- Share This Post
- Pin It
- 2
-
Sparkle (0)
I have a black thumb and yet each spring I try to grow something. Last week I bought a basil plant. It's already wilting and looking quite sad despite what I really must say are my best efforts. I own how-to manuals and I've borrowed books that dish out gardening tips from the library. Yet again this summer I'll attempt to grow tomatoes and a variety of herbs in mysunroom , most likely with poor results. I have far more success when I read about other people's gardens, whether they be fact or fiction.
When one thinks of books and gardens I think it's natural for the mind to go directly to Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden. I was far, far too old the first time I read . It would have been childhood favourite if only I had read it before I turned twenty-five (oh well, one can't read everything right?). Jennie Elyse has owned a copy of it since she was ten but only just read it...twenty one years later. She's kind of glad that she waited to read it.
One of the things I enjoyed the most about this story is its positivity. The last chapter is very profound. Even though you’d miss the story, you could read the last chapter and understand the intent and message of the story. I think it’d do a lot of people good if they were to learn from the book’s message.
My most recent favourite garden is the one from Sarah Addison Allen's Garden Spells. Gardens seem like they should be a little bit magical don't you think? 5-squared finished Garden Spells recently. It made her want to play in her own garden.
Reading this made me want to hang out at a garden store all afternoon. Or better yet, plant some peas and spinach. I hear they increase patience for unruly children. Better plant them quick.
Virginia Woolf's Kew Gardens is a popular story on book blogs. The Literate Kitten said that the garden Woolf describes is "unique, seething with life, wonder and surprise."
Nature is given human characteristics, such as the heart-shaped and tongue-shaped leaves. When humans enter the story, they ascribe nature's characteristics to humans, such as the first man's desire being in the dragonfly, or are ascribed natural characteristics themselves (as when the elder man walks in the manner of an impatient carriage horse tired of waiting outside a house). This is consistent throughout the story, suggesting, I think, the interrelation of nature and humans; mankind is part and parcel of the natural world, and vice versa.
Whenever I see someone posting about Elizabeth Von Armin's An Enchanted April I'm reminded that I really need to read her Elizabeth and her German Garden. Girlebooks says that it "can be read as a how-to book as much as a memoir, and in it she gives sound advice to the would-be gardener." What kind of advice does it offer? Practical advice like don't spend all your allowance on exotic plants and the ever important have patience. Danielle's post also reminded me that there's a companion volume to it, A Solitary Summer.
What are your favourite literary gardens?
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
