Beautiful Red-spotted Admiral Butterflies (Limenitis arthemis)

by Kim Smith

One of the most elegant butterflies to grace our garden, the Red-spotted Purple (Limenitis arthemis astyanax), is one of two races that comprise the Red-spotted Admirals, the other being the White Admiral (Limenitis arthemis arthemis). Red-spotted Admirals should not be confused with Red Admirals, which are a member of the Vanessa genus. I hope you are not totally confused at this point, but if you look at the binominal nomenclature, or scientific name (see below), it will help you see that, although distinctively different in appearance, both the White Admiral and the Red-spotted Purple are members of the same genus and species. For many years zoologists thought they were two distinct species. It is a wonder of biology that a single species has such different appearances for its survival strategies. With this delightful stretch of warm weather, almost daily, I catch a glimpse, or two, of this most richly hued and unusual of butterflies.


The average wingspan of the Red-spotted Admiral is approximately three inches. The White Admiral has a distinctive wide white band on both the forward and hind wings, and on both the dorsal (upperwing) and ventral (underwing). In the Red-spotted Purple, the white band is replaced with a band of iridescent lapis lazuli blue scales. It has evolved to mimic the highly distasteful Pipevine Swallowtail. Red-spotted Purples are found in greater numbers than White Admirals in the eastern part of Massachusetts. The opposite holds true for the western part of the state.

Purportedly, Red-spotted Purples are seen feeding primarily on rotting fruit, sap, and dung— infrequently at flowers—however, I see them nectaring often, and for long periods of time, at flowers. They are particularly fond of butterfly bushes, meadowsweet, Marsh Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata), and Joe Pye-weed.

Hostplants for the Red-spotted Admirals are extremely varied. Both races use cherries, including Chokecherry (Prunus virginiaina), Wild Black Cherry (Prunus serotina), Pin Cherry (Prunus pennsylvanica), plum (Prunus), apple (Malus), poplars, cottonwood, aspens, willows (Salix), birches, (Betula), hawthorn (Cratageous), basswood (Tilia), Deerberry (Vaccinium stamineum), and serviceberry (Amelanchier). The female oviposits a single egg on the upper surface at the tip of a fresh hostplant leaf. Our postage-tamp of a garden is much too small for the aforementioned larger trees, and too shady to grow healthy Prunus and Malus, so I am experimenting with a multi-stemmed Shadblow (Amelanchier canadensis), which I plan to keep pruned to a manageable shrub-size.

Amelanchier’s common names of Shadbush, or Shadblow, are derived from the fact that they bloom at the same time of year as the annual spawning migration of the shad fish. One of the most beautiful sights of early spring is the lacey white blooms of the Shadblow dotting woodland and roadside. Amelenchier canandensis is also called Canada Serviceberry, because of its delectably sweet blueberry-sized berries. You would be lucky to actually sample a berry. In our garden, the bluejays, catbirds, and mockingbirds are first in line. Naturally occurring in moist woodlands, shadblow is highly adaptable to a variety of soils. It can tolerate some dry conditions, but only when once established. Keep very well-hydrated until very well-established.

I am off to Tanglewood, which is located in western Massachusetts, to visit our daughter. With camera in tow, I am hoping to see a White Admiral!

Red-spotted Admirals
Kingdom: Anilmalia (Animal)
Phylum: Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Class: Insecta (Insects)
Order: Lepidoptera (Butterflies, skippers, and moths)
Superfamily: Papilionoidea (Butterflies, excluding skippers)
Family: Nymphalidae (Brush-footed butterflies)
Subfamily: Limenitidinae (Admirals and Kin)
Genus: Limenitis
Species: White Admiral: arthemis arthemis
Species: Red-spotted Purple: arthemis astyanax

End Notes: I am organizing a new show for the local north of Boston cable network and will be appearing on the Cape Ann Report with Heidi Dallin on Wednesday, August 4th at 6:00 pm to talk about it. More information will be forthcoming. To see a short Red-spotted Purple video, visit the following link: Red-spotted Purple Butterfly Video.

Kim Smith Designs is my interior and garden design firm. My first book, Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities! which I wrote and illustrated, is available through your local bookseller (and Amazon). I will be happy to respond to questions and comments at kimsmithdesigns@hotmail.com. For more information about Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities!, butterfly gardening, current projects, exhibits, and events, please visit my website.

A/C Broken

wishing we had these to wear today (office inappropriate?):

The Wondrous Godine E-Mail List

You may have noticed this box on the right side of our blog:





It's the new sign-up form for our monthly e-mail list. I recommend it highly. You'll get special discounts on backlist books (and new titles sometimes); updates from authors and as well from peers — publishers, writers, magazines, and even the occasional band; information about author readings, lectures by David, and other fun events; as well as essays by, and reviews of, hundreds of great Godine and Black Sparrow authors. We don't share your information with anyone, and we promise not to send those constant annoying updates on every miniscule detail of our day.

The Lonely Phone Booth: Romantic Comedy Mode

Top 3 things all authors should be doing (according to the Huff Post)

Top 3 things all authors should be doing

1. Engage in traditional, real-world events such as speaking engagements and workshops coordinated with online events such as tele-seminars and webinars

2. Produce an online video or live web feed promoting all of your events

3. Participate consistently (daily!) with your online community through Facebook and Twitter. The recommended frequency is 1 to 2 times a day on Facebook (not including the all-important responses to comments). For Twitter, a combination of content, replies, and recommendation tweets 5 to 30 times per day, much of which can be automated.

--

The above is from an article at the Huffington Post written by Arielle Ford. We don't have many authors on Twitter, but Godine has recently begun hosting and producing videos. We do blog regularly, Facebook, and Tweet — so I suppose we are doing alright. But perhaps there is something of which you would like to see more, good reader?

A Green Genius Review

Over at The Green Book Review, Heather MacAndrew discusses Genius of Common Sense, the legacy of our wonderful heroine Jane Jacobs, and finding the clarity and courage to act in a crazy, crazy world:

“Younger readers will enjoy meeting Jacobs as an inquisitive, fearless child who never lost her propensity to think independently until the day she died in 2006, just a week shy of turning 90. The book’s title, Genius of Common Sense, is not hyperbole. Jacobs’ observations about what makes cities livable ran counter to urban theorists in New York City, where she lived at the time. Lacking a university degree, she wasn’t taken seriously until she began writing articles and making her voice heard in neighbourhood protests.

