Le Jardin des Dieux: Une histoire de plantes à travers la mythologie

by Laure de Chantal, Alain Baraton (editor)

Les plantes et leurs noms nous cachent bien des histoires fabuleuses... Partez pour un voyage trépidant et fabuleux dans le jardin des dieux et des déesses de la mythologie grecque et romaine ! Le centaure Chiron, éducateur de nombreux héros, sauve ces derniers grâce au bleuet qui guérit de tout, ou presque. Aphrodite cache son amant Adonis dans les feuilles de laitue après leurs ébats amoureux, afin de le cacher de la vue de ses prétendant(e)s. Après avoir répandu les pires rumeurs sur Hadès, Minthé, son ancienne maîtresse, se voit transformée par Perséphone en plante velue, puis piétinée, embaumant les Enfers d'un parfum mentholé. Plantes infernales, adultères divins, amours malheureuses, plantes monstrueuses, transformations... ces récits mythiques autour de 80 plantes nous révèlent le sens de leur étymologie et bien souvent leur utilisation ancestrale. De très belles illustrations accompagnent à merveille ces notices mythologiques.

224 pages, Hardcover

Published October 30, 2024

Reviews

[Arayr · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Garden of the Gods" is a very interesting book for all mythology and/or botany enthusiasts; it combines myths with the nature that surrounds us, which gave me a new look at the plants in my garden or those mentioned in the novels that I read about Greek mythology. Laure de Chantal lists a large number of myths in her book, which are presented in the form of a summary tale, which makes it possible to read several pages quickly. It is a very rich book, which can be read in one go, but you have to take care to reread it to record the information, as it is so dense! However, I would have appreciated more detail in the stories, on the one hand to be more immersed in them; on the other hand, because it sometimes gave me the feeling of having only an overview and of missing something.
I also regret that there is little information on the heroes and gods presented (there is an index of figures at the end of the book, which I hadn't noticed until I read the acknowledgements. It's a shame not to mention it earlier...). Given that this is a documented book, I might have preferred that the presentation of the plants and the associated myth had been done chronologically; this sometimes made my temporal understanding difficult (especially when a nymph changes into a plant and is quoted afterwards in her human form). There were times when I did not understand the link between the plant presented and the myth attached to it, such as the sea onion.
However, despite these few remarks, this is a magnificent book with superb illustrations, which undeniably make it a beautiful collection of information that is a pleasure to read; combining the useful with the beautiful, I was able to deepen my mythological knowledge, but I was also able to review the way in which certain plants were cited and used in my novels (e.g.: moly, yarrow, fig, amaryllis, almond tree, laurel, etc.) which really take on their full meaning once you know their origin.