Leading Readers Down the Garden Path

Although book groups are wildly popular, there's a predictable ho-hum sameness about most reading choices, which tend to be recently published fiction aimed at a female audience and set in contemporary America. For a change of pace, you might want to consider reading thematically. We did, when we started "Stories from the Garden" at the library of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. Naturally, our clientele are avid gardeners, so our picks, both fiction and nonfiction, deal with plants, gardens, or the land. The following selections—a hybrid of novels, short stories, poetry, plays, essays, and memoirs—can be happily read both by gardeners and by those who will never pick up a trowel.

In "A Curtain of Green," from THE COLLECTED STORIES OF EUDORA WELTY (Harcourt. 1980. ISBN 0-15-118994-3. $35; pap. 1982. ISBN 0-15-618921-6. $16), a recently widowed woman finds solace in her garden. This tale of grief, loss, creation, and redemption sparked a spirited two-hour discussion in our group's first meeting.

Michael Pollan's SECOND NATURE: A GARDENER'S EDUCATION (Dell. 1992. ISBN 0-385-31266-0. pap. $14.95; LJ 3/15/91) is a collection of essays that discusses how and why we can meet nature in the garden. Pollan's most engaging pieces address plant obsessions, plant snobbery, sex in the garden, and harvest time as "nature's gothic." In THE BOTANY OF DESIRE: A PLANT'S-EYE VIEW OF THE WORLD (Random. 2001. ISBN 0-375-50129-0. $24.95; pap. 2002. ISBN 0-375-76039-3. $13.95; LJ 5/1/01), Pollan asks: Do plants participate, however unconsciously, in their genetic survival by making themselves desirable to us? He ponders human-plant relationships in his essays on the apple (desire: sweetness), the tulip (desire: beauty), marijuana (desire: intoxication), and the potato (desire: control).

Nathaniel Hawthorne's allegorical "Rappaccini's Daughter" in SELECTED TALES AND SKETCHES (Penguin. 1987. ISBN 0-14-039057-X. pap. $10.95) is set "very long ago" in Padua. Dr. Rappaccini grows poisonous plants and transfers their poison to his beautiful daughter who, in turn, becomes deadly to men. This tale of experimentation gone awry is fertile ground for discussions on the nature of evil, hubris, and the creation of monsters.

Can anyone have an idyllic childhood? And a strong and loving mother? Evidently, yes. Colette's companion books, MY MOTHER'S HOUSE and SIDO (Farrar. 2002. ISBN 0-374-52833-0. pap. $14), are lyrical and impressionistic homages to her mother and her home, garden, and animals.

In true Stoppardian fashion, Tom Stoppard's play ARCADIA (Faber & Faber. 1996. ISBN 0-571-16934-1. pap. $12) shifts between the 18th and 20th centuries and, in so doing, considers space and time and witnesses scientific, literary, and horticultural genius, thwarted and cultivated.

An opportunistic editor inserts himself into the lives of two elderly female American expats who live in a Venetian villa. His modus operandi? He proposes to spruce up their garden. "The Aspern Papers" in THE ASPERN PAPERS and THE TURN OF THE SCREW (Penguin.1986. ISBN 0-14-043224-8. pap. $5.95) is Henry James at his most deliciously wicked.

Czech writer Karel Capek (1890–1938) offers two tales for gardeners in TALES FROM TWO POCKETS (Catbird. 1994. ISBN 0-945774-25-7. pap. $14.95; LJ 6/1/94). In "The Blue Chrysanthemum," we are asked to ponder why Clara, the "village idiot," finds rare flowers that elude her elders and betters. "The Stolen Cactus" is, on one level, a clever cautionary tale of where plant obsessions and the collecting impulse will lead us if we are not careful, while we can also noodle over what the author is telling us about crime and its suitable punishment and the danger of getting too close to the gods. A bonus to Capek fans and gardeners: Capek was a keen gardener, and his charming THE GARDENER'S YEAR (Modern Library. 2002. ISBN 0-375-75948-4. pap. $11.95) is back in print.

Fans of magic realism will be thrilled to discover a long out-of-print Dutch classic, Maria Dermoût's THE TEN THOUSAND THINGS (New York Review of Books. 2002. ISBN 1-59017-013-X. pap. $12.95). Born and raised in the Dutch East Indies, Dermoût (1888-1962) began writing in her sixties. Her novel, set on an island in Indonesia, is the story of Felicia, the Lady of the Small Garden, who is surrounded by her ghosts and immersed in an animistic world of exotic beauty. Dermoût writes exquisitely and hauntingly of murder and loss, tolerance, and fear of "the other."

Gardening and nature are traditional pastoral themes for poets. In year two of our group, we ventured into poetry by reading four Mary Oliver poems. Three selections, "Spring Azures," "Peonies," and "A Letter from Home," came from her National Book Award–winning work, NEW AND SELECTED POEMS (Beacon. 1992. ISBN 0-8070-6818-7. $28.50; pap. 1993. ISBN 0-8070-6819-5. $16; LJ 10/1/92). We rounded out the discussion with "Fletcher Oak" from Oliver's WHITE PINE: POEMS AND PROSE POEMS (Harvest: Harcourt. 1994. ISBN 0-15-600120-9. pap. $14). While readers may, at first, hesitate to parse the poems, our group persevered and gave themselves over to Oliver's wordplay.

For more ideas on this horticultural theme, see the Elisabeth C. Miller Horticulture Library's excellent annotated list "Stories from the Garden" (depts.washington.edu/hortlib/resources/booklists_data/stories.shtml) and "Bloomin' Books: Gardens, Gardeners, and Gardening in Fiction" (webrary.org/rs/flbklists/garden.html), compiled by subscribers of the Fiction_L discussion list.