The gift of a good book is my favourite thing. A book, carefully selected by an avid reader who has already enjoyed it, is the ultimate indulgence. Such was the cased when my friend Bev recently gave me The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert.
Eat, Pray, Love was basically an exercise in frustration for me. I hated this novel because I found it formulaic, predictable and very simplistic. Coupled with the fact that everyone around me was raving about it, and despite trying many times, I just couldn't finish it. I gave up, and basically wrote the author off as a potboiler hack. (ok, so I have been known as a bit judgemental at times!)
The Signature of All Things is a fictional novel of a female botanist in the early 1800's.
Seeing each other regularly at our monthly book club, Bev and I have been friends for a few years now. We have enjoyed many books together, and I remember a particularly engaging discussion that flowed from our reading of I Shall Not Hate.
Signature was an epic novel, spanning the lives of both father and daughter botanists. It
Dickensian in nature, the reader is taken on a epic journey around the world over several decades.We are treated to an unhurried journey
There were a few parts that made me angry. Wanted to launch the book out the window during Alma's time in the cave in Tahiti...As though her activities there were really "all she ever wanted in her entire life..." Please!!! Without giving it away, I will say that it's a pathetic weakness in Gilbert's writing to have positioned that scene as the pinnacle of Alma's life ambitions. (For God's Sake, give me a break!!!)
The novel is unhurried. She takes her time to develop each character and build rich portraits.
That being said, I think this novel would have been improved with a critical editor, and an author who doesn't get bogged down in minutia.
It's a good read...but it's not epic.
Eat, Pray, Love was basically an exercise in frustration for me. I hated this novel because I found it formulaic, predictable and very simplistic. Coupled with the fact that everyone around me was raving about it, and despite trying many times, I just couldn't finish it. I gave up, and basically wrote the author off as a potboiler hack. (ok, so I have been known as a bit judgemental at times!)
The Signature of All Things is a fictional novel of a female botanist in the early 1800's.
Seeing each other regularly at our monthly book club, Bev and I have been friends for a few years now. We have enjoyed many books together, and I remember a particularly engaging discussion that flowed from our reading of I Shall Not Hate.
Signature was an epic novel, spanning the lives of both father and daughter botanists. It
Dickensian in nature, the reader is taken on a epic journey around the world over several decades.We are treated to an unhurried journey
There were a few parts that made me angry. Wanted to launch the book out the window during Alma's time in the cave in Tahiti...As though her activities there were really "all she ever wanted in her entire life..." Please!!! Without giving it away, I will say that it's a pathetic weakness in Gilbert's writing to have positioned that scene as the pinnacle of Alma's life ambitions. (For God's Sake, give me a break!!!)
The novel is unhurried. She takes her time to develop each character and build rich portraits.
That being said, I think this novel would have been improved with a critical editor, and an author who doesn't get bogged down in minutia.
It's a good read...but it's not epic.
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