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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Drawing from sources religious, literary and scholarly, Italian literature professor Harrison examines the human quest for happiness through centuries of gardens and gardeners, both real and fictional: "For millennia and throughout world cultures, our predecessors conceived of human happiness in its perfected state as a garden existence." Gardens have provided education, creative expression and sanctuary throughout time, yet are "by nature impermanent creations that only rarely leave behind evidence of their existence." Epicurus was among those who taught by means of the garden, cultivating patience in his followers: "a serene acceptance of both what is given and what is withheld by life in the present." Other subjects include Homer, Camus, Dante and Boccaccio; what gardens in the Bible and the Qur'an say about attitudes toward life and afterlife; and the difficulty of perception in the modern world ("We live in an age... that makes it increasingly difficult to see what is right in front of us"). A fitting follow-up to The Dominion of the Dead, his thoughtful look at mortality, Harrison's latest will give gardeners and nature-lovers a fascinating historical tour and a deeper appreciation for the craft: "Neither consumption nor productivity fulfills. Only caretaking does."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"In this book's two great predecessors, Forests and The Dominion of the Dead, Robert Pogue Harrison took two preoccupying images of the human psyche and considered them with a depth and originality that revealed their unlimited and unbroken presence in every assumption and moment of our lives. Gardens he describes modestly as an essay, but it has, or at least suggests, the same kind of pervasive presence of an underlying human impulse in our relation to the world around us. He does it with eloquence, grace, and erudition rooted in the literatures of his four native languages (including Turkish) that informed his earlier books. The range of his perspective on the human myth suggests that he may be our Bachelard."-W. S. Merwin (W. S. Merwin )
"Harrison is a cultural historian alive to the poetry of science as well as insights poetry offers to the natural history of humankind. In Gardens, he explores the meanings of gardening, from the lofty height of Homer and the Bible to the poignant plots tended by homeless people in New York. Our fascination with gardens endures, even as the gardens themselves come and go with the seasons. They''re not meant to last, Harrison reminds us; it''s their job to ''reenchant the present.''"-Matthew Battles, New Hampshire Public Radio (Matthew Battles New Hampshire Public Radio )
"Gardening, to me, is foreign soil. . . . And yet I find myself completely besotted by a new book titlted Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition, by Robert Pogue Harrison. The author . . . is one of the very best cultural critics at work today. he is a man of deep learning, immense generosity of spirit, passionate curiosity and manifold rhetorical gifts. . . . As I read this exraordinary, luminous book, I found myself envying my green-thumbed buddies and their serenity-inducing, life-affirming ritual--earthworms and all." (Julia Keller Chicago Tribune )
"The rabbis of the Talmud counseled you that if you are planting a tree and someone tells you that the Messiah has come, you should finish planting your tree and then go out to investigate. Robert Pogue Harrison implies something similar in his rich and beguiling Gardens. Gardens, though they offer peace and repose, are islands of care, he writes, not a refuge form it. That is why they are important, since care is what makes us human.. . . In many ways Gardens is a personal essayas mcuh as it is a work of scholarship. Mr. Harrison has planted his own garden of beautiful quotations and provocative speculation, and it is an absorbing and stimulating place to spend time." (Jonathan Rosen Wall Street Journal )
"Harrison''s engaging, verdant prose invites reads in, much like flowers and fountains encourage visitors to linger in resplendent gardens, and the extensive bibliography encourages reads to continue their education." (Choice )
See all Editorial Reviews
Drawing from sources religious, literary and scholarly, Italian literature professor Harrison examines the human quest for happiness through centuries of gardens and gardeners, both real and fictional: "For millennia and throughout world cultures, our predecessors conceived of human happiness in its perfected state as a garden existence." Gardens have provided education, creative expression and sanctuary throughout time, yet are "by nature impermanent creations that only rarely leave behind evidence of their existence." Epicurus was among those who taught by means of the garden, cultivating patience in his followers: "a serene acceptance of both what is given and what is withheld by life in the present." Other subjects include Homer, Camus, Dante and Boccaccio; what gardens in the Bible and the Qur'an say about attitudes toward life and afterlife; and the difficulty of perception in the modern world ("We live in an age... that makes it increasingly difficult to see what is right in front of us"). A fitting follow-up to The Dominion of the Dead, his thoughtful look at mortality, Harrison's latest will give gardeners and nature-lovers a fascinating historical tour and a deeper appreciation for the craft: "Neither consumption nor productivity fulfills. Only caretaking does."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"In this book's two great predecessors, Forests and The Dominion of the Dead, Robert Pogue Harrison took two preoccupying images of the human psyche and considered them with a depth and originality that revealed their unlimited and unbroken presence in every assumption and moment of our lives. Gardens he describes modestly as an essay, but it has, or at least suggests, the same kind of pervasive presence of an underlying human impulse in our relation to the world around us. He does it with eloquence, grace, and erudition rooted in the literatures of his four native languages (including Turkish) that informed his earlier books. The range of his perspective on the human myth suggests that he may be our Bachelard."-W. S. Merwin (W. S. Merwin )
"Harrison is a cultural historian alive to the poetry of science as well as insights poetry offers to the natural history of humankind. In Gardens, he explores the meanings of gardening, from the lofty height of Homer and the Bible to the poignant plots tended by homeless people in New York. Our fascination with gardens endures, even as the gardens themselves come and go with the seasons. They''re not meant to last, Harrison reminds us; it''s their job to ''reenchant the present.''"-Matthew Battles, New Hampshire Public Radio (Matthew Battles New Hampshire Public Radio )
"Gardening, to me, is foreign soil. . . . And yet I find myself completely besotted by a new book titlted Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition, by Robert Pogue Harrison. The author . . . is one of the very best cultural critics at work today. he is a man of deep learning, immense generosity of spirit, passionate curiosity and manifold rhetorical gifts. . . . As I read this exraordinary, luminous book, I found myself envying my green-thumbed buddies and their serenity-inducing, life-affirming ritual--earthworms and all." (Julia Keller Chicago Tribune )
"The rabbis of the Talmud counseled you that if you are planting a tree and someone tells you that the Messiah has come, you should finish planting your tree and then go out to investigate. Robert Pogue Harrison implies something similar in his rich and beguiling Gardens. Gardens, though they offer peace and repose, are islands of care, he writes, not a refuge form it. That is why they are important, since care is what makes us human.. . . In many ways Gardens is a personal essayas mcuh as it is a work of scholarship. Mr. Harrison has planted his own garden of beautiful quotations and provocative speculation, and it is an absorbing and stimulating place to spend time." (Jonathan Rosen Wall Street Journal )
"Harrison''s engaging, verdant prose invites reads in, much like flowers and fountains encourage visitors to linger in resplendent gardens, and the extensive bibliography encourages reads to continue their education." (Choice )
See all Editorial Reviews
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