Customer Reviews

Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy

5 star:		(70)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"In my 40 years as an orchid scientist, author and book editor, I have never read anything quite like ORCHID FEVER. It is part absurdist black humor and part horticultural expose. Mr. Hansen displays a rare talent for capturing the allure of orchids, describing the dubious characters who lurk in the shadows, and exposing the small handful of self-appointed power brokers who rule the orchid world. Frightening, funny and full of tantalizing insider knowledge. And yes...there are strange and wonderful stories about orchids as well. I have a distinct feeling that what was left unsaid about several people is much more interesting than what was written. I look forward to a no holds barred second edition."

Dr. Joseph Arditti Editor, Orchid Biology Irvine

Whether you happen to be an orchid lover, or merely a curious bystander, "Orchid Fever (A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust and Lunacy)" will have you by turns helpless with mirth and seething with indignation, or else simply agog with incredulity from start to finish. For it is, quite simply, an absolutely stunning piece of investigative journalism, dressed up as a tale of personal obsession and eccentricities. Written using plain language and with an outstanding witticism, it makes for compelling reading throughout, whether or not you know anything about orchids, or the orchid-growing and trading communities that it explores.

Chapter by chapter, alternating hilarious episodes with the downright unsettling or just plain unbelievable, Eric Hansen gradually lays bare the seedy underbelly of a world that perhaps few of us realise exists. He reveals an alarming world-wide conspiracy, fuelled by greed, protected and upheld by idiotic international bureaucracy and a network of power politics, which daily threaten innocent lives and legitimate livelihoods as well as vast swathes of natural fauna that they purport to be protecting.

Populated as it is by gentle, likeable heroes, blackguardly villains, utter buffoons and the most outrageously bizarre of characters, it is sometimes easy to forget that this book is factual, so far-fetched are some of the events and scenarios that its author recounts. And yet, this somehow makes the book all the more scary, for occasionally things happen to make you realise that it is not a work of fiction. And at that point, the anger sets in... anger that things should be this way and are likely to remain so, despite the best efforts of some of the book's obvious heroes.

Thoroughly researched over a period of some seven years and never less than fascinating, this book exposes the full and terrifying consequences for anyone who succumbs to orchid fever. It is an essential read for anyone who thinks that orchids are nothing more than beautiful but harmless flowering plants. Or indeed for anyone who has never heard of fox testicle ice-cream!

Mr. Hansen has done a fantastic job combining his experiences, research, observation, and writing to provide us with a revealing look at "the orchid world". I found this expose both entertaining, and also a bit disturbing because it made me realize that although I have only been growing orchids for 2 1/2 years, by virtue of owning and caring for approximately 200 plants and joining a local orchid society and the American Orchid Society, I have become part of the "orchid world" described in the book even though I had not planned things that way! (A fellow orchid society member/neighbor of mine and local paphiopedilum specialist has helped me become interested and active in his hybridization program. This neighbor/specialist knows many of the people Mr. Hanson writes about in Orchid Fever!)

This book is a fast read because Hansen's style includes frequent utilization of humor. The vivid descriptions of the personalities Mr. Hanson encountered and the places he visited while preparing to write this book are captivating and entertaining.

I have read Eric Hansen's Traveling with Mohammed and Stranger in the Forest with much satisfaction. I enjoy travel and adventure books and both of these fit my interests. My knowledge about orchids is very limited and I doubt I would have read Orchid Fever until I heard of a new book by Mr. Hansen.

"Orchids" I said, by Hansen? Well I bought it and now I am trying not to buy one of these orchid creatures. The orchid world described by Hansen encompasses all the world has to offer; life, beauty, culture, pleasure, excitement, and the mis-use of power and guidance of those entrusted with political and regulation ability. It is strange how organizations such as CITES are created to preserve, protect, and educate and the results appear to be less than desirable.

Another book to be read and enjoyed by Mr. Hansen. I would recommend it to anyone, not just orchid lovers.

