Elizabeth Gilbert's Blog, page 57

June 26, 2014

Look what Luiza made! A collage of THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS, from all over th…

Look what Luiza made! A collage of THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS, from all over the world….so wonderful!

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The signature of all things around the world…..

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Published on June 26, 2014 16:28

Dear Ones — I’ll be answering questions tomorrow on GOODREADS between 11am and…

Dear Ones —

I'll be answering questions tomorrow on GOODREADS between 11am and noon (EST time) if you would like to hop on and chat!

See you there!
LG

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Published on June 26, 2014 14:23

Topic of the day: WOMEN’S BEAUTY IN LITERATURE… Dear Ones – A friend of this…

Topic of the day: WOMEN'S BEAUTY IN LITERATURE…

Dear Ones -

A friend of this page wrote me a really thoughtful note yesterday, expressing her frustration with the fact that Alma Whittaker, the heroine of THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS was so homely. She felt it was a cliché to suggest that a brilliant female scientist must be unattractive. She felt that this choice of mine reinforced the idea that girls are either pretty or brainy, but cannot possibly be both.

I thought she raised an interesting point, and I wanted to open up the conversation to all of you…what do you think? I'm curious to hear your feedback.

I gave a lot of thought to the creation of Alma, and her homeliness seemed like a vital character point to me. I had several reasons for wanting to create her as plain, and I will share those thoughts here…

1) I wanted to show that not every female novelistic heroine has to be beautiful — because they generally always are beautiful. (Scarlett O'Hara, Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, etc.) I think women who are not gorgeous can also be worthy heroines of great stories.

2) I wanted to create a female character who was sexually passionate, but not beautiful. I get annoyed that the sexualized female characters in novels always look like temptresses (flashing eyes, heaving bust, high color in their cheeks.) Desire inhabits all of us — ALL of us — whether we are stunning or plain, and I wanted to play with the idea of a passionate woman whose sexuality may not be apparent to onlookers, and whose looks do not attract male attention…how would that fact shape her life? How would that impact other people? How would she manage that, and how would others manage that? (This is also why I created Alma's sister Prudence to be gorgeous, but not desirous of male sexual attention — to suggest that both Prudence and Alma must feel at some level as if they ended up in the wrong bodies…something I think a lot of women can relate to.)

3) Lastly, I get frustrated, as a female reader, when an author tries to play it both ways with a heroine's appearance. I get irritated when an author says, "She was not a beautiful woman," and then goes on to describe a woman who is, objectively, beautiful. (Typical example: "She was not a beautiful woman…but she did have thick auburn hair, clear green eyes, a lovely figure and porcelain skin." Even our dear Jane Austen is guilty of playing this trick. Lizzie Bennet is a perfect example of a girl whom we are told is not a great beauty, but who is, clearly, a great beauty. Ditto: Jo March.) My feeling is, "If you're going to claim that your character is not beautiful, then stick with it. Commit to it. Otherwise, just go ahead and openly say she's gorgeous." (Here, I must give props to Charlotte Brontë, for allowing Jane Eyre to be full-on plain, and for sticking with that choice — and for not giving Jane a swan-like makeover midway through the novel.) I wanted to make Alma homely, and seriously homely, and to stick to it.

But I can also see my reader's point about Alma, which seems to be, "Why is it necessary that the brainy girl always be homely?"

Thinking it over, I'm wondering if there is any way to win on this question. I know we all get irritated in movies, for instance, when the female nuclear physicist is played by the likes of Brooklyn Decker — then again: Why couldn't someone who looks like Brooklyn Decker be a nuclear physicist?

Should we just not describe a woman's appearance in a novel at all? But then, how would the reader come to know her?

ARGH…you can see how it makes the mind spin!

SO…what do you all think? Let's open it up for conversation! Share your feedback here! Curious to hear your thoughts and intelligence on this question…

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Love,
LG

(And in the meanwhile, please enjoy this portrait of 19th century Dutch botanist and illustrator Berthe Hoola van Nolten, who seemed, if this portrait does not lie, to be both clever and lovely.)

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Published on June 26, 2014 05:51

A beautiful reader, from last night’s event in Ridgewood, NJ…thank you for com…

A beautiful reader, from last night's event in Ridgewood, NJ…thank you for coming, Nichol! And I loved meeting your mom, too!

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Great meeting you tonight! :-) Ridgewood Public Library.

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Published on June 26, 2014 05:28

A sweet pile-up of THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS in Ithaca, NY…

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Since I read the ARC of SOAT in the spring of '13 I have been waiting for the paperback to come out so I could get all my friends to buy it. And now I run a book club for my store, @[100678629973302:274:Buffalo Street Books], in a gorgeous historic inn downtown, @[271891226200162:274:Argos Inn], that has the most miraculous bar. So, finally, in September I will get to share your beautiful book with my beautiful friends in a beautiful room while drinking Amy Stewart's beautiful signature cocktail. I love my life!

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Published on June 26, 2014 05:28

THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS in Romanian!

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Tks Liz,SOAT it's now in Romania!!!

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Published on June 26, 2014 05:27

THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS in Polish! Thank you, Monika!

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I've got my own copy in Polish and I've got so much fun reading your book. I love Alma and definitely she's my favourite female character. Congratulations. I'm looking forward to your next novel. Best regards from Poland.