Orwell's Roses
by
43/99
Critics' Rating Index
76/99
Readers' Rating Index
n/a
Scholars' Citation Index
99/99
Volume of Reviews
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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
"There's no way to predict whether history someday will accord Rebecca Solnit's work the same respect George Orwell's has earned."
"[A] lyrical exploration."
"And, movingly, she takes the time to find the traces of Orwell the gardener and lover of beauty in his political novels, and in his insistence on the value and pleasure of things."
"Solnit's personality...is always there on the page: confrontational, anxious, angry, self-absorbed, and—most importantly—female."
"The book simultaneously is and isn't about George Orwell, just as it is and isn't about roses."
"There is at times in Solnit too much lateral thinking, too many free associations ..."
"It's not easy to find new angles on such a prominent figure, but Rebecca Solnit has done just that."
"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."
"Despite its title, long stretches of this book of 'forays' about George Orwell's connections with nature are not even remotely about Orwell."
"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."
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