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Title: Down the Garden Path
ISBN: 0881927104
Author:
Beverley Nichols
Publicate Date: 2004-12-01
Publish: 2004-12-01
List Price: $24.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $15.55
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $15.58
Amazon Merchant Price: $16.47
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Gushing Floral Autobiography with Some Charm
The author states that this work is a floral autobiography in which nothing very much happens and from which reading of its 28 chapters the reader will gain practically nothing in knowledge of gardening.
To have such a book exist without these helpful standard qualities, sans plot or instruction then, the author need must rely upon charm. And there is much charm in the writing here.
But while there is charm -- indeed, as well as humor -- there is an insufficient amount of either to get through all 290 pages without the feeling that a tedious prolixity (which the author admits to before the book ends) has entered the book before the last 80 pages are finally read.
Even so, this reader has discovered that, despite the flaws or absences announced above, anyone will learn appreciation, if he or she doesn't already possess it, of Nature's beauties -- flowers, especially.
The author gushes and rhapsodizes over certain flowers with words put down in such a manner that -- the memorability of his "transports" aside -- it would have been a helpful improvement upon the mere reproduction of the facsimile of this original text (first published in 1932) to have had colored photographs of those very specific flowers over which Beverley Nichols does express his poetic enthusiasms: the winter aconite, the Pimpernel, Chionodoxa, cyclamen, clematis, foxgloves, crimson flax -- especially as a contrast to the stark black and white print along with the accompanying black-and-white decorations.
While the author's words about flowers are very inspirational and touching, it was disappointing to learn that they are hardly descriptive of what these gorgeous flowers actually look like, and there is no discernment in the writing of what variety of flower the author actually prizes.
The weight, size, shape, and jacket of this book are all positively gorgeous. The jacket has a glamorous, move-star quality photograph of the author on the back, and the print inside the book is clear, clean and highly readable. The decorations from the original by Rex Whistler are adequately reproduced and add a certain old-fashion charm as well.
Every effort by Timber Press, it seems, has gone into making this book continue as a "timeless classic" about gardening, but the typos that were in the 1932 original publication were not eliminated for this modern edition and they do mar the artful remaking of the book, underscoring, in this way, that the timelessness is, after all, debatable. There is "dispoged" on page 153 where the word should be "disposed" and there is the confusing "Pullyana" instead of "Pollyana" on page 183, where the typo itself seems to serve as some kind of unintentional, accidental humor of its own.
As earlier stated, the writing for this floral autobiograph is, indeed, charming, flirtatious, witty, silly, gushing and diverting for the length of more than a good half of the book and it makes the work a genuine pleasure to read, but then the writer's reed keeps playing his familiar tunes a bit too long by Chapter XIV -- without variation.
Even though the author discusses the creation of his greenhouse for the remaining quarter of the book, a little more pruning would have made the petals of his paens to flowers more magical. An earlier chapter on the Professor is not so very delicious or amusing today, particularly since the author does admit he cannot quite capture how the professor spoke. The several incidents with Mrs. M. seem repetitive and often irritating if not nasty, and the author's general opinions about women feel sexist well after the Sexual Revolution of the Sixties and the same for the author's notion of the "modern girl."
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2: Delightful
This is not just a gardening book, it's a light-hearted, funny and entertaining Masterpiece Theater kind of account of a very English batchelor's attempt to create a garden paradise. I loved it and was inspired for my own attempts.
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3: great read!
These books may be old but I can see why they are still in print!
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4: Prompt service
The book arrived in condition as described and delivery was extremely fast, sooner than I expected since it was during the holidays - very nice since the book was a gift.
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5: Wonderful pre-war English Charm
A thoroughly charming book with a lovely pre-war atmosphere. It is about gardening yes, less about the technical than about the wonders. That weird, ratty vine you chopped down to get rid of, which bloomed like the Dickens two months later, the neighbor who knows everything, has a perfect garden, and seems to stop by just when a mystery fungus has claimed your best plants during the night. It's that kind of gardening book, about the joy of success and the deceit of garden catalogues.
Beverly Nichols bought his house for the garden he thought was there. He knew nothing about gardening. He learned through trial and error, and the man was enthusiastic and thought big. He wanted flowers in his garden in winter, and searched until he found them. He wanted to grow mushrooms. He wanted a wood in his field. You get the idea.
The writing is what makes this book. His description of the gardening books he found: "They were mostly in wrappers which showed women in obsolete hats standing with guilty expressions by the side of immense hollyhocks. They had terrible titles too..." Or perhaps about gardeners themselves, "People think that the gardener is a placid man, who chews a perpetual cud... a man whose mind moves slowly... Such ideas are very wide of the mark. A gardener is a wild and higly-strung creature, whose mind trembles like the aspen and is warped by sudden frosts and scarred by strange winds..."
Well worth a winter read!
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