Reviews for Gardens : an essay on the human condition

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From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

In contemplating gardens, Harrison references works of literature to provide much perceptiveness about the human predicament. Gardening and actual gardens appear but fleetingly to limn larger ideas Harrison discerns in literary creations' representations of gardens, including the biblical Eden. A superbly refined writer, Harrison regards care as a supreme attribute of the human relationship to gardens, in two senses. First, gardens are sanctuaries from worry and anxiety, and second, gardens are arenas of cultivation. Caretaking, whether literally of plants or figuratively of personal relationships and of the natural world, draws Harrison into epic poetry, Boccaccio's The Decameron, and Andrew Marvell's The Garden. The concept of the university as a pedagogical garden (Harrison is a professor) inspires the author's discussion of Plato's original grove of academe, while the garden as a refuge from modernism informs his consideration of certain twentieth-century poems and novels. Growth and decay, life and death, the purposes of human striving--such fundamental ruminations prompted by gardens receive a profoundly humanistic appreciation from Harrison, also the author of the comparable Forests (1992).--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2008 Booklist


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Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

Calling gardening "a form of education," Harrison (Italian literature, Stanford Univ.) uses these 12 essays as analogy in order to cultivate readers' awareness of the "terrifying, ongoing, and endless conflict between the forces of cultivation" in the modern world. Whereas "technology takes away more than it gives back," gardens offer hope, even to the homeless for whom there lies a "connection between gardens and forms of conviviality." Considering gardens real (Versailles, Stanford's Kingscote), imaginary (Dante, Boccaccio), and mythical (Eden, Islamic), Harrison reminds readers that "no one embodies the care-dominated nature of human beings more than a gardener," and he argues that this care domination is drastically needed in the global world. Modern society has failed to take "the next step ... to commit ... to the work of cultivation" and "to cultivate morality." Each of these essays stands on its own merit, but taken together they demonstrate the historical and timely impact of gardens and gardening on the human psyche. Harrison's engaging, verdant prose invites readers in, much like flowers and fountains encourage visitors to linger in resplendent gardens, and the extensive bibliography encourages readers to continue their education. Summing Up: Essential. All readers, all levels. T. Emery Austin Peay State University

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