The Signature of All Things

When I read about Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir Eat, Pray, Love, on which the 2010 film is based, I had little interest in what sounded more like a journey of self-indulgence than an authentic spiritual quest.  Perhaps that was unfair.

When a friend recommended Gilbert’s 2013 novel, I decided to give it a try.

The Signature of All Things is also a quest narrative.  The first part reads like a classic success story, as her father rises from poverty in 18^th century England to wealth in Philadelphia through his application of botanical knowledge to the development of early pharmaceuticals.  His daughter Alma is born into wealth and focuses her 19^th century quest on the acquisition of botanical knowledge, not only for practical application, but for its own sake, though she also seeks achievement and recognition in the scientific community.

Alma’s professional quest is paralleled by her personal quest for romantic and sexual fulfillment.  This quest leads her into a misguided marriage in which a mystery arises regarding her husband’s sexuality, and she is as bound and determined to solve that mystery as she is to solve the mysteries of the natural world.

 At this point the narrative becomes like a detective story, as Alma, after her father’s death, gives up her inheritance to her adopted sister and devotes herself to tracking down her late husband’s secrets.  This journey takes her to Tahiti, where her professional and personal quests intersect.

She learns more about her husband (as well as the Polynesian people and the Christian missionary outreach), enjoys a moment of sexual fulfillment, and, through a personal experience, not scientific study, achieves an intellectual breakthrough in her understanding of nature.

Alma develops her own theory of the survival instinct and natural selection but fails to publish it because she feels the theory is incomplete.  Darwin, of course, publishes The Origin of Species in 1859 and later The Descent of Man, achieving world recognition for the theory that Alma had also formulated.

What was and perhaps still is incomplete about the theory is the problem of altruism.  Given evolutionary theory, why do humans individually and in groups, make sacrifices in order to assist and promote others’ well-being, even save others’ lives, often at their own expense?  Multiple theories have been developed to explain how human altruistic behavior might have evolved, but there is still no good account for how it might have pre-evolved in the non-human world. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism#Evolutionary_explanations)

In the end Alma must accept the limits of human knowledge, not only in the intellectual, scientific realm, but also in her personal life.  As much as she discovers about her husband’s secrets, there are unanswered questions that remain shrouded in mystery. 

The historical backdrop to Alma’s story includes the role of women in the 19^th century, the increasing reliance on science as an authority for truth, the colonizing outreach of Christian missionaries, and the conflict between religion and science, of which creationism vs. evolution is but one example.

Western imperialism and race relations also figure in the narrative.  Alma’s father participates in the European western expansion, making his fortune exploiting plant life around the world before settling in Philadelphia.  Alma’s adopted sister, Prudence, becomes an abolitionist, and Alma herself lives among the Polynesians in Tahiti, where Christian missionaries have established a Western foothold.

The novel moves from the Old World of Europe to the so-called New World of North America to the Third World of Tahiti and ends in Holland where Alma, having abandoned her estate in Philadelphia to Prudence, connects with her mother’s Dutch family. 

This movement parallels Alma’s own journey of exploration, expansion, and discovery, her almost imperialistic thirst for control through scientific and personal knowledge, and her final retreat and acceptance of limits to the power of knowledge and to her own ego.

But what of the title, The Signature of All Things?  It is borrowed from Jacob Boehme’s 1621 work by that title.  Boehme was a Christian mystic who argued that God had imprinted a message in every plant and flower, a kind of secret code that he called “the signature of all things.”  Similar to 19^th century Transcendentalism, nature is an outward expression of spiritual truth.  In this view, science becomes a way of reading, not simply the material world, but the mind of God.

Alma is a scientific materialist, but she marries Ambrose, a Christian mystic who follows the teachings of Jacob Boehme.  Turns out Ambrose wants a chaste marriage, or as he calls it a marriage blanc, much to Alma’s disappointment.  It also turns out that Ambrose is most likely a repressed homosexual, who has displaced his sexuality into religion.

This dilemma results from a huge miscommunication between Alma and Ambrose, leading them to think they are both on the same page regarding the expectations for their marriage.

The friend who recommended Gilbert’s novel to me pointed out that this misunderstanding is only one of many mistakes Alma makes when it comes to “reading” other people.  As brilliant as she is when it comes to unearthing the (material) secrets of nature, she is clueless when it comes to understanding human beings.  And perhaps herself.  Her obsession with knowledge and control may well be a displacement of her own frustrated sexuality into science.  Does her blindness to humanity prevent her from seeing beyond the material world to spiritual truths?

Perhaps, but in the end, having been chastened by the recognition of her failures in human relationships, Alma comes to respect those, such as Alfred Russel Wallace, who see in science a religious revelation, and to accept her own limitations, neither converting to a religious world view nor denying spiritual reality.  In the final image of the narrative, Alma is leaning against a tree, held up by it really, as if nature were all she needed for support.

The Signature of All Things is a kind of historical novel in that it features actual historical personages, such as Captain Cook, Jacob Boehme, Charles Darwin, and Alfred Russel Wallace, as well as the backdrop of Western imperialism, colonialism, white supremacy, women’s roles, sexual repression, and class privilege in the late 18^th and 19^th centuries. 

