\u00a0the stares of\u00a0islanders who had never before seen a white person, gaze at the unspoiled South Pacific beauty, feel the unforgiving sun and the rain and the bugs and the sand, as if I had stepped foot there myself.<\/p>\n

Though I didn’t find homely Alma Whittaker particularly enchanting, this period\u00a0in history (1700-1800s)\u00a0fascinates me,\u00a0and getting swept along for the panoramic\u00a0story of quirky Alma’s\u00a0life is sure to\u00a0delight both the world explorer and the armchair traveler.<\/p>\n

\u2606\u2606\u2606\u2606\u2606<\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A work\u00a0that’s part novel, part travelogue, set in Tahiti and 19th-century\u00a0America, written by the\u00a0spellbinding\u00a0mind behind Eat, Pray, Love? Yes, please. Quick summary: I tried 10…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[42,57,48,54,43,56,55],"yoast_head":"\nCarry-On Reads: Elizabeth Gilbert's "The Signature of All Things" - Skye Sherman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.skyesherman.com\/the-signature-of-all-things\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Carry-On Reads: Elizabeth Gilbert's "The Signature of All Things" - Skye Sherman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A work\u00a0that’s part novel, part travelogue, set in Tahiti and 19th-century\u00a0America, written by the\u00a0spellbinding\u00a0mind behind Eat, Pray, Love? 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