In the wake of World War II, an eccentric European curator struggles to keep alive a greenhouse full of exotic, nocturnal plants, fending off financial threats to their survival and his own creeping insanity.
| ||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Following his tropical tale of social chaos, Ghosts of Manila, Hamilton-Paterson's rather torpid new novel centers around a gardener's sealed-off hothouse paradise in a wintery, unnamed European city just after WWII. Leon, chief gardener of the Royal Botanical Society, has survived the war through a cloistered obstinacy, obsessively tending and communing with his 100-year-old banyans and tamarinds (which, in an odd touch, occasionally comment on the novel's action). In the unstable postwar milieu (the sort of place Hamilton-Paterson favors in his fiction), Leon's life and greenhouse are complicated by his director's idea of progress, his mute refugee assistant and a princess from the Far East who is as artificial a transplant as any here. Although the author's morally seedy landscape of shifty politics and individual despair echoes that of that of Graham Greene's The Third Man, his storytelling and characters lack the intensity necessary to cultivate tragedy. Instead, he creates a lush but ersatz atmosphere of sensuous details and mixed emotions, with botany serving both as parallel and counterpoint to European civilization's decline in the American century.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In a northern European city at the close of World War II, a greenhouse flourishes, kept alive through bombardment and occupation by a dedicated if eccentric gardener named Leon. The Palm House (as it is called) is Leon's whole world-"I don't want to see the real tropics," he confides to his plants-a place he retreated to long ago when his true love proved unobtainable. But the end of the war brings changes that destroy his little world: the Royal Botanic Society, which maintains the Palm House, may be forced to sell it off; an exotic Asian princess exhorts Leon to come work for her in the "real tropics"; and Leon has wrecklessly opened his heart to a Gypsy boy he rescued from a mob. The real world thus intrudes on Leon's artificially maintained privacy, and the glass ceiling comes crashing down. Hamilton-Paterson (Ghost of Manila, LJ 10/1/94) pads out this intriguing little idea with endless rhapsodic writing, some rich and rewarding (having the plants talk actually works rather well), some so overblown that even a neophyte writer would blush. The Gypsy's final betrayal creates some real tension in an otherwise slack plot, but it seems grafted onto the novel. For larger collections.
Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A haunting, powerful book of love, loss and loneliness,
By A Customer
This review is from: Griefwork: A Novel (Hardcover)
In a haunting, complex book, James Hamilton-Paterson brings the reader into an enclosed world under glass--a hothouse filled with tropical plants. This warm, steamy world exists in juxtaposition to the cold climate of Germany outside its glass walls. Inside is a man who also lives an unreal life, spellbound by the strange plants and trees which become his whole world. Sometimes he hears them speak "We happen to be particularly sensitive to cold. Our lives hang on a few degrees which isn't true of humans. But they have their own problems, our gardener especially. It's to do with their hearts, I think." As World War II rumbles into life Leon, who is the curator of the hothouse, manages to keep it running. He is `the genie in this enchanted forest'. Interwoven is the story of his young love affair and his friendships with a princess from a warm foreign land, and an abandoned gypsy boy. Hamilton-Paterson's prose is lyrical, it sings. Griefwork is a powerful book, an unforgettable story of fantasy, love and loss
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Encroaching Insanity and Talking Palms,
By A Customer
This review is from: Griefwork: A Novel (Hardcover)
Griefwork is James Hamilton-Paterson's third novel. It is more carefully crafted than Gerontius and Ghosts of Manila, more serious than The Bell-Boy and more meditative than any of his other works.Griefwork is set in the time period immediately following World War II and encompasses a lyrical and detailed character study of Leon, a brilliant, eccentric, self-taught curator of Palm House, a large greenhouse in the botanical gardens of the capital city of an unnamed Northern European country. Leon struggled against near-impossible odds to preserve Palm House throughout the Nazi occupation of the city and is now engaged in a battle against city authorities who would like to close the garden and develop the land on which it sits. Hamilton-Paterson tells the story of Leon's life in flashbacks, slowly exposing the loss that serves as its defining factor and catalyst for his now slowly encroaching insanity. The son of a North Sea fisherman, Leon is irrevocably changed when, as a teenager, he spends a summer as an assistant to a visiting naturalist, one who recognizes Leon's talents and encourages him to make full use of them. More importantly, Leon becomes obsessed with Cou Min, the young daughter of the scientist's Asian servant. Even though he never again sees her, her loss affects Leon so deeply that it becomes the backdrop of his life; the reason for all he does thereafter. Leon's obsession is complicated by the events of WWII when he rescues a young gypsy from a Fascist mob and enters into a strange and haunting relationship with a beautiful Asian princess who wants to hire him to create a botanical