We know now that there were important women scientists, activists, and leaders in history who remained invisible until 20^th century feminist scholars began lifting them up.  Gilbert’s novel offers an imaginary portrait of such an invisible woman, who resists almost every female stereotype of its time period.  Far from conforming to the Cult of True Womanhood (domesticity, piety, purity, submissiveness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_Domesticity), Alma is professionally active, atheistic, sexually alive (if not fulfilled), outspoken, and assertive.  At the same time the novel presents a realistic version of the classic quest myth with a classically larger-than-life and classically flawed heroine.

The Great Gatsby

I have not seen the latest film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, but the commercial hype led me to reread what at one time in my life I might have said was my favorite novel of all time.

There is something about the writing style, the wedding-cake richness and artifice that greatly impressed me as a college student.  This time, the language, while I could still admire it, struck me as more pretentious than I had ever thought before, and that, of course, reflects on the narrator, Nick Carraway, who struck me as more snobbish, more deceptive (perhaps self-deceptive) and evasive than I had remembered.  He presents himself as a product of the Midwest, which is more “decent” and less corrupt than the East Coast and East Egg.  Yet Nick is in the thick of enabling two adulterous affairs and covering up the truth of a traffic accident that resulted in someone’s death. 

Nevertheless, as with Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, there is incredible power in language that can take the ugliest, most sordid of human experiences and transform it into artistic beauty.  But that is what art and imagination can do, and that is largely what the novel is about, for Gatsby has that same power of imagination to take someone as shallow, hollow, and, as Nick says, “careless” as Daisy and transform her into a romantic ideal.  Nick also projects his romantic idealism, not only onto himself, but also onto Gatsby’s character and onto the whole tragic tale.

If one can look past the misogyny and anti-Semitism of the novel, one can perhaps appreciate how Nick allegorizes its events into a cultural narrative of the American experience and ultimately into a universal statement of the human dilemma, in which we find ourselves forever caught in the web of contradictions between our imaginative vision and the ashes of our own corruption (except that Nick seems to present himself as an innocent bystander rather than a full participant). 

Gatsby’s story parallels the quintessential American success story and I could not help but think of some of his literary forbears—Rip Van Winkle who transforms himself from a hen-pecked husband into the town raconteur after disappearing for twenty years; Ichabod Crane, the fortune hunter, who is attacked by the headless horseman (see previous blog posts Feb. 6, 2013); and, of course Benjamin Franklin, whose project to achieve human perfection pre-figures Gatsby’s self-improvement notes on the book cover of his boyhood copy of Hopalong Cassidy (see previous blog post March 12, 2010).  Like Rip, Gatsby transforms himself from the poor son of “unsuccessful farm people” into a product of his own imagination.  Like Ichabod he courts a woman more for the dream of “money” that she represents than for her own character.  And like Benjamin Franklin he projects the image of a self-made man, who has pulled himself up by his own bootstraps.

In the classic American success story it is hard work and moral virtue that takes one from rags to riches.  In Gatsby’s case it is imagination, opportunism, and criminal activity which bring him to the lavish mansion across the bay from the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock.  The American Dream of material prosperity, in this version, rests on a rotten foundation of moral corruption.

West Egg and East Egg on Long Island Sound represent not only the Midwest and East Coast, but also the New World and the Old World, new (cheap) money and old aristocracy.  Just as the original European settlers glorified and romanticized their plunder of North America, so Gatsby justifies his criminal career in terms of his romantic ideal, personified somehow by the wholly inadequate Daisy. 

In the end we realize that, like all of us, as Gatsby pursues his dream he ultimately hurtles toward his own death.  And the novel suggests that his story is somehow emblematic of the American experience, full of romantic idealism that founders on corruption and destruction.  Between the quintessential city of New York, where their money is made, and the homes of the wealthy on Long Island Sound lie the ash heaps of vulgarity, duplicity, betrayal, violence, and crime.  Overlooking it all are the sightless eyeglasses of T. J. Eckleberg, an abandoned advertisement that seems to represent either the godlessness or the god-forsakenness (or both) of the whole American experiment.

But, of course it is not just American culture; it is the universal story of our human potential for greatness alongside our capacity for evil. 

And so, the dark side of the “success story” is that of ill-gotten gains, and the “love story” is marred by greed, deception, and adultery.  And Nick’s “coming of age,” to the extent that it is that, is aborted by his failure to recognize the evil inside that he carries with him when he returns to the “decent” Midwest.

In Nick’s eyes Gatsby’s sordid life is redeemed by the power of romantic idealism, and perhaps the same can be said of the American dream and the whole human enterprise.  But the phrase “Great Gatsby” also rings hollow with irony, as the mythical host of lavish parties ends up dying alone in his swimming pool at the hands of a misguided revenge-seeker and buried with a bare handful in attendance at his funeral.