Augmented with photographs and pencil illustrations, Genius of Common Sense chronicles Jacobs’ life from her early years in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to her family’s move to Toronto during the Vietnam War — revealing how her activism grew from the strength of her convictions and her political savvy. The deliciously subversive but common-sense lessons in this book prod us to trust our own observations, challenge conventional wisdom, and protest with verve and imagination — and to remember to feed the people you’re organizing. (Jacobs’ post-protest dinners were legendary.)”

Superior Person's Tuesday

Opsablepsia n. Not looking into another's eyes. In some cultures a sign of disrespect or evasion; in others a sign of respect and deference. Make what you will of this.




Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Opsablepsia appears in the second.

Eddie Chuculate on the Radio

Listen to Eddie Chuculate on Tulsa Public Radio, interviewed by Rich Fisher:

The Private Library on Godine

“As we have observed in repeated posts over the past 15 months, much of what gets published nowadays should be an embarrassment to the companies doing the publishing — way too many books nowadays are poorly edited (or not edited at all!), poorly printed (virtually no margins, hard-to-read type, no whitespace to relieve the eyes) and poorly bound (don't even think of opening the book wide enough to actually read it!).

The exceptions to this trend are few and far between. Fine press publishers still fight the good fight. As does the occasional specialist publisher like The Folio Society. But among commercial publishers, this task seems to have fallen to the few remaining independent publishers. One such publisher, which this year is celebrating its 40th anniversary (a difficult enough achievement in itself), is David R. Godine.”

Read the rest of this write-up at The Private Library

Follow Max!

Max Dalton, illustrator of The Lonely Phone Booth, is on Twitter! @maxdalton

Mostly we wanted to share this great illustration, from Max's blog.

Godine Fall Catalog

Superior Person's Tuesday

Neoteny n. An indefinite prolongation of the period of immaturity, with the retention of infantile or juvenile qualities into adulthood. Classic condition of the sports commentator, the lexicographer, and of course the schoolteacher.



Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Metoposcopy appears in the second.

Godine @ The Getty

photographs courtesy of Laurie Selik

David Godine signs a book, happily.

Examining a photo from the archive.

David Godine with a sampling of his archive.

 

Quality Assurance for Language

“People often think that editors are there to read things and tell people "no." Saying "no" is a tiny part of the job. Editors are first and foremost there to ship the product without getting sued. They order the raw materials—words, sounds, images—mill them to approved tolerances, and ship. No one wrote a book called Editors: Get Real and Ship or suggested that publishers use agile; they don't live in a "culture" of shipping, any more than we live in a culture of breathing. It's just that not shipping would kill the organism. This is not to imply that you hit every sub-deadline, that certain projects don't fail, that things don't suck. I failed plenty, myself. It just means that you ship. If it's too hard to ship or you don't want to deal with it, you quit or get fired.

I recently left zineland and did a bunch of freelance work and hooboy do people not know how to ship. A three-year project that yielded only 90-second page load; or $1.5 million down the drain with only a few microsites to show. And I've started to find myself going, God, these projects need editors. Editors are really valuable, and, the way things are going, undervalued. These are people who are good at process. They think about calendars, schedules, checklists, and get freaked out when schedules slip. Their jobs are to aggregate information, parse it, restructure it, and make sure it meets standards. They are basically QA for language and meaning.”

—Paul Ford, Ftrain.com

The Elements of Euclid, a review by David R. Godine

Imagine my surprise to see mentioned by The Barnes & Noble Review (on Twitter, in all the unlikely places) of our own illustrious publisher as reviewer! David R. Godine there offers his thoughts on The First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid. It is a book dear to him not because he has any special affinity for Greek geometry — he might, actually, one never knows — but because this volume was published in its original ground-breaking form by a favorite press, “the great William Pickering,” in 1847. He writes:

“What is it that is so appealing about this book? Part of it, to be sure, is the colorful triangles, squares, and rhomboids that make up Byrne's argument. Part of it, too, is the total incongruity of the Victorian initials by the supremely talented Mary Byfield, not to mention a text that presents medial s's that had been abandoned by most printers five decades earlier. There is a tension between the colorful, modernistic shapes and the archaic typography. As in all Whittingham printing, the registration of the four colors is perfect, no mean feat for a book that was undoubtedly printed on a hand press. Despite the poor paper (I have never seen a copy that was not badly foxed) this book now fetches a higher price than any title that Pickering issued — well into the five figures.”


Read the rest of his review at The Barnes & Noble Review.

Preview in the Mode of Action!

Find Lonely Phone Booth videos, desktop backgrounds, author events,
reviews, and more at www.lonelyphonebooth.com

Elizabeth David in “The Kitchn”

“Elizabeth David has no patience for the uninspired food of post-WWII England and her response makes for very good reading. She writes with a trust that her readers are an intelligent and resourceful bunch (much like herself) and does not mince words in her recipes. So pick up a copy of one of her Mediterranean-influenced books, throw yourself into a hammock and disappear into another world for a while. Then wriggle your way out and into the kitchen where, thanks to her influence, you will probably have a little garlic and fresh herbs, some olive oil, pasta, anchovies and a good hunk of parmesan on hand. From here, all sorts of magic is possible!”
— Dana Velden at The Kitchn

Enter HERE for a chance to win a free copy of South Wind Through the Kitchen! The contest ends and two winners will be randomly selected on Friday, July 23.

Have you seen our phone booth?

Study like a Scholar, Scholar

Cheyenne Madonna in Publishers Weekly

click to buy Cheyenne Madonna from the Black Sparrow website

“In seven interconnected stories Native American author Chuculate pursues the painful self-discovery of a Creek / Cherokee youth trying to distance himself from his family's chronic drinking, impoverishment, and racism. In ‘YoYo,’ Jordan, the dreamy protagonist of most of the stories, finds his myopic world abruptly pried open by the appearance of an older, and dazzlingly fast, black girl named YoYo. In ‘A Famous Indian Artist,’ Jordan describes the disintegration of his admiration for his uncle, Johnson Freebird, the only relative he has who has lived a creative life. In ‘Dear Shorty,’ Jordan depicts his alcoholic father, Shorty, in shockingly unsparing and unsentimental terms; after first following disastrously in his footsteps, Jordan achieves stature as an artist, yet continues to try to connect with his father, even after it's too late. Chuculate writes forthright prose in a somber key, examining without judgment the lives of Native American characters like Old Bull, a Cheyenne who, in ‘Galveston Bay, 1826,’ the collection's one stand-alone story, ventures out to see the ocean for the first time, only to get savaged by a hurricane. Memory and will converge here to powerful effect.” — Publishers Weekly

Superior Person's Tuesday

Metoposcopy n. Judging character from the appearance of the face. A casual look in the bathroom mirror first thing in the morning will readily demonstrate the fallibility of this notion.



Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Metoposcopy appears in the second.

Interview With David R. Godine

Nigel Beale over at Nota Bene Books has posted the audio to a wonderful half-an-hour interview with David R. Godine. The two discuss Godine Publisher's early days, the art of book collecting, and David's most prized titles, both as a collector and a publisher.

Superior Person's Tuesday

Limaceous a. Sluglike, having to do with slugs.



Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Limaceous appears in the first.

Perec: Praise & a Giveaway

Over at the Top Ten Books blog, Arthur Phillips writes in praise of George Perec's masterpiece, Life a User's Manual. “The first miracle: A novel built from a strictly limited construction — the description of one single moment in a Paris apartment building — blossoms into an encyclopedia of stories and life spanning centuries, the globe, the history of literature. The second miracle: A moving, humane novel composed of implausible, even impossible parts. Perec’s brainy puzzle-book somehow produces the exhilarating, alternating certainties that life is beautiful, cruel, sweet, meaningful.”

You can enter a free giveaway of Life a User's Manual over at the Top Ten Books blog. Many thanks to Chad Post of Open Letters Books and the Three Percent blog for including the book in his personal top ten list, and for his consistent and emphatic support of Georges Perec and all literature in translation.

Aram Saroyan on Jim Carroll

from the article “Blue Galahad,” at Jacket Magazine

“Jim lent me a manuscript copy of The Basketball Diaries, which was still unpublished, albeit now legendary. The strongest impression I took away from that first reading was that in a certain light his heroin use was like the flipside of the strenuous physical and psychic demands of his life as a basketball scholarship boy. Near the end f the book there was a sequence about a Greenwich Village romance that seemed full of a quieter, richer light. When I read the book again nearly a decade later when it was finally published, I asked Jim about this missing part and he responded casually that it had been cut.”

Aram Saroyan is the author of the Black Sparrow Books title Door to the River: Essays & Reviews from the 1960s into the Digital Age

Superior Person's Tuesday (or, ahem, Wednesday)

Kalopsia n. A state in which things appear more beautiful than they really are. Presumably love.

Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Kytiologic appears in the third.

Millicent Dillon on Jane Bowles

from the interview with A. Victoria Mixon

“The relationship between Jane’s work and Paul’s work was as complex as the relationship between the two of them. In that relationship she looked to him for support (including economic support) as well as early on, as with Two Serious Ladies, with shaping the work in terms of form — so that he suggested taking out the third serious lady, and she readily agreed. In her early letters, when he does start publishing, stories at first, and then getting the novel contract, you can hear the anguish in her voice. She admits to jealousy and then tries to smooth it over, but it’s obviously there. In the same way she suffered from his relationship with [his long-term lover] Ahmed Yacoubi.”

Order Out in the World: the Selected Letters of Jane Bowles
from the Black Sparrow website

Andrew Motion on Anne Carson

The deconstruction of "Poem 101" (which we do at one point find in a complete English version) allows the construction of Nox. It gives it backbone, as well as a clear theme. This, like other elements of the structure, revolves around how much or how little it is possible to grasp of a person, which Carson interestingly equates with the question of translation itself. Long before we get to the end of her dismantling, we realise that everything she is doing with the poem by Catullus is a parallel to the work she has undertaken to recover her brother: "Prowling the meanings of a word, prowling the history of a person, no use expecting a flood of light. Human words have no main switch. But all those little kidnaps in the dark. And then the luminous, big, shivering, discandied, unrepentant, barking web of them that hangs in your mind when you turn back to the page you were trying to translate."

Read the rest of Sir Andrew Motion's sparkling review at The Guardian

Purchase Sir Andrew Motion's collection of poetry The Mower or his memoir In the Blood from the Godine website.

On Music & the Soul

“Now and then when she was listening to music this premonition touched her soul secretly, somewhere a long way out. . . . She would feel a start of terror, suddenly aware of her soul's existence in the realm of the undefined. But every year, as winter passed away, there came a time when she felt nearer to those outermost frontiers than at other times. During those naked, strengthless days, suspended between life and death, she felt a melancholy that could not be that of ordinary craving for love; it was almost a longing to turn away from this great love she possessed, as though faintly glimmering ahead of her there were the road of an ultimate destiny, leading her no longer to her beloved but away from him, defenseless, out into the soft, dry, withered expanses of some agonising desert. And she realised that this came from a distant place where their love was no longer solely between the two of them, but was something with pallid roots insecurely clutching at the world.”

Robert Musil, "The Perfecting of a Love," from Five Women

Superior Person's Tuesday

Jape n. a prank or joke. The word has overtones of English private (i.e. public) school humor and the writings of Frank Richards. Should be used in relation to the more tiresome antics of your office comedian. “This is hardly the time for one of your junior-high japes, Plunkett.”



Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Jape appears in the first.

An Unassuming Little Volume

Nina MacLaughlin at Bookslut writes: “On Being Blue is a peculiar, lovely, and beguiling treatise, not on the condition, not on lowness or gloom, but on the color — what it is and means and does. The essay, at just ninety-one pages, wanders and dips and loops, language-driven on a molecular level. His sentences are such that we’re seduced along, maybe, at times, at the expense of making all his meanings. His lust for language infects.

“It’s about sex and about language and about the language of sex, and how we’re failed by language in writing about sex, and how we fail sex with language. ‘What we need, of course, is a language which will allow us to distinguish the normal or routine fuck from the glorious, the rare, or the lousy one... but we have more names for parts of horses than we have for kinds of kisses.’ And it’s daunting to describe that blanket, blue across the bed — (he was right) — the way it took us when we lost our selves in sleep or other sorts of surrender, a thing and a state, a color and a feeling.”

Gass' unassuming little volume is also the only book ever featured in a Playboy centerfold spread, posed in the hands of some undoubtedly lovely young woman. We have no idea who the model was, but if you can find the issue in which the book appears there may be a little reward in it for you.

Eddie Chuculate Featured @ WLT

Eddie Chuculate, author of the forthcoming collection of short fiction Cheyenne Madonna, is featured in the brand new issue of World Literature Today. An excerpt from his story “A Famous Indian Artist” is available as well, and there is a brief introduction from poet, musician, and playwright Joy Harjo. She writes, “Chuculate relates a world that is exactly what it is, with no romantic savage junk, and no temporary spiritual life preservers. In the midst of despair there's a shine of meaning that surfaces, like the miracle of sunrise after an all-night party.”

