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Norma

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Norma is currently reading

Machiavelli's Lawn: The Great Writers' Garden Companion

by Mark Crick

bookshelves: currently-reading, bedside-table

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Norma said: " This assortment of short extracts from "great writers" is a slender anthology appropriate for a book that won't keep you up until 2 in the morning reading (see my comments on Vivian Gornick's book on Emma Goldman) though the subsequent dreams might b This assortment of short extracts from "great writers" is a slender anthology appropriate for a book that won't keep you up until 2 in the morning reading (see my comments on Vivian Gornick's book on Emma Goldman) though the subsequent dreams might be bizarre. The title essay -- a somewhat doubtful attribution to the penner of The Prince -- applies Machiavelli's theories of ruling the state to the management of a lawn: "The rule in mowing is indeed little and often. The Duke of Milan, who cuts twice a week in summer when the grass is growing vigorously, by applying a moderate force frequently, finds his subjects are reassured and readily accept his rule."

Indeed, all the short pieces are not "by" the authors listed, but "with" them, seeming to have been written "a la mode de" each particular style of writing. "Propagating from a Vine" with (sic) Mary Shelley, begins "It was a stormy night in August when I put down my travelling case and stepped again into the humid gloom of the potting shed. . . .How shall I describe the wretched creeper . . . ." Maybe won't read this one before sleeping, lest I imagine a monstrous growing thing clambering over the covers.

This eccentric yet elegantly composed little book was a holiday gift from a retired bookseller of renowned wit, who years ago sent me the wondrous Exploits of Engelbrecht, the Dwarf Surrealist Boxer -- on a shelf near the door to grab in case the house catches fire, along with a rare gem by Rose Blight "a.k.a. Germaine Greer),The Revolting Garden. It was published in 1979 by Private Eye, and I bought it for two dollars from a discard cart at the Civic Garden Centre (now the Toronto Botanical Garden) when I worked there as a librarian. It's my kind of gardening book, in keeping with my anarchistic freedom of expression style of gardening, viz: "As as the Victorians well knew, some of the most repulsive gardening effects can be wrought with a minimum of effort -- indoors. If you have a house which, like most others, is unevenly heated, poorly or patchily lit, full of spent gas fumes and draughty, you can torture almost any plant into truly wonderful contortions." And thereby, the reader assumes, can keep the aspidistra flying. If you find this book in a rubbish tip somewhere, do rescue it for posterity, as it is otherwise a rare sight, and truly precious.

Machiavelli's Lawn is so delightful I feel inspired to compile my own piece of imagined yet scarcely imaginable abstrusia: "Han Shan's Haberdasher." Patent pending, and title copyright; you read about it here first. ...more "

Dec 21, 2011 10:11AM · see review

Norma rated a book it was amazing

For a Living: The Poetry of Work

by Nicholas Coles

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Norma said: " The used copy I'd ordered arrived in the morning mail -- wanted it in connection with a musing/essay I'm writing on "the work of hands the work of writing the work of making books." Hadn't a clue about the contents, now find I haven't been able to te ...more "

Dec 12, 2011 10:35AM · see review