If there was one line to sum up Janice Pariat’s latest novel, it would be this quote that appears
halfway through the book, “Sometimes a place is more than just a place. It becomes a thing that shines like a beacon, where all your dreams and aspirations are fulfilled.”
Reading Everything the Light Touches is akin to embarking on a magical journey that moves the reader in more ways than one.
Is the journey more important than the destination? What are the mysterious paths that our travels entail? How does it connect us to our roots and the deep relationship we have with mother nature? Pariat makes one think hard.
It’s the story of four characters undertaking journeys at varied points of time in their lives for different reasons. One is in search of her own roots, one is looking for a mysterious plant, another wants to find meaning in her life, and the last one is simply seeking adventure. It’s these dramatically different, yet interconnected stories that determine the tone of the book, which glides from one century into another, highlighting how the world has changed and still somehow remained the same.
The novel starts with Shai, a modern-day impulsive millennial, who quits her job and moves to her parent's home, 60 km away from Shillong. While her mother is worried about her whimsical ways, her conservationist father is preoccupied with nature and its well-being. He teaches Shai the language
of trees and sparks in her a curiosity about indigenous communities, and their ways of living, igniting in her a desire to connect with her roots.
Then there’s Evelyn, an Edwardian student at Cambridge, who is believed to be travelling to India in search of a husband, but sweet Evie has a mind of her own, and one that is heavily inspired by the botanical writings of Goethe, the book’s third protagonist. Here Pariat seamlessly intersperses fact with fiction. In her novel, she includes German poet Goethe’s travels through Italy, and also introduces botanist and taxonomist Carl Linnaeus (fourth character), albeit briefly, as a lyrical ode to his famous expedition to Lapland in 1732, which resulted in his book Flora Lapponica.
In the world that Pariat creates, everything is intertwined; nothing is free of another. This is the over-
the arching theme of the novel, which could well have been a collection of novellas and poetry. Spanning the 18th century to the present day, the 482 pages are rich in cultural contexts. The mining mafia of Northeast India or the way sexism raised its ugly head in the the1900s when women botanists were scorned, Pariat’s intense research has not missed any beat.
Meanwhile, even the fleeting romances that Goethe, Evie and Shai experience in their respective lives leave readers asking for more. They want to know why Goethe leaves everything behind, what is it that makes Evie trust someone instantly, or whether Shai would give love another chance. Everything the Light Touches so beautifully captures romantic relations, even if tangentially, bringing all aspects of human life to the fore.
From Rome to Mawmalang (in Meghalaya) and Delhi to the Sundarbans, the author takes her readers on a journey where they have to wait and listen patiently. Each of her main characters has their own share of insecurities and desires, ambitions and aimlessness, rooted in a world where trees can’t be ignored. At
a time when the world is crying hoarse about climate change, the author’s attempt to bring the spotlight on the natural world is loud and clear, even if it wasn’t the main intention of the book.
Pariat is a wordsmith like none other. She has deftly sieved through a wealth of historical detail and at the same time managed to craft her research lightly onto the pages. In her latest, the author of the international bestseller The Nine-Chambered Heart has attempted several genres at once––history, taxonomy, prose, poetry,––making it her most ambitious work to date.
The novel is by no means a fast read, but if one is a fan of Pariat’s heartwarming prose, this book is only going to make them a bigger fan of the writer.