Orwell's Roses
by
43/99
Critics' Rating Index
76/99
Readers' Rating Index
n/a
Scholars' Citation Index
99/99
Volume of Reviews
74/99
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About This Book
A lush exploration of roses, pleasure, and politics, and a fresh take on George Orwell as an avid gardener whose political writing was grounded in his passion for the natural world "In the year 1936 a writer planted roses." So begins Rebecca Solnit's new book, a reflection on George Orwell's passionate gardening and the way that his involvement with plants, particularly flowers, and the natural world illuminates his other commitments as a writer and antifascist, and the intertwined politics of nature and power. Sparked by her unexpected encounter with the surviving roses he planted in 1936, Solnit's account of this understudied aspect of Orwell's life explores his writing and his actions—from going deep into the coal mines of England, fighting in the Spanish Civil War, critiquing Stalin when much of the international left still supported him (and then critiquing that left), to his analysis of the relationship between lies and authoritarianism. Through Solnit's celebrated ability to draw unexpected connections, readers encounter the photographer Tina Modotti's roses and her Stalinism, Stalin's obsession with forcing lemons to grow in impossibly cold conditions, Orwell's slave-owning ancestors in Jamaica, Jamaica Kincaid's critique of colonialism and imperialism in the flower garden, and the brutal rose industry in Colombia that supplies the American market. The book draws to a close with a rereading of Nineteen Eighty-Four that completes her portrait of a more hopeful Orwell, as well as a reflection on pleasure, beauty, and joy as acts of resistance.
Reviews
"Solnit makes a persuasive case for the importance of acknowledging what Orwell loved and enjoyed, as well as what angered or saddened him, without shying away from accepting that those who actually work the land for a living are often significantly less dewy-eyed about country life than middle-class people with chickens running through their orchards ..."
"an approach that Orwell himself likely would have approved ..."
"Though Orwell's every word had been scrutinized by the time Solnit began this project, her stellar book shows us that an original thinker can make any subject fresh."
"Orwell will always be relied on for his astute understanding of the threat of totalitarianism and its malignant lies; Solnit also ensures that we'll value Orwell's profound understanding of how love, pleasure, and awe for nature can be powerful forms of resistance."
"[a] humanizing portrait."
"Yet on subsequent readings of Orwell's Roses, as I tried to trace all the book's connections, it became clear that Solnit's web is not as meticulously built as it seems."
"Even when the associative leaps evoke, as they do on occasion, some head-scratching, there is an exuberance to them, and it seems, at least to me, that Solnit is having fun when she makes these connections—finding joy in the intellectual pursuit of writing and thinking."
"There's no way to predict whether history someday will accord Rebecca Solnit's work the same respect George Orwell's has earned."
"Solnit doesn't toot her own horn."
"The book provides a captivating account of Orwell as gardener, lover, parent, and endlessly curious thinker ..."
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