She vividly describes how each woman shaped the future while being forced into uncomfortable roles by the times in which they lived. Popova strives to show that women who’ve sought to lead their own lives in their art or science have often been at the mercy of the mob, or of forces that try to corral them into something more mainstream. He’d written playfully of her “magical powers” in a pamphlet, and is horrified to learn that the authorities have charged her with witchcraft.īut it all makes sense in the end. Oddly enough for a book that focuses on queer women of science and art, she begins with a discussion of Johannes Kepler racing to his German hometown to save his elderly mother from the Inquisition. Popova presents here not a dry history of each woman’s life but an investigative, at times speculative, look at their emotional lives. They needed to figure out a way to capture her, since she’s an unorthodox writer in many ways, both online and in this book. The Library of Congress has archived Popova’s Internet work along with other “culturally valuable” materials. But just as valuably, she highlights the lives of women who, once prominent in their own times, have sunk into the recesses of our collective scientific and artistic history. She shows that love and genius often make for an uneasy mix for women, especially when their historical circumstances don’t condone the love they seek nor support the work they do. Popova highlights the lives and work of women like Emily Dickinson (the famous reclusive poet of Amherst, Massachusetts) and Rachel Carson (the mother of the modern-day environmental movement).

In Figuring, Maria Popova, founder of the popular newsletter Brain Pickings, has written a hybrid history/biography/speculative non-fiction about the lives and loves of female scientists and artists, mostly in the nineteenth century, mostly in the United States.

And it seems especially hard for those who have same-sex attractions as well as aspirations towards genius. Can genius (whether artistic or scientific) and romantic love coexist peacefully? This question comes up often in any number of biographies of famous men and women, and the answer usually seems to be “no.” Some aspect of the life suffers, whether the personal or the professional.

Figuring by Maria Popova