Wednesday 24 October 2012

Is A Year Long Enough?


At the end of the year we review the past growing season and plan for the next. The year becomes our test period before we review again. Our bodies are attuned to follow the seasons. Writers seek a framework to support the story they wish to tell. What then would come more naturally to a garden writer than the progression of the gardening year.  But is a year giving us enough? A quick search on the Internet provides me with a slew of  gardening books, how to's and memoirs, all with the word year in the title. Yes, some of them are classics or hilarious or incredibly informative but the arbitrary cut off leaves me asking, Well what happened next? Did you stick it out? Solve the annoying neighbour problem? Get more hens?

Give me the equivalent of Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Jr, Five Years in Revolutionary Cuba by Carroll English, Den of Lions: Memoirs of Seven Years by Terry Anderson or even Thirty Five Years of Newspaper Work by H.L. Mencken (though can't help thinking you could have come up with a snappier title H.L.)

In this frame of mind  I chose Paul Gervais' A Garden in Lucca for my entry to the Garden Book Review.

It is a twenty year memoir of transforming an abandoned garden in Tuscany into a personal paradise. Gervais embarks on some serious research, devouring books, investigating garden history and exploring significant gardens. The author has a lyrical style which is a pleasure to read for it's beauty alone.

Unfortunately I found the tone to be more than slightly pretentious at times. The use of foreign phrases and Latin names without explanation becomes tiresome. I have taken to ignoring the parts I don't understand and adopt a "Oh, Paul!" defence to examples of pomposity. Truth be told this Quaker girl finds them rather delicious.  I keep going back for phrases like these:

"There's a flood of white "Sea Foam" roses cascading off a low ledge, and there are pink and yellow honeysuckles, mauve "Marie Viaud" roses, and a sky-blue California lilac trained up on a southern, framing wall."

"In late winter, the young, bare-limbed cherries wade in deep floods of yellow and white narcissuses"

" ...a three-hundred year old Zizyphus tree, all wretched and thorny, like something a not-terribly-wicked witch would grow."

and give a wry smile at

" my salone, the nineteenth century style room I'd always thought of as quite Lucchese in style"

Twenty years gives both the writer and reader scope for reflection, a quality that attracts me to this book, despite it's flaws.

Garden at Lucca from Villa Massei website

12 comments:

  1. Hello Susan:
    We were, of course, delighted to see that you had chosen 'A Garden in Lucca' to review here. Paul and his partner, Gil, are very dear friends of ours and to have the experience of actually being in their exceptional garden is something of an absolute joy. You may possibly be interested in a fairly recent post of ours, 'Up at a Villa' [23rd. July, 2012], which includes pictures of both house and garden taken when we were there this summer.

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  2. I love this book. A work that engages me enough to argue with it is a gift indeed. Do you think I was harsh regarding Paul's point of view? Every reader will bring their own experience to the reading of any particular work. I have a Quaker heritage so we are bound to differ in our opinions. The nice thing about a shared passion is that it becomes a common meeting point.

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    1. In no way, as we hope we have explained in our email, do we consider you to have been at all harsh and your opinions are totally valid, Susan. There is not a problem at all!

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  3. Wow Susan, I sure hope you're writing your garden book because your writing is every bit as lovely as the author you describe. I love a bit of pomposity too and this book sounds like a jewel.

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    1. Oh, Grace, thank you for the compliment. It means so much coming from you.

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  4. Well,now that I have been working at these gardens along the shores of Lake Michigan for ten years, maybe after ten more I will try a book. Twenty years. How time flies when your having fun. Jack

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    1. I think you should write a book. I mean it!!

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  5. Oh, I loved this review! This book sounds delicious. Any gardener will tell you that it takes years to truly make a garden. Twenty sounds about right! ;) I often have to remind myself to be patient, I can't make a garden in just a few years. And that in fifteen more years (or so) I'll be more satisfied with it. This book is definitely going on my 'must read' list. I think it will help me with those pangs of impatience, reading about what can be - if given the time.

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    1. This is a perfect winter reading book when one has time to think and dream. Your garden is already special. In fifteen years the plants will be saying "I have had a good life here". I think its that feeling we pick up on in an older garden.

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  6. I am sure I have read this book it sounds very familiar from your review.

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  7. Hi Susan, Thank you for reviewing that book. And as a result I checked it out from my local library and have just finished reading it. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was sorry when it ended. Some parts were very funny and Paul must have a natural gardener's eye for
    landscaping! The use of the foreign words without translation was a bit annoying for me too but like you I just read around it!

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  8. Thank you Dorothy. It is nice to get another opinion on a book. I'm thinking of over wintering with this one as I think it stands up to more than one reading. I might even translate this time:)

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