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Figuring

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Figuring

By: Maria Popova
Narrated by: Natascha McElhone
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Figuring explores the complexities of love and the human search for truth and meaning through the interconnected lives of several historical figures across four centuries - beginning with the astronomer Johannes Kepler, who discovered the laws of planetary motion, and ending with the marine biologist and author Rachel Carson, who catalysed the environmental movement. Stretching between these figures is a cast of artists, writers, and scientists - mostly women, mostly queer - whose public contribution has risen out of their unclassifiable and often heartbreaking private relationships to change the way we understand, experience and appreciate the universe. Among them are the astronomer Maria Mitchell, who paved the way for women in science; the sculptor Harriet Hosmer, who did the same in art; the journalist and literary critic Margaret Fuller, who sparked the feminist movement; and the poet Emily Dickinson. Emanating from these lives are larger questions about the measure of a good life and what it means to leave a lasting mark of betterment on an imperfect world: Are achievement and acclaim enough for happiness? Is genius? Is love? Weaving through the narrative is a set of peripheral figures - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Darwin, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman - and a tapestry of themes spanning music, feminism, the history of science, the rise and decline of religion, and how the intersection of astronomy, poetry and Transcendentalist philosophy fomented the environmental movement. Biographies & Memoirs Gender Studies Social Sciences Women Mathematics Astronomy
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Popova has a deep knack for braving the interconnection between the past, present and future of ideas, artistry, melancholy and the natural world and all the people who occupy that space and time of thought and being. The book has so much depth that it highlights how layered the human experience is, in solitude, as well as togetherness. At times, I got lost with the amount of content positioned in each chapter and other times, I managed to get into flow with the capturing of history into narrative. It really gives an opening into the narrative of our daily lives, that we are all just figuring it out.

A mingle of narratives across space and time

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This book is uneven. In a couple of places I became bored or confused by the written equivalent of a jump cut. Overall the transcendently beautiful sections balance this out. I wept in some places. This is a drifting series of linked meditations. It works best when you just surrender and listen without asking where its going, we spent to long with Emerson & Dickinson, but was introduced to several new heroes. Easy enough to listen to Natasha McIlhone’s dulcet tones. I ended with a renewed sense of wonder & possibility.

A couple of critic reviews I found overly harsh. They seemed to blame Popova for not having written a different book, without havijg much understanding of this one. Like a good hike, bring a bit lost at times id part of the overall experience. Freed from argument, Popova free associates across her treasure trove of knowledge to highlight synchronicities and parallels to delight & amaze.

Uneven in places. The highs are stratospheric.

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Amazing work by the author and beautiful delivery by the narrator. This book opened my heart to new worlds.

Simply beautiful!

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Maria Popova brings the stories of these remarkable people alive in such a vivid and wonderful way. I loved this book and the beautiful narration

Beautiful stories, beautiful telling

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This is a hard one to rate. I liked aspects of it - as I like Popova's blog/newsletter - but like other reviewers really struggled to work out what it's actually *about*.

I also suspect it would be better as a physical book. Given the narrator is a good actress with a nice voice, I was surprised at how amateurish the reading was - mispronunciations galore, strange pauses and emphases, and read in a way that made it effectively impossible to tell what's a quote and what's not, which is a real issue for a book like this.

This is really a series of interwoven biographies of a bunch of (mostly) 19th century, (mostly) American, (mostly) women, with (mostly) nontraditional love lives, who (mostly) suffered in some way, and who were all in some way creative or innovative in the arts or science or both, and (mostly) had some kind of (mostly) indirect connection to the Trancendentalist movement. Kinda.

I'll be honest - I'd barely or not heard of most of them, or (really) Trancendentalism in this American context. That's part of why I found it interesting - I'm always keen to learn about new things.

However, the book promised to be much more than just a collection of biographies of people the author finds interesting or relates to - which is, as far as I can tell, the only real unifying factor.

I kept expecting a broader theme or message to emerge. But while the biographies are kinda woven together, for me it wasn't very elegantly done. It felt forced rather than natural, the people forced to fit an artificial concept of the author's rather than the author finding organic connections beyond superficial coincidences.

That doesn't mean it's not good, but it does mean that - for me - it doesn't live up to expectations.

Interesting, but not quite for me.

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