Romantic Gardens in The Boston Globe

“Romantic Gardens: Nature, Art and Landscape Design, by Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, Elizabeth S. Eustis, & John Bidwell (David R. Godine, $50) is available from the Morgan Library and the publisher (www.godine.com), who have joined forces with the Foundation for Landscape Studies to assemble this array of seminal texts and outstanding works of art. The result is a scholarly and accessible book that reveals and illuminates the origins and impact of the movement that dominated both Europe and America between 1700 and 1900 in the realm of the garden.

“In this book, containing a lengthy introductory essay on the nature of Romanticism, the authors demonstrate, through drawings and designs, watercolors, and engravings, a narrative of the course of Romanticism in Europe and America, where the landscape ideals of the creators of private gardens were translated into the designs for public parks. Here, illustrated in full color and described in detail, are the books, the essays, the prints, and the manuscripts that served as core documents of the Romantic Movement.”

— Carol Stocker, The Boston Globe

Superior Person's Tuesday

Isomorphic a. Being of the same shape and general appearance, but not of the same ancestry, as something else. As, for example, any pet dog and its owner — more especially, any show dog and its owner.

Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Isomorphic appears in the first.

At the Fortieth Anniversary Cookout

We had a great time.

Godine Recommends

checking out Damion Searls, translator of The Inner Sky.

Arctic Circle Review

“Reid’s book is not exactly a chronicle; it’s a poem, an ode to wild Alaska. It’s not only about nature, but also about human interaction with it, and specifically about the reactions of one human, himself, to it. Initially I was impatient with Reid’s prologue, his meandering and his failure to get on with it. But this book is not about plot or narrative tension; it’s about being there. And Reid has a talent for taking us there.”

from Marty Carloc's review of Arctic Circle
at The Internet Review of Books

[funny] The 39 Steps [/funny]

from the production of The 39 Steps, a comic re-imagining, currently on Broadway!
get more information and buy tickets at their website.

Superior Person's Tuesday

Horrisonant a. Sounding terrible. Your neighbor’s cornet practice; your son’s rap records; almost any modern so-called “serious” music; and the piano music of Scott Joplin.



Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Horrisonant appears in the second.

Swimmer in the Secret Sea review in ForeWord

“This lovely little book — little only in the physical sense — began as an O. Henry Prize-winning serialization in Redbook in 1975 (when magazines did such things with exceptional fiction). The story too is not new, but one of the oldest humans tell, about longing, hope, love, birth, death, and carrying on. But Kotzwinkle, who's successfully published an eclectic mix of fantasy and experimental novels, children's books, science fiction, and film novelizations (E.T., for one), brings to Johnny Laski, a would-be father and self-sufficient rural artist, a deeply-nuanced humanity. On the surface, the story might be considered scant — only one thing really happens: a baby struggles to be born, a couple hopes, then mourns. But within that story, the author presents most human emotions worth writing about.”

from the ForeWord Magazine review of Swimmer in the Secret Sea,
by William Kotzwinkle

Burning Down the House: Oil in the Arctic Circle

from Arctic Circle, a memoir by Robert Leonard Reid

“The coastal plain is where the polar bear dens and the caribou vacations, and where millions of migratory birds nest during a blink-of-an-eye summer. It’s also where the oil is. No one knows exactly how much is there, but it’s a lot. Oil industry sources put the number as high as sixteen billion barrels. If they’re right, refuge reserves exceed those of Prudhoe Bay, the largest-known oil field in North America. Drilling opponents have adopted a much smaller figure. By their estimate the refuge holds about an eight-month supply of oil for the United States (assuming that only refuge oil were used). An equivalent amount could be saved — and drilling foregone — by increasing the fuel efficiency of every vehicle in the United States by just two miles per gallon.

The United States Geological Survey conducted exhaustive analyses of the relevant seismic data and in 2000 published what may be the closest we’ll get to an impartial estimate of the coastal plain’s oil potential. The survey estimated a 95 percent chance that 1.9 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil will be found; a 50 percent chance that 5.3 billion barrels will be found; and a 5 percent chance that 9.4 billion barrels will be found. The only way to assess the accuracy of such predictions, of course, is to drill. This idea strikes some people as sensible, and others as akin to burning down a house to see if it is fireproof.”

A Humble Invitation

Chris Lydon & Damion Searls

Listen to this great interview between Christopher Lydon and Damion Searls (translator of Inner Sky), at Radio Open Source, regarding Searls' new edition of the journals of Thoreau (our from the New York Review of Books). Searls says, “Rilke is such an aesthete, but it’s kind of remarkable how many of these Thoreau journals end up sounding like Rilke poems in prose, or vice versa. So I think that in terms of the generational stuff it took a while. Thoreau was seen as this kind of crusty Yankee, and then he was seen as this civil disobedience hero and this environmental prophet, all of which are true.”

Yann Martel & The Tartar Steppe

In September of 2009, best-selling author Yann Martel submitted a book to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, as part of the prime minister's book project, "What is Stephen Harper Reading?". With permission from Mr. Martel, we offer our readers his letter of support for Buzzati's novel in full:

It’s not my habit to quote myself, but to introduce this week’s book, the novel The Tartar Steppe, by the Italian writer Dino Buzzati (1906-72), I will:

“A beautiful, masterly novel that shimmers like a mirage, bringing into sharp focus the rise and fall of our ambitions and the pitiless erosion of time. It is the story of one Giovanni Drogo — yet how many of us will be stricken to recognize something of ourselves in him?”

You’ll find these words on the back cover of the edition I’m sending you. The blurb is one way in which a writer can be a citizen of the arts. When giving a blurb, a writer lends his or her éclat to a book, so that the reader is guided not only by what the writer says, but by the esteem in which that writer is held by the reader. I’ve been the beneficiary of a good blurb: Margaret Atwood kindly read and liked my novel Life of Pi and her supportive words likely attracted the attention of a good number of readers. Sometimes the blurb will be by a journalist and its weight will depend on the prestige of the newspaper in which the journalist’s review appeared. This system of commendation can be very effective in helping a book meet its readers and publishers use it all the time. When you finish your book on hockey, your publisher will dream of getting Wayne Gretzky to read it and commend it. “If The Great One liked this book, I’m sure I will too,” every hockey fan will say, grabbing the book off the shelf.

For this British edition of The Tartar Steppe, the blurb system is in full operation. On the front cover, the Sunday Times (“A masterpiece”) and J. M. Coetzee (“A strange and haunting novel, an eccentric classic”) exhort the reader to pay attention, while on the back cover Alberto Manguel, Jorge Luis Borges and I, in a few more words, explain to a prospective reader why this book must be read.

