Figuring

This had some fascinating moments. I feel like she focused too long on Fuller, but then I think Fuller was the hub for many of the other spokes, so I guess it was inevitable. My favorites were Dickinson and Carson, but most of the lives touched on here are compelling. This book makes it easy to fall down your own wiki rabbit holes, and it also convinced me to finally pick up Emerson to read. While I appreciated the highlighting of the queer aspects, I also felt like there was a bit of conjecture in other aspects that might give a skeptic reasons to argue or doubt. (i mean, fuck those people, but yeah) The interstitial, authorial philosophizing could be a little heavy or purple at times, but it was easy enough to skim if that's not your jam. I wish more books existed that helped contextualize and connect events and people within a skein of time rather than making them all feel isolated, so I'm glad I read this.

Given Maria Popova’s work on her Brainpickings blog, this book shouldn’t have came as a surprise. But it did surprise me and overwhelm me.

There is so much going on in this book, but I’ll focus on the three that had the most impact on me personally: tracing the impact of the Transcendentalist movement on today’s world, updating my high school knowledge of that movement and giving full expression to the emotional lives of historical figures.

This book can be looked at as an examination of the Transcendentalist movement. This was probably my favorite part of high school English. I was obsessed with Thoreau, and wanted to follow in his footsteps. I wanted to leave the world to try to make sense it—to understand a world that seemed ridiculous and confusing. Over time, I chose to engage with the world. And Popova’s book covers those who chose to do the same: engage with the world.

In doing so, she brings to the fore figures who didn’t figure into our high school curriculum. While Thoreau and Emerson are featured here, they are the background to the story of Margaret Fuller, Maria Mitchell and Harriet Hosmer. All of whom went out into the world a loved full lives.

But the fullness of life is not just going out into the world and making your mark, as Popova demonstrates with her portrayal of Emily Dickinson. Famously a recluse, Popova shows that Dickinson lives a full emotional life, explaining how someone seemingly separated from the world could write poems so full of life. It is not just Dickinson, though. Popova explores the emotional life of all the figures she covers here. She shows, again and again, that a life of ideas never exists in an ivory tower. It is always interwoven with the rich tapestry of our emotional lives—our friends and family, our hopes and disappointments, our intense loves and equally intense losses. Popova shows that we don’t just think about the world, we feel our way through it.

This is a rich and complex work. It is dense with interconnected people, ideas and loves. It took me some time to read it, but it was worth it. It is unlike any book I’ve ever read, but is one of the most rewarding books I’ve ever had the pleasure to read. Like all great books, it changed not just the way I look at the Transcendentalists, but the way I look at the world.