garden in her own country and who may or may not be interested in him personally. This lyrically meditative story slowly spins a web that eventually catches everyone involved in ultimate disaster. The book is not without its own stylistic devices, however, and some of them border on the pretentious. Leon is so attuned to the plants in Palm House that, at times, he can even hear them speak to him, just as they speak to the reader in a pseudo-Greek chorus at the end of each chapter. This can be disconcerting at first, especially as the plants are possessed of some of the wittiest dialogue in the book, certainly more so than Leon, whose grimness is unrelieved. Hamilton-Paterson, however, is a master at writing about the natural world, so this particular stylistic device eventually works and we are keenly aware of Leon's frustrations in evoking a "natural" world that can only exist under the protective barrier of glass. In a world where popular fiction is usually fast-paced and brutal and literary fiction cool, ironic and postmodern, Hamilton-Paterson can be seen as an anomaly or as a phenomenon. A private man, fifty-something, and with no institutional affiliations, he may be seen by some as far too artistic for his own good. Defying the brand-name classification many publishers demand of today's novelists, all of Hamilton-Paterson's novels, despite a similarity of style and theme, are wildly different books. Readers who are intelligent enough, or lucky enough, to discover this wonderfully versatile author however, will find themselves richly rewarded. For James Hamilton-Paterson is a wonderfully versatile author and a passionate writer. His narratives are richly imagined, his themes odd and knotty but filled with subtle and compassionate characters we come to care about deeply. And, as always, he tells his stories in gorgeous, haunting and wonderfully precise prose. Who could ask for anything more?
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Insanity Among the Palms,
By A Customer
This review is from: Griefwork: A Novel (Hardcover)
Griefwork is James Hamilton-Paterson's third novel. It is more carefully crafted than Gerontius and Ghosts of Manila, more serious than The Bell-Boy and more meditative than any of his other works.Griefwork is set in the time period immediately following World War II and encompasses a lyrical and detailed character study of Leon, a brilliant, eccentric, self-taught curator of Palm House, a large greenhouse in the botanical gardens of the capital city of an unnamed Northern European country. Leon struggled against near-impossible odds to preserve Palm House throughout the Nazi occupation of the city and is now engaged in a battle against city authorities who would like to close the garden and develop the land on which it sits. Hamilton-Paterson tells the story of Leon's life in flashbacks, slowly exposing the loss that serves as its defining factor and catalyst for his now slowly encroaching insanity. The son of a North Sea fisherman, Leon is irrevocably changed when, as a teenager, he spends a summer as an assistant to a visiting naturalist, one who recognizes Leon's talents and encourages him to make full use of them. More importantly, Leon becomes obsessed with Cou Min, the young daughter of the scientist's Asian servant. Even though he never again sees her, her loss affects Leon so deeply that it becomes the backdrop of his life; the reason for all he does thereafter. Leon's obsession is complicated by the events of WWII when he rescues a young gypsy from a Fascist mob and enters into a strange and haunting relationship with a beautiful Asian princess who wants to hire him to create a botanical garden in her own country and who may or may not be interested in him personally. This lyrically meditative story slowly spins a web that eventually catches everyone involved in ultimate disaster. The book is not without its own stylistic devices, however, and some of them border on the pretentious. Leon is so attuned to the plants in Palm House that, at times, he can even hear them speak to him, just as they speak to the reader in a pseudo-Greek chorus at the end of each chapter. This can be disconcerting at first, especially as the plants are possessed of some of the wittiest dialogue in the book, certainly more so than Leon, whose grimness is unrelieved. Hamilton-Paterson, however, is a master at writing about the natural world, so this particular stylistic device eventually works and we are keenly aware of Leon's frustrations in evoking a "natural" world that can only exist under the protective barrier of glass. In a world where popular fiction is usually fast-paced and brutal and literary fiction cool, ironic and postmodern, Hamilton-Paterson can be seen as an anomaly or as a phenomenon. A private man, fifty-something, and with no institutional affiliations, he may be seen by some as far too artistic for his own good. Defying the brand-name classification many publishers demand of today's novelists, all of Hamilton-Paterson's novels, despite a similarity of style and theme, are wildly different books. Readers who are intelligent enough, or lucky enough, to discover this wonderfully versatile author however, will find themselves richly rewarded. For James Hamilton-Paterson is a wonderfully versatile author and a passionate writer. His narratives are richly imagined, his themes odd and knotty but filled with subtle and compassionate characters we come to care about deeply. And, as always, he tells his stories in gorgeous, haunting and wonderfully precise prose. Who could ask for anything more?
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