And really, it must be read. The Tartar Steppe, published in 1940, is indeed a masterpiece, insufficiently known by the reading public. It tells the story of a young officer who is posted to a remote fort on the edges of an unnamed country. And there he waits for an invasion of barbarians that never comes, he waits for thirty years, he waits his entire life away, arriving at the fort as a young man full of prospects and leaving it old and broken. Waiting — and with it the dread of expectation — is a very 20th century concern. If Samuel Beckett had been writing in the 19th century, he would have written Acting for Godot. But as it is the 20th century paid the price of all those actions for God and for country — the mess of colonialism and greedy empire-building — and he wrote Waiting for Godot. Invoking the play (which I sent you a while ago, remember?) is not inappropriate. The Tartar Steppe and Waiting for Godot were written within ten years of each other, the novel in the late 1930s, the play in the late 1940s, and they speak of the same concern. But in the ten years between their respective compositions, the century shifted from the modern to the post-modern, from the acting to the waiting, from the hoping to the dreading, and this shift is reflected in the two works. The Tartar Steppe lies at the end of a traditional aesthetic sensibility that had run its course. Godot is the irreverent next step, steeped in caustic humour and bleakness and far more self-conscious.

The Tartar Steppe is a sober and luminous work. The luminosity is literal: the fort is set amidst high mountains and is bathed in pure light and thin air. But the story also achieves a philosophical brightness as it follows one man’s endless waiting in a setting that is stripped of all excessive adornments — it’s a military fort, after all. If you want a sense of the feel of the work, imagine a room in a modern art museum that is large and flooded with natural light and that features a single, large painting, a Rothko. You see what I mean? The novel is bleak, but beautifully bleak. I’ve often thought of Dino Buzzati as a cheerier, warmer Franz Kafka.

See what you think. Explore Fort Bastiani with Giovanni Drogo. Fall into the routine of a military life. Try to make the grade. Most importantly: keep your eyes open for the enemy!

Yours truly,

Yann Martel

P.S.: I forgot to mention: The Tartar Steppe was one of the favourite novels of François Mitterrand. What a splendid blurb that would be, from the President of France.

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Log in to Goodreads to sign up for our free Tartar Steppe give-away, or the buy the book directly from the Godine website!

Brown by Beckett? Bowler!

What on earth could this alarming book cover, its red lettering dripping with blood, have to do with the erudite calm of Superior Person’s Tuesday?

Peter Bowler’s lexicographical readers will be shocked to hear that the maestro of anfractuous lexiphanicism has now written a novel in which murders are committed and a legendary lost object is pursued. Shades of The Da Vinci Code, you ask? We asked Peter to explain.

“I set out to write a Da Vinci Code as if written by Samuel Beckett”, he says, “but The De Reszke Record rapidly degenerated into a kind of Peter De Vries romp. Its hero is an escaped asylum inmate with a history of extreme pedantry. His interior monologues, of which there are many, are larded with literary allusions, Latin quotations and other recondite nonsense. I chose for my subject matter something that is dear to my heart — the wonder and romance of old 78rpm records, of the great singers who were the darlings of Victorian era opera houses but who survived long enough for their voices to be heard today, rising miraculously from the grooves of battered old shellac discs.

My email address is pbowler@nnsw.quik.com.au. I love to hear from readers and if asked to expand on the above will gladly do so, probably at stupefying length. You have been warned.

Door to the River Review

David Godine, a Boston publisher known, especially, for the production quality of his books, is brave to send this volume [Door to the River] out into the marketplace. It is a valuable record of a now vanished time when it was exciting and even rewarding to be a writer, to be, at least, a minor public figure, who could read his (and it was almost exclusively men who populated this rarified world) poems to an appreciative audience at Cafe le Metro off St. Mark’s Place in Manhattan.

The public cultural mix is lonelier, emptier, thinner and far less interesting now as we hunch up behind our glowing computer screens.

— from Daphne Abeel's review of Door to the River in The Armenian Mirror-Spectator

Richard Hannay & Everybody: The 39 Steps

‘Alfred Hitchcock’s film version of John Buchan’s novel The 39 Steps has a structure that seems odder in execution than it sounds in description: Essentially, protagonist Robert Donat [playing Richard Hannay] winds up on the run from people who want to kill him, but he keeps running into beautiful women who fall for him. Sounds like a pretty standard actioner, but it’s so episodic in execution, and so focused on characterizing minor characters until they seem more significant than they are, that it feels more like he’s working his way through a series of abortive love stories than fleeing for his life. The action starts when he meets spy Lucie Mannheim at a stage show when someone seemingly tries to kill her; the two of them chat, hit it off, and seem destined for romance. Then she fails to live up to the “death-defying” part of the death-defying meet-cute: The assassins get to her, and she only barely manages to pass some key intel to Donat before dying. Now on the run, he has a similarly colorful encounter with Madeleine Carroll; fleeing assassins who catch up with him on a train, he bursts into her car and kisses her, pretending to be her lover in order to throw his pursuers off-track. Unlike most women faced with this hoary old cinematic excuse for instant passion, she rebels and rats him out, forcing him to jump off the train. Later still, he encounters weatherbeaten farmer and his younger, prettier wife Peggy Ashcroft, who prevails upon her husband to help Donat; so much electricity sparks between Ashcroft and Donat that it briefly seems like Mannheim was just an inciting incident and Carroll was a one-shot gag, and the romance will actually be between this rakish would-be spy and the woman he sweeps away from her life of drudgery. But no, it’s all another Hitchcockian fake-out, and before long, Donat is back with Carroll, handcuffed to her by people who want to kill them both. Three women, and four cute, gimmicky meet-ups, all in one movie: What could top that?’

from the A.V. Club,  “Love saves the day: 18 death-defying meet-cutes” 
 

Lark Rise: THE BAND

Who knew about this and why didn't you tell us?

There is a band in the U.K. headed up by folk artist Ashley Hutchings called The Lark Rise Band. They play classic British folk songs as well as music inspired by, as well as featured in, the BBC miniseries (which is now airing in the United States on PBS). Enjoy!

“I Have a Bonnet”

An E-Reader Opinion

Over at his excellent blog, Conversational Reading, Scott Esposito writes about his first experience with Amazon's Kindle: "I recently read my first complete electronic book on an e-reader. (The reader was Amazon’s Kindle, which I did not purchase and nor do I own, though I do have regular access to.) The book was Cesar Aira’s The Literary Conference, and to make the experience a little more complex, it was a book that I was reading for a review. I found the e-reading experience to be genuinely immersive, at least as immersive as I’ve experienced with similarly compelling printed books. (And I would imagine that The Literary Conference is hugely compelling in any format). I didn’t feel any temptation to leave the text and play around with the digital ephemera I added to the Kindle (more on that in a bit). And, in fact, after a very short period of being entirely cognizant of the fact I was reading electronically, I reached the point at which I felt that I’d completely forgotten that I was e-reading: in other words, the mental sensation was entirely akin to what I experience when reading a real book."

