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BOOK REVIEWS--FICTION
The Sweet Breathing of Plants
ed. by Linda Hogan & Brenda Paterson
©2001 North Point Press, NY
This book is just like the You Grow Girl website. It's a delicious mix of the
informative and the poetic, the beautiful and the utilitarian. The
thirty-nine selections range from poetry by Alice Walker to a biographical
sketch of Barbara McClintock by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne. There are tributes
to medicine women, to corn, to sawgrass, and to mold. The book is subtitled
`women writing on the green world' and the selections, when they touch on
humanity at all, are definitely female-centric. Nearly all of the work was
first published elsewhere during the 1990's. While the three historical
works were obviously chosen to honor a few literary greats (Zora Neale
Hurston, Rachael Carson and Marjory Stoneman Douglas), they are not
distinguished from the contemporary selections, and, in fact, you have to go
to the rear appendix to find out when the works were published. This is a
serious flaw in the book, as many of the interesting facts contained within
Douglas' and particularly Carson's works are not the case today. A novice to
the subject may not realize that Carson's 2,4D is the since-banned DDT. A
few simple footnotes could have added a lot to these selections. Marjory
Stoneman Douglas' ode to the Everglades is made all the more poignant by the
realization that this piece was written in the 1940's and much has changed
since. The book is definitely American -- there is one British author - and
Native American women appear to be well represented within the collection.
I'm very glad I own this book. I expect I will read some of the selections
again and again and again.
-EF
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