The only thing that aggravates me more than CITES is an accurate book on how truly awful the situation really is. Having mired through the CITES mess as it relates to orchids for several years now, I was surprised to find so many other growers in the same boat. The author presents a cogent expose of the magnitude of the problem, both in terms of how many people are affected by it, but by how those allegedly working to conserve these species are often ignorant, corrupt, or thieves themselves. This book is said to have researched this subject for seven years; having read the book and, based on what I know from acquaintences and my own personal research on the subject, I have found it to be absolutely accurate- more than can be said about similar books, best left nameless. Hansen has produced a book that would outwardly appear to be dull-as-dishwater boring, but I managed to consume it in 5 hours. It is alarming that a book on a subject so esoteric as laws concerning orchid "conservation" should be so accurate, particularly from someone who would appear to be from outside the realm. I would recommend this book to those involved in rare plant horticulture, orchids in general, and those involved with CITES, conservation, or other environmental concerns.

Finally a book that tells it like it is! Eric Hansen's perceptive look into the world of orchid obsession was especially poignant for me as a recovering orchidphile. I grew orchids for over 25 years, during which time I scoured the tropics, garnered the American Orchid Society's highest awards, spent thousands on single plants and went head to head with true zealots. Thanks to Mr. Hansen, you'll encounter the same obsessed crazies that drove me out of orchids and into his book laughing. It's a historically and horticulturally well researched read, that's told with true wit and style.

After reading Hansen's Motoring with Mohammed, I vowed to read everything and anything he writes or has written. So I had to read Orchid Fever (don't get it confused with Orchid Thief), a novel about greed, thievery, skullduggery, incomprehensible gov't regulations, and an underworld of orchid fanciers/growers that rivals the drug trade. Populated with eccentric characters and devoted fanatics, Orchid Fever makes for fascinating reading.

Forget the flowers, this book is a treasure. Eric Hansen is a special story teller that can create a fascinating world from the mundane. But just give him a cause and a group of eccentric characters and he is off spinning an incredible tale that is impossible to stop reading, impossible not to laugh and always leaves you wishing for more. This book was a joy to read, I look forward to his next adventure.

Unlike the petty bickering, rumors and lies of South Florida that were portrayed in Susan Orlean's "The Orchid Thief", Eric Hansen's "Orchid Fever" takes us on an even more important journey, through jungle adventures in Borneo, ice cream made from orchid roots in Turkey.Fragrances derived from Cymbedium faberi in Japan and scientists in Europe, finishing off with a professional orchid salvager in Minmesota. In all this world travel, the most important information is how the portentous laws of the CITES (convention on international trade endangered species) are just not working. Quoting Dr. Gunnar Seidenfaden in Chapter 14, CITES had developed into a bureaucratic police force dominated by lawyers who knew nothing about plants and who were obsessed with 'legalistic refinement and jurdical sophistry'. The laws have allowed world wide 'plant raids' by heavily armed officers as if they were performing a drug raid. ... Well researched with personal interviews, "Orchid Fever" could turn orchid hobbyists onto activists.

Bil Nelson President, Wisconsin Orchid Society

Eric Hansen's book is a complete revelation of how ill-informed authorities would go to any length to persecute and prosecute often innocent people whose only fault it is to love and cherish orchids. Hansen authoratatively demonstrates how paper pushing, so-called botanists, often misguided, with little or no first hand experience, other than what is given to them through the grapevine put their feet into their own mouth. In many ways their collective acts together with ill-informed administrators in IUCN, and CITES, that proclaim to act in the interest of conservation, can only be termed as a form of Orchid-Apertheid. A sad state of affairs for all scientists round the globe, who are caught in the brutal, sophisticated and shortsighted machination of a group of self proclaimed authorites in charge, whose own records in the past is often deplorable. Individuals such as Cribb, Eric Hagstar, Vogel, van Vliet, are grim reminders of the dark age self-proclaimed do-goodies, that in the in their own interst sent many innocent victims to their death. As an individual who has travelled to the remote corners of the world several times, and with no active interst in orchids, I endorse Hansen's comments on the shallow understanding, and narrow-minded group of officials and botanists who unfortunately seem to have the upper-hand. I congradulate Hansen for his frank revelations of the blot clouding the orchid world. A sad story, about which the perpetrators should try to learn from, and be ashamed of their own acts in the past, and even present.