The Faithful Gardener: A Wise Tale About That Which Can Never Die [BARGAIN PRICE] (Hardcover)

~ Clarissa Pin Estes (Author) "WITHIN THIS SMALL BOOK THERE ARE SEVERAL stories..." (more)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Renowned Jungian psychologist and poet Estes (Women Who Run with the Wolves, Ballantine, 1992; The Gift of Story, Ballantine, 1994) writes a beautiful allegory in her latest volume. Growing up in a refugee family, Estes learns the art of storytelling in the ancient tradition. In graceful prose, she relates the story of her Hungarian Uncle Zovar, a concentration camp survivor, in his struggle to release himself from the horrors of camp life. A "story within a story" is illustrated through the uncle's narration of the burning death and rebirth of his forest during World War II. Estes includes her own rendition of the Christmas tree story: the tree in the forest cut down, adorned at the house, then burned as firewood in the end. She relates the story of her own urban forest started in her back yard, inspired by her uncle's thoughts on nature. Estes's style is charming, spellbinding, and lyrical. Followers will clamor for more. Highly recommended.?Lisa Wise, EBSCO, Springfield, Va.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Since the megaselling Women Who Run with the Wolves (1992), Estes has squeezed out two diminutive volumes, of which this is the second. It is a story within a story within a story within a story within a story. First up: the biblical Creation story inflected so that God makes everything because of a loneliness best answered by the stories people live. That master story leads into the story of Estes' Hungarian immigrant uncle; that into the uncle's story about "This Man" (a farmer displaced by war, as he was); and that into a story about a fir tree that becomes a Christmas tree, then firewood, then fertilizer for new trees. That last story is the one, promised by the book's subtitle, about "That Which Can Never Die," which, one gathers, is the life force itself. Sentimental as bronzed baby shoes and written in a diction that seems a parody of Anthony Quinn as Zorba, may it please, or at least entice, Estes' band of lopers with the lupines. Ray Olson

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne; 1st edition (October 27, 1995)
• ISBN-10: 006251380X
• ASIN: B0027CSNKI
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,347,102 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good things have roots in fallow ground...., January 13, 2001

By	W. Hopkins "goatherd" (Blythewood, SC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Faithful Gardener: A Wise Tale About That Which Can Never Die (Hardcover)

The stories are like layers of an onion where each depends on the one before it to exist. The horrors of war are only hinted at by the author's uncle but the reader easily draws parallels between the transitions in life with a fallow field, a fir tree covered with decorations and the emergence of new life and promise from a piece of fallow ground. The book is easily read in an hour and I blinked away tears as I finished. Since the first reading, my front lawn has been returning to Nature, just as the author's did, and every season of watching new life emerge reminds me of the story and that good things are always beginning.

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We were born to be happy, October 14, 2000

By	josephine wennerholm (Rome, Italy) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Faithful Gardener: A Wise Tale About That Which Can Never Die (Hardcover)

It took me just under two hours to read this book, on the beach, last summer. It took my breath away, it made my eyes roll two fat tears of life-joy and life-pain. How can anyone get over the holocaust and other atrocities that are going on in the world today? Only if we believe that we were born to be happy and can find the strength to carry on, despite grand strokes of fate that wipe out healthy forests of life. Such a story of hope, I can't believe so few people/readers have bothered to write an editorial. I have already bought 6 copies of the book (in Italian, because I live in Italy) and everyone I've give it to is just amazed as I've been by it. Thank you Madame Estes Pinkola.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An inspiring story about storytelling and human nature., February 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Faithful Gardener: A Wise Tale About That Which Can Never Die (Hardcover)

This book was recomended to me at a time when I needed and recieved much healing. In a delightful and enchanting fashion it tells the story of a little girl whos long lost relative comes to be with her. The girls roots are from a place where storytelling is an intricate part of their culture. The actual tale is one of extraordinary inspiration, of philisophical and spiritual healing by revealing paralells to natures course. I will be forever comforted, moved and changed by reading and re-reading this little gem.