Customer Reviews

Dear Friend and Gardener: Letters on Life and Gardening

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Two old friends, who also happen to be two of England's best known gardeners--correspond for two years in this absorbing and heart-warming book. The conversation was intended to be about their respective gardens and nurseries, and the reader who loves gardens will be richly rewarded. But the correspondence ranges much further--to music, food, family, friends, colleagues, and, inevitably , the weather. Beth Chatto's luminous intelligence and courageous openness set off the forthright and irrepressible Christopher Lloyd. This is a book about love, life, and plants, and a real winner.

I had trouble with this book. I just couldn't get into it. Was it because I don't share the authors' fascination with the many types of snowdrops? Or maybe because I don't care for opera? And what exactly does opera have to do with gardening? Perhaps it was the writing. The letters were more esoteric discussions than chatty correspondence between two gardeners who are also close friends. Are the English more formal in their letter-writing?

The answer, of course, is that these are not "real" letters. They are merely a literary device suggested and edited by publishers. This was hinted at by Mr. Lloyd in his introduction but I didn't catch on until the very end when the "correspondence" drew to a close. I read the entire book under the impression that I was reading genuine letters originally written with no thought of future publication. Once it was revealed that the "letters" were written specifically to be published in book form, I felt cheated. It should have been clearly stated at the beginning that this is a collection of essays addressed to each other so that the reader is not led to think that s/he is about to be privy to something special.