There are a huge number of conflicting opinions out there in regards to the experience of an e-reader. Some readers — particularly scholars, critics, and reviewers — swear by the printed book, as most of the panelists from the NBCC did at BEA last week. Books are certainly more durable than any digital format: new versions of programs nullify older file-types, but once a book is printed it should (if it was worth printing at all) last forever. Scott qualified his opinion in "the matter of skimming and reading and flipping back through the book for review," where he found, "printed books unambiguously superior. The PDF format offers a search feature, which is nice if you’re looking for the first appearance of a name or something along those lines, but attempting to skim back through a PDF on a Kindle is quite clearly inferior to flipping through an actual book." Perhaps it's a bit like the wheel? Improvements and advancements sure; but never re-invention.

We would love to hear your thoughts!

A Peculiar Composition

In a fine review of J.M.G. Le Clézio's novel The Prospector at Words Without Borders, Geoff Wisner offers what is perhaps the strangest description of the book to date: it is “as if The Adventures of Tom Sawyer were rewritten by Proust.” I love it: riverboats and ladyfingers. We may have to put this on the next softcover reprint.

The Fragrant Garden: Part II

by Kim Smith
Click here for Part One

Located on the southeast side of our home is the primary pathway, which we walk up and down many times in the course of the day. We built the path using bricks from a pile of discarded chimney bricks. Ordinarily I wouldn't recommend chimney bricks, since they are fired differently from paving bricks and are less sturdy as a result. We laid the brick in a herring bone pattern and luckily they have held without cracking and splitting. Their warm red tones complement the creamy yellow clapboards of the house. A tightly woven brick path is a practical choice for a primary path as it helps keep mud out of the home.

Planted alongside the house walls and on the opposing side of the path, in close proximity to our neighbor’s fence, are the larger plantings of Magnolia virginianna, ‘Dragon Lady hollies,’ Syringa, Philadelphus, and semi-dwarf fruiting trees, Prunus and Malus. Weaving through the background tapestry of foliage and flowers are fragrant flowering vines and rambling roses. These include the most richly scented cultivars of honeysuckle and Bourbon roses. Viburnum carlcephalum, butterfly bushes, meadowsweet, New Jersey tea, and Paeonia rockii comprise a collection of mid-size shrubs. They, along with perennials, bulbs, and annuals — narcissus, tulips, iris, herbaceous peonies, lavender, Russian sage, lilies, and chrysanthemums — are perfect examples of fragrant plants growing at mid-level. Closer to the ground is a carpet of scented herbs, full and abundant and spilling onto the brick walkway. The length of our pathway is lined with aromatic alpine strawberries, thyme, and sweet alyssum. This most sunny area in our garden permits us to grow a variety of kitchen herbs. The foliage of the herbs releases their scents when brushed against. Including herbs in the flower borders provides an attractive and practical addition to the fragrant garden.

The fragrances are held within by the house and neighboring fence and the living perfumes of flowers and foliage are noticeable throughout the growing season. All the plants are immediately available to see, touch, and smell. The intimate aspects of the garden are revealed by the close proximity of plantings along a much-used garden path.

When selecting plants for a fragrant garden, it is not wise to assume that just because your Mom had sublimely scented peonies growing in her garden, all peonies will be as such. This simply is not the case. Take the time to investigate nurseries and arboretums during plants’ blooming period and read as much literature as possible. There is an abundance of information to be gleaned and sifted through to find the most richly scented version of a plant. When seeking a fragrant cultivar, one may find that it is usually an older variety, one that has not had scent replaced for an improbable color, convenient size, or double blossoms by a well-meaning hybridizer. And despite our best effort to find the most richly scented version, there will be disappointments along the way, as fragrance is highly mutable. Soil conditions and climate play their role, and some plants simply don’t perform as advertised.

A well-thought-out pathway looks inviting when seen from the street and the fragrance beckons the visitor to enter. The interwoven scents emanating from an array of sequentially blooming flowers and aromatic foliage create a welcoming atmosphere. Have you noticed your garden is more fragrant after a warm summer shower or on a day when the morning fog has lifted? Scented flowers are sweetest when the air is temperate and full of moisture. Plant your garden of fragrance to reflect the time of year when you will most often be in the garden to enjoy your hard work.

There are few modern gardens planted purely for fragrance. Maybe this is because there is now a tremendous variety of appealing plant material, offered by growers to eager gardeners ready to purchase what is visually enticing, by color and by size. Perhaps it is so because in the past fragrant plantings served the function of disguising unpleasant odors from outhouses and farmyards, and we no longer have to address these concerns. But the pendulum has begun to swing (albeit slowly) toward planting a garden designed for fragrance. Scent, along with rhythm, scale, harmony in color, and form, should ideally be an equal component in garden design. Plant scented flowering shrubs under windows and close to and around the porch. Plant fragrant vines to climb up the walls near window sashes that will be open in the summertime. Plant scented white flowering plants near to where you might brush against them while dining al fresco or to embower a favorite garden spot designed for rest and rejuvenation.

“True vespertine flowers are those that withhold their sweetness from day and give it freely at night.” (Louise Beebe Wilder). Imagine the dreamlike enchantment of the fragrant path through the night garden. The vibrantly colored flowers have vanished. All that you will see are the white and palest shades of pink, yellow, and lavender flowers reflecting the moonlight. Perhaps you will have the breathtaking experience of an encounter with a Lunar moth. Syringa vulgaris ‘Beauty of Moscow,’ Madonna lily, Philadelphus, Japanese honeysuckle, Lilium regale, Nicotianna alata, Oriental lily, tuberose, night phlox, peacock orchid, Stephanotis floribunda, gardenia, Jasminum sambac, Angel’s trumpet, and moonflowers are but a few of the white flowers with exotic night-scents for an entrancing sleeping garden.

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
— John Keats (1795 – 1821)

Father's Day Recommendations

You can feel it in the air, sure as longer days and the smell of barbecue: Father's Day is fast approaching. Avail yourself of questionable ties, a forth set of cuff links (does he even own a French-cuff shirt?), and misguided golfing accessories (it's an A.M. radio and a beer cozy golf bag clip-on!) — or, give dad something he might enjoy this year. Like an excuse to sit down, with a book. We recommend:

Arctic Circle
A memoir of travel and the natural world, author Robert Reid finally fulfills his life-long desire to visit the Arctic circle in his sixth decade. Donna Seaman at Booklist writes, “Because of heart-rending losses and tribulations, it took Reid many years to reach Alaska, and he now chronicles his bittersweet journeys in a meditative, affecting, and funny tale of adventure and revelation. . . Spectacular descriptions, charming wit, and forthright reflections on what makes a place sacred become striking testimony to the importance of the Arctic wild and the need to preserve it.”

