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| From http://cabinet-of-wonders.blogspot.com.au/2009/05/drunk-on-color.html |
I bought The Significance of All Things hopefully. It came with good reviews and it ticked a lot of boxes. Historical novel - tick. Strong female protagonist - tick. It 'soars across the globe' - tick. An international novel with Australian connections - tick. It seemed to offer so much.
A little like the story of Alma Whittaker, however, we began our journey together with a few false starts. A couple of pages read before the book returned again to the 'to-be-read' pile. Then some progress was made. But it seemed that every time I picked it up, I did so wondering if it was time to give up on it. I don't like not reading books to their ends but this one seemed to be defeating me. It was a 'dromedary' (as Alma's father memorably describes his daughter) at a time when I seemed to need a fleeting gazelle.
I repeatedly stopped reading The Significance of All Things, reading instead four or five books that were strong on plot. I read each of them over a couple of days or at 3am in the morning. They held my attention and made me race through their pages. It wasn't that I wasn't reading. I couldn't stop reading. I just couldn't read The Significance of All Things. I did, though, keep picking it up. And every time I did, certain that this would be the time I'd decide to stop reading it altogether, it would offer me something, a tiny tempting morsel. First, it was the arrival of the beautiful but inscrutable Prudence, Alma's adopted sister and the daughter of a 'loose woman'. Next came exuberant, silly and slightly mad Retta Snow. 'She'll get things moving,' I thought. 'Now something will happen.' But not a lot did.
Finally, on Good Friday, I decided to offer The Significance of All Things one last chance. I wasn't even quite half-way. I was defeated. Ready to give up. I didn't want to spend a long, lazy Easter weekend wrestling with Alma Whittaker and her tedious botanical studies. She might be interested in the slow movement of moss across rocks but I wasn't. I was decided. If she didn't convince me this time, I was walking away.
Forty-eight hours later, Alma had won. And I have been left to wonder why it was such a struggle because now, if you asked me, I'd say 'I love this book'. Its premise is so audacious: what if, Elizabeth Gilbert asks, what if Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace weren't the only naturalists exploring theories of evolution in the middle of the nineteenth century?
Now, I can see that the way the book is written echoes the movement of Alma's mosses. It demands patience. It asks you to pay attention and look closely. Nothing is insignificant, nothing is wasted.
It's also a novel steeped in history. Beginning with Henry Whittaker's bruising and audacious encounters with Sir Joseph Banks, it journeys through a century of exploration and scientific discovery, a century in which religious beliefs and scientific theorems were challenged and changed. And yet it looks at the century as if through a microscope, through Alma Whittaker's eyes, the eyes of a highly educated, highly intelligent, highly isolated woman. Now, instead of annoying me, it reminds me of Middlemarch and Alma reminds me of Dorothea.
It's a novel that makes me think and, I have to admit, mostly I've been thinking about how I read. There was a moment, last week, when I wondered if my ability to read a long, slow, complex novel had left me. If my brain wasn't quite up to it any more. If, perhaps, I had given myself over entirely to strong plots and dynamic characters. Not lesser books, by any means. But books that didn't need me to put so much effort in.
Now, with the challenge of The Significance of All Things behind me, I have a more balanced view of how I read. There are books for all seasons and when I am super-busy, overtired, sleeping badly - as I have been for most of the late summer, early autumn - I still read but I don't have the energy to make an effort. I want to be swept away - sometimes to little English villages where romance is inevitable; sometimes to the streets of Edinburgh or Paris where dogged investigators solve crimes faster than I can read them. But as the pace of life has slowed, I can slow my reading pace. As I relax and my energy levels increase, I can take on the challenges of a book like The Significance of All Things.
I could have given up. Easily. And I might never have challenged my reading mind again. Instead I've expanded my knowledge of moss (admittedly, we were beginning at a very low base). I've expanded my understanding of the theory of evolution. I've befriended some extraordinary characters and been reminded of some old friends. I might reread Middlemarch - it's long overdue. And I am feeling gratitude - to Elizabeth Gilbert and Alma Whittaker, who have stretched me and reminded me to look closely, be patient and pay attention.
