Reviewing Elizabeth Gilbert and The Signature of All Things in the Chicago Tribune

Readers of this blog have no doubt noticed that my reflections on books here have lately been few and far between. I promise to ease away from that deficiency as soon as client and literary deadlines lift.

But in the meantime, I'm privileged to share today my review of Elizabeth Gilbert's breathtaking, fiercely alive historical novel, The Signature of All Things, which I read on behalf of the Chicago Tribune. The review starts like this, below, and carries forward here.

The photo above is of The Woodlands, a slice of land upon which much of the action in this novel takes place.

Success is a glory, a phenomenon, a sly intoxication. It is also a haunting, a probable curse. For how is one to dream beyond the answered dream? How might one recalibrate the very idea of ambition? Write again with urgency? Success is binding and so, too, is historical fiction. All those facts to get right. All those anachronisms to guard against. All that information. Writers of historical novels must be endlessly curious, and fierce. They must engage the reader on every page and win the battle against asphyxiating doubt. If Elizabeth Gilbert, known until now for her mega-memoir “Eat Pray Love,” was ever haunted by any of these questions, her raucously ingenious new novel, “The Signature of All Things,” has shoved any doubt in the closet and bolted the door. “Signature” is not just an historical novel that spans two centuries and many geographies. It's a 500-page novel of ideas — a book about universal biological theory, the study of moss, the cultivation of quinine, the painting of orchids and the people who do these things with passion.

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The Woodlands, my students, and hope: in today's Inquirer

Yesterday I noted that my story about The Woodlands and the students I teach appeared, with my photographs, in this Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer.  The link is now live and can be found here.  The story begins like this:

When did we become what we, on our worst days, seem to be? This nation trampled by poor compromise and misplaced screech, this drowning swell of hyper-caffeinated opinion, this landscape of the random and the ruined. We are increasingly disinclined toward rational debate. We rage about the inconsequential. We want to be heard, but we don't want to listen. We're quick to deplore the mess we're in, and tragically ill-equipped to fix it.

Impotence has never been my thing. I believe in the kids I teach, the small heroics of neighbors, quantum generosity, anonymous kindness, in doing something, making something, being something. I believe in the idea of what lies ahead, what takes us forward. We are. We can.

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Seeking Refuge, Finding Perspective: my Inquirer piece on The Woodlands

The link to the whole story will go live tomorrow (and I will share it then), but after a long and sometimes painful week I am happy to find this story, with my photographs, in this Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer.

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