The Likes of Us
This book collects work from Walker Evans in Louisiana and Alabama, Ben Shahn in West Virginia, Dorothea Lange in California, and others, and unites their photography with shooting scripts, letters, and other archival documents from that great New Deal program, the Farm Security Administration. What emerges, beyond the images themselves, is a complex and vital overview of the FSA at work; not just the work, but how the work evolved and matured. These photographs also present a reminder of the hardships our nation has faced before, and will overcome again. Fittingly, the book concludes with photographs of New Orleans, the only city photographed in depth by these FSA artists.

Save the World: Use Garamond

As publishers of a new nature memoir, Arctic Circle, we would be amiss not to point out this tidbit of typographic conservation: the folks at Go to Public School have discovered that Garamond uses the least amount of ink out of several popular faces. I wonder if this holds true for the rest of the Garamond revival types, such as Sabon and Granjon? Perhaps not — they all seem relatively meaty compared to Slimbach's slim sorts.

Superior Person's Tuesday

Gynecocracy, n. Government by a woman or by women; the supremacy of the female. Well, if there’s a word for it, it must exist, mustn’t it? The ontological argument for the supremacy of women. I’m a believer.





Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Gynecocracy appears in the third.

BEA: Thank You!

We just wanted to thank everyone who stopped by our booth at the busy intersection between University of Nebraska and Hachette to say hello, wish us congratulations on forty years of publishing, and take a look at our new and forthcoming titles. It seemed like every line for every signing ended up snaking past our booth somehow, which meant we also gave away tons of galleys, catalogs, bookmarks, and posters. It was great to see so many familiar faces: some we see every year without fail, some who were unexpected happy surprises. As we are sure you all know, making this trip every year as a small company with a very small staff is a major operation. But, every year, you make the show worthwhile.

Superior Person's Tuesday

Flapdoodle n. Poppycock, balderdash. Three magnificent words of identical signification, i.e., rubbish, nonsense, empty and meaningless talk. The author much prefers the first, partly because it is the most ludicrous in sound, and partly because of its potential use in alliance with fopdoodle (q.v.).

Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Flapdoodle appears in the first.

Book Expo America 2010

The Godine crew are headed to New York this week for Book Expo America! It's been mayhem in the office getting prepared but everything is packed and loaded now, the drive-down playlist has been selected, and we are ready to roll. Track one: Elvis Costello, “Every Day I Write the Book;” track two: The Beatles, “Paperback Writer;” track three, Modest Mouse, “Bukowski;” track four: Bright Eyes, “Perfect Sonnet.” We're open to adding more book & writer–related songs if you've got suggestions!

If you're at the show, stop by our digs — Booth 3734 — to sign the 40th Anniversary guest book, grab yourself some bookmarks, posters, and other special BEA giveaways, and, of course, check out our new titles. Will we live-Tweet the show? You'll just have to wait and see. If we meet Barbara Streisand, you will definitely hear about it.

Book Lists

by Kit Bakke

My husband Peter likes both Nick Hornby and Sarah Vowell, so I thought I’d hit pay dirt when I bought him a Nick Hornby book that has a Sarah Vowell introduction. As it turned out, he found the book a bit repetitive and quit about half way through, so I gave it a try.

I can see Peter’s point, but I still love the concept. Shakespeare Wrote for Money is a compilation of Hornby’s columns for The Believer in 2007 and 2008, in which he listed the books he’d bought the previous month, and commented on the books he’d read that same month. A bonus treat for me, since I’m working on writing one, were the couple of months Hornby spent discovering, reading, and greatly enjoying young adult novels. Hornby’s lists of books bought and books read always overlapped, but were never identical. Book-choosing is such a personal pleasure; it was fun to imagine Hornby picking which books to read, and which to postpone until later, and how those choices might have been similar or different from mine.

So I thought I’d list the books I’ve bought recently, and the ones I’ve read in the last month or so.

Books bought: Book Thief by Markus Zuzak; Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel; Brooklyn by Colm Toibin; Music by Nicholas Cook; To Music by Ketis Bjornstad; The English Novel by Walter Allen; Community and Commitment by Rosabeth Moss Kanter; Angel in the Forest by Marguerite Young; Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See; and, Utopia by Thomas More.

Books read: Community and Commitment; Brooklyn; most of Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee; a 1940s British murder mystery which I’ve already forgotten both author and title that I borrowed from a friend for a trip; Walden Two by B.F. Skinner; Utopia by Thomas More; and, The Paris Review Interviews with Women Writers, edited by George Plimpton.

Perhaps a theme emerges. A theme of confusion perhaps. Sherlock Holmes might notice that: 1. I don’t read much from the New York Times Bestseller lists; 2. I read fiction and nonfiction; 3. I seem to have a thing for women writers, maybe; and 4.What’s all this about utopias and music? Perhaps in the comments section we can explore this further.

The books we read are dependent on the sources we tap for book recommendations — friends, bookstore employees, printed reviews, the internet, covers that jump out at us while browsing, authors whose names we recognize as having enjoyed before. I enjoy combing bibliographies and references from books I’m already reading — like a frog leaping from lily pad to lily pad, I can go from book to book without ever leaving a book. On the other hand, I’m one of those people who’ve never joined a book club because I don’t want other people to tell me what to read, and yet, of course I take other people’s suggestions all the time. Recently, I’ve been pelted with more than the usual number of “you must read this!” comments (including from Walter, my hair guy) for The Help by Kathyrn Stockett. Friends who know you well enough to recommend books that you would have chosen for yourself are a treasure.

We read for differing reasons — to escape, to relax, to learn, to prepare, to keep up — and there are books to meet all those needs. Even the act of reading has meaning, regardless of content. At a recent Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference, I heard a literary agent say that books are among the few places children can go nowadays to engage their minds in privacy and imagination.

I couldn’t agree more. And that goes double for adults.

In Bloom: Tulipmania

The bridal season at Willowdale Estate has begun and the grounds are topfull of tulips and sweetly scented jonquils. While photographing with eyes and nose at blossom height, I am intoxicated by the the heady perfume emanating from the narcissus and the splendorous hues and broken patterns of the shimmering satin tulip petals — and dreaming about making cocktail dresses in every colorway! Lenna (from Willowdale) and I are creating a book of my garden photographs for the brides, and because all the flowers and butterflies are so gorgeous, it is a challenge to decide what photos to include here. I'll post regular updates on what is currently in bloom at Willowdale, and plan to provide weekly notes and photographs. The following are a few potential candidate photographs to add to the spring section of our photo book!

