Micro review: 'Everything the Light Touches' by Janice Pariat

Author Janice Pariat's latest novel 'Everything the Light Touches' is shortlisted for the AutHer Awards 2023 in Fiction category.
Set across continents and centuries, ‘Everything the Light Touches’ follows the tale of four people who, separated by time and place, share a love for travel and ecology and their connection transcends time. The story is an epic of travelers, of discovery, of time, of science, of human connection, and of the impermanent nature of the universe and life itself.
Pariat weaves a web of connected stories and timelessness of nature into a tale of four characters- Shai, Evelyn, Johann Philipp Möller (an alias of Goethe’s), and Carl (Linnaeus).
Shai, a principal protagonist of the story, is an Indian girl in her early 30s who travels to her hometown in the North East. There she encounters indigenous communities and tells her story in the book. Evelyn, a botanist from Cambridge, undertakes a voyage to the forests of Himalayas in 1911 in search of a secret plant. Johann Wolfgang is a German philosopher on Goethe’s 1787 tour of Italy, at the end of which he would write his first scientific work, 'Metamorphosis of Plants' (1790). And Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus takes the famous expedition to Lapland in 1732, which would result in his book 'Flora Lapponica' (1737).
Pariat experiments with a variety of narrative techniques in the book. Shai’s character tells her own story, Goethe’s and Evelyn’s story is told by an omniscient narrator. And Linnaeus’s tale is narrated through a series of poems.
Pariat’s book is extremely rich in imagination. It touches upon various themes including botany, travel, the contrasts between modern India and its colonial past, urban and rural life, capitalism and centuries-old traditions of generosity, and gratitude among others.
How critics view the book:
Kirkus Reviews says, "Readers interested in historical fiction may want to check this out while noting that not all chapters are equally engaging."
Sana Goyal writes for The Guardian, "As the reader journeys through this atmospheric and accomplished novel, they discover that the natural world around us is loud enough for those willing to listen, and Pariat has found the language for it."