A Christmas Carol

I’ve seen it so many times on stage, screen, and TV, but I just read Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol  for the first time.  I was immediately struck by its combination of gothic tale, light comedy, and conversion narrative.

Originally published in 1843 A Christmas Carol is subtitled “Being a Ghost Story of Christmas,” thus introducing a contrast between the darkness of the gothic tradition and the coming of the light celebrated at Christmas and at the Winter Solstice.  If the Scrooge of the first part of the story represents the darkest time of year and the world before Christ, then the Scrooge of the last part represents the return of the sun and the birth of the Christian savior.

The humor is introduced early as Marley is pronounced “as dead as a doornail” and a full paragraph is devoted to light-hearted discussion of the somewhat irreverent simile.  Comic caricature combines with melodrama as the rest of the story unfolds, following the well-known patterns of gothic tale and conversion narrative.

The gothic plot typically begins in rational reality, proceeds to an encounter with the irrational, and concludes with either destruction or escape.  Thus does the materialistic, greedy, hard-hearted Scrooge, after encountering the ghost of his dead partner, Jacob Marley, and the spirits of Christmas past, present, and future, confront his doomed life of avarice, bitterness, and loneliness.  In this version of the gothic tale, the hero can choose his fate, and Scrooge chooses to reject his doom in favor of a redeemed life of generosity, open-heartedness, community, and love.

The secular ghost story thus converges with the religious story of conversion and redemption.  The traditional Christian narrative typically begins with a sinner, proceeds to a conversion experience, including confession and atonement, and concludes with salvation.  Although A Christmas Carol is more secular than religious, it parallels the traditional Christian story, which underlies Scrooge’s conversion to the Christmas spirit.

While observing the conventions of both traditions, Dickens lightens the melodrama with humorous exaggeration and jocularity, making it impossible to take either ghosts or religion too seriously.  The essence of the Christmas “spirit” in A Christmas Carol is human, not supernatural: human compassion, love, celebration, and merry-making.

A sub-plot is the story of the Cratchitt family, struggling in poverty but bound together in love.  Their story also loosely follows a familiar pattern, the success story, which begins in hard-working, virtuous poverty, proceeds to opportunity, and concludes with success.  In this case the opportunity is the windfall of Scrooge’s conversion, which leads to a raise in salary for Bob Cratchitt and life-saving care for Tiny Tim.

Part of the popularity of Dickens’ classic is its use of familiar, popular narratives; part of it is the sentimentalism; part of it is the humor; and part of it is the secularism.  As familiar and popular as is the Christmas story in the Gospel of Luke, it is the secular message that transcends any particular religion and speaks to the non-religious as well as the religious, for all can appreciate the human story of redemption.

There is a political message, as well.  As Republicans currently seek to protect the wealthy at the expense of the poor and speak cynically of freeloaders at the public trough when it is their own policies that have reduced opportunity and lowered wages, it is hard not to see Scrooge as a hard-hearted Republican hoarder of wealth greatly in need, not only of honoring Christmas in his heart and keeping it all year, but also of a political form of redemption. May it be so.  And may it be a Merry Christmas!

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Speaking of the American success story (see previous post), Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography is a classic of the type.

Franklin was one of the first to secularize the American personal narrative, which, whether it took the form of historical adventure (Columbus, John Smith), spiritual autobiography, captivity narrative (see post on Mary Rowlandson), or travel narrative, until the 18th century could not be separated from the religious world view.

While Franklin somewhat perfunctorily invokes the "Creator" and "Providence," his primary focus is on material success in this world, not salvation in the next. He quite explicitly proclaims himself a Deist, not a traditional Christian, and seems to view morality in practical, utilitarian terms, rather than in terms of divine command. He offers himself as a role model and his autobiography as a kind of self-help book for those who want to emulate his success. And success is not the result of God's grace so much as the result of one's own efforts. "God helps those who help themselves" is one of the maxims in Poor Richard's Almanac.

As one of the first, now iconic, American success stories, Franklin establishes the classic formula: poverty and obscurity--hard work and virtue--opportunity--wealth and fame. Franklin did not actually start out in poverty. He was born to a middle class family and was apprenticed to his older brother, a printer. He ran away, though, and did start out in Philadelphia with no home, no job, and just a few pence in his pocket. From there he rose to become a successful businessman, writer, inventor, civic leader, and eventually delegate to the Constitutional Convention and ambassador to France. And, yes, he was very hard-working and ethical. However, he also was very lucky. His Autobiography records as many coincidences in his favor as it documents his work ethic.

As for virtue, he confesses to having frequent "Intrigues with low Women that fell in [his] Way." His "Project of arriving at moral Perfection" is, perhaps, the best known part of the Autobiography. It is a masterwork of subtle satire, revealing both his moral seriousness and his tongue-in-cheek mockery of moral seriousness. What could be less humble than his precept for the virtue of humility: "Imitate Jesus and Socrates"?

The autobiography is a literary form that allows writers to present themeselves as they want to be seen rather than as they truly are, though a certain amount of candor is necessary to establish credibility. And Franklin is very successful in creating an image of himself that has stood the test of time.