Eula Bliss shows Blue some love

At The National Book Critics Circle blog, essayist Eula Bliss writes about William H. Gass’ brilliant philosophical inquiry, On Being Blue: “If it were possible to produce a high definition video of what goes on between a great writer and his words, it might look like this — exhibitionist, virtuosic, and true. A bad breath of misogyny kills the thrill every now and again, but the thrust of the argument still feels right. George Orwell (in “Politics and the English Language”) and David Foster Wallace (in “Authority and American Usage”) ask critics (particularly scholars and academics) not to abuse the language, but Gass, through his own fondling, invites us to show it some love.”

Superior Person’s Tuesday

Encephalalgia n. Headache. But “encephalalgia” will look better on a sick-leave application, won’t it?



Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Encephalalgia appears in the second.

The Fragrant Path, Part One

by Kim Smith

A garden, a small garden especially, is made more intimate when planted with an abundance of fragrant blooms and foliage. The air impregnated with the scents of flowers and foliage imbues a memorable atmosphere in the garden, playing the subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, role of strengthening the ambiance we wish to create. Fragrance, elusive, emotionally colored, and so entirely related to experience, welcomes us as we walk through the pathways of our garden.

The idea of creating a fragrant garden is deeply rooted in ancient history. One of the earliest aromatic gardens was the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, built in the 6th century B.C. by King Nebuchadnezzar for his wife Amytes, daughter of the King of the Medes. The Greeks described these resplendent gardens, supported by stone columns with irrigated terraces. The most potently fragrant plants were grown here, and the terraces, which bloomed with lilies and roses, were favored by Queen Amytes for her walks.

The countries of the Middle East abound with an array of scented trees and plants. From historical records dating back to 2500 b.c. we know that the enclosed courtyards of the Persian palaces were planted with jasmine, fruit trees (especially oranges), hyacinth, myrtle, and jonquils. But above all other flowering plants, the rose was held in the highest esteem. The Damask rose grew in nearly every garden in Syria. The country takes its name from the word Suri (a delicate rose), hence Suristan (the land of roses).

From tomb paintings and bas-reliefs we learn of gardens and the use of plants in ancient Egypt. The verdant, fertile flood plain created by the annual rise and fall of the Nile, coupled with the Egyptians’ skill in engineering and irrigation, allowed a wealth of indigenous and imported fruiting trees, vines, and flora to grow in abundance. One of the earliest botanic collections was that of plants and seeds brought back from Syria in approximately 1450 B.C. The images of the plants were carved on the walls of the temple of Thothmes II in Karnak. The Egyptian Papyrus Ebers (written about 1552 B.C.) describes scented plants and remedies and their methods of use. The gardens, enclosed by mud walls, were planted with aromatics and medicinal herbs. Some of the plants described include frankincense, myrrh, saffron crocus, Madonna lily (Lilium candidum), cinnamon, and orchards of pomegranates. The Egyptians were among the earliest peoples to show an appreciation for perfume. Incense and perfume were used extensively for religious and funeral rites. Fragrant oils were used to massage their bodies and concoctions of scented herbs were taken to sweeten the breath. Priests performed the daily ritual of burning fragrant woods as offerings to the gods. The wood was burnt on alters in the temples. The word “perfume,” from the Latin per, “through,” and fumun “smoke,” shows that the origin of the word lay in the burning of incense, both to ‘offer up’ the gratitude of the people to the gods for favors received, and to ask for their blessings in time of trouble. The Egyptians believed their prayers would reach the gods more quickly when wafted by the blue smoke that slowly ascended to heaven.

The Egyptians’ reverence for nature is noteworthy in their use of floral motifs in decorative ornamentation. The lotus and papyrus were by far the most prevalent, together with the daisy, palm, convolvulus, and grape vine. The ‘Blue Lotus of the Nile’ (Nymphaea stellata coerulea), a member of the water lily family, is the lotus flower depicted in ancient Egyptian decorative ornamentation. The fragrance emanating from the lotus creates an intoxicating atmosphere; they have a scent similar to hyacinths. The flowers are star-shaped and sky-blue with brilliant golden centers and stand several inches above the water. The lotus had an inexhaustible symbolism in ancient Egypt, Daoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism alike.

The lotus is significant as it was the symbol of Upper Egypt. When used in ornamentation with the papyrus it symbolized the union of Upper and Lower Egypt, whose symbol was the papyrus. A well-known example of this is the soaring twin pillars that tower over the ruins at Karnak. One capital is decorated with the lotus and the other with papyrus.

The ‘Blue Lotus of the Nile’ had a deeper religious significance. Because the lotus blooms each day, withdraws under the water at sunset, and reemerges the following morning, it was closely linked to the daily rhythm of the rising and setting of the sun and thus to the story of the sun god, creation, and rebirth. The blue petals represented the sky and the golden center the emerging sun. The lotus motif was used to decorate pottery, jewelry, clothing, and appears extensively in the decoration of the capitals of pillars and columns. A wide variety of designs using the lotus flower were employed, in repeating border patterns and in alternating patterns with lotus buds or bunches of grapes. The buds fit harmoniously into the curves between the flowers. During the reign of Akhenaten (New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty) the lotus designs become less stylized and more freely expressed.

When thinking about the history of garden design in the context of our own gardens, we are free to determine our own personal preferences while drawing inspiration from what has come before. By following one’s intuitive powers and adhering to nature’s contours specific to an existing site, the inherent beauty of the garden can be realized. In describing our fragrant path, rather than draw for you a picture of what to grow precisely, as each individual garden setting is unique, the following are suggestions of plants for a well-orchestrated sequence of fragrant flowering plants. The underlying framework would ideally be composed of as many fragrant flowering and fruiting trees and shrubs as are reasonable, including an abundance of aromatic and healthful herbs. And the garden overflowing with scented blossoms provides you with armfuls of flowers to cut and bring indoors to scent the rooms of your home.

The Fragrant Path, Part Two, to follow next week! A note about ‘Geranium’: Sweetly scented, ‘Geranium’ narcissus reliably returns year after year. For a list of fabulously fragrant jonquils and narcissus see pages 178-179 in Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities!

Superior Person's Tuesday

Deipnosophist n. A wise conversationalist at the dinner table. Unfortunately, the two elements of the definition rarely go together. The author, for example, claims to meet one of the two criteria (he refuses to say which) but not the other. 

Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Deipnosophist appears in the third.