- Hardcover: 208 pages
- Publisher: Continuum (May 1 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0826474616
- ISBN-13: 978-0826474612
- Product Dimensions: 18.2 x 12.4 x 2.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 340 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,754,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
'Karel Capek's distillation of the agony and the ecstasy that runs through every gardener's year has been beautifully translated by Geoffrey Newsome.' John Patten, Country Life, August 2003
Review in Hortus, No. 67, Autumn 2003
'Capek is observant about nature and perceptive about people. Universal truths hover behind the gentle self-mockery. Labour, patience, humility and hope are really the themes of this beguiling writer. How lovely to meet him the pages of such a charming little book' ~ The Spectator, 2003
(Spectator, The )'Capek's The Gardener's Year is a celebration of the virtues of being close to the soil...The Gardener's Year...is perfect vacation reading for the gardener and nongardener...It's sunny with a hint of a breeze and just a small cloud the size of a man's hand.' ~ Barbara Day, The Prague Post, 06/08/2006
'...The Gardener's Year, excellently translated by Geoffrey Newsome, is a work of great charm and considerable subtlety...' ~ Miranda Seymour, The Literary Review, September 2003
(Miranda Seymour Literary Review )'...The Gardener's Year, excellently translated by Geoffrey Newsome, is a work of great charm and considerable subtlety...' ~ Miranda Seymour, The Literary Review, September 2003
(, Literary Review )
Book Description
It is seldom that a practical guide to gardening attains the level of a literary masterpiece, still more seldom that a book on gardening can amuse and instruct even those who have no garden to plant., nor the faintest interest in acquiring one. The Gardener’s Year is a charismatic product of Karel Capek’s genius: amusing, informative, and full of a quizzical interest in people, animals and plants. In this new version, Geoffrey Newsome –the highly acclaimed translator of Capek’s witty Letters from England –has captured the grace and irony of the original Czech, to produce a volume that will be treasured equally by those who love gardening as a relaxation, by those who loathe it as a chore, and by those who have no interest in it whatsoever.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Eternal spring....,
By
This review is from: The Gardener's Year (Paperback)
I don't know much about Czech literature, so I don't know if the Prague Spring had anything to do with the writing of Karel Capek, but I would not be surprised to discover a connection. "Leaves wither because spring is already beginning, because new buds are being made, as tiny percussion caps out of which the spring will crack....if we could only see that secret swarming of the future within us, we should say that our melancholy and distrust is silly and absurd and that the best thing of all is to be..living.."Karel Capek wrote those words in 1929 when he was 39 years old. By 1938, the year the Nazis invaded Prague, he was dead. His brother Josef died a few years later in Bergan-Belsen. But this book is not about those sad events. This book is about a year in the life of a good gardener, how ever extraordinary a writer he might have been. During his lifetime, Capek realized that humans were becoming enslaved by fascism and run-amuck technology. The ancient and cyclical daily practices of humans were dying before his eyes --the beet farmers stacking their fall harvests at the railroad stations; the wagon loads of manure that could be delivered for garden beds; the nursury men who understood plants giving way to "market garden centers" staffed by those who regularly misidentify plants and stocked with items that "move" (produce a high volume of sales). THE GARDENER'S YEAR is a reflective book. You don't have to garden to appreciate it, but if you garden, you will probably laugh on more than one occasion. Where is the gardener who has not struggled with a hose; Who has not looked with greed on a bald spot and attempted to squeeze six more phlox plants in, only to discover a dormant sping plant; And, where is the gardener who has not wandered about the yard with a plant in each hand trying to find just one more place for a perennial. Capek understood the gardener's soul. We are a greedy lot, obsessed with dirt, happy in a wagon load of s___, and hostile to many-legged life forms, but, we are also the best sort of human beings who understand the meaning and importance of life. Capek's writing reminds me of that of Henry Mitchell who wrote two columns (one on gardening the other on "everyday" philosophy) for the Washington Post. Like Mitchell Capek had the gift of converting his own gardening experiences into tales that inform, enlighten, and illustrate the best and the worst of human nature. "I tell you there is no death, not even sleep. We only pass from one season to another. We must be patient with life, for it is eternal."
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazon's Review is Totally Off Base.,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Gardener's Year (Paperback)
There is humor and self-deprecation in The Gardener's Year...This is a book that will appeal to the gardener, the philospher, and the Zen deotee, the reader of self-help books, as well as the humorist. Here are quotes: "After his death, the gardener does not become a butterfly but ... a garden worm tasting all the dark, nitrogenous and spicey delights of the soil." "I find a real gardener is not a man who cultivates flowers; he is a man who cultivates the soil". "The life of a gardener is active and full of will." There are easy references to German philosophers, campanula alpina, Tolstoy, the perfume of manure. All this is presented with humor but there are no fools in this book. It could easily be subtitled "Zen and the Pleasant Art of Gardening." It didn't change my life, but it made it better. For Godsake, by this book!
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews) 49 of 50 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Eternal spring....,
By Dianne Foster "Di" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Gardener's Year (Paperback)
I don't know much about Czech literature, so I don't know if the Prague Spring had anything to do with the writing of Karel Capek, but I would not be surprised to discover a connection. "Leaves wither because spring is already beginning, because new buds are being made, as tiny percussion caps out of which the spring will crack....if we could only see that secret swarming of the future within us, we should say that our melancholy and distrust is silly and absurd and that the best thing of all is to be..living.."Karel Capek wrote those words in 1929 when he was 39 years old. By 1938, the year the Nazis invaded Prague, he was dead. His brother Josef died a few years later in Bergan-Belsen. But this book is not about those sad events. This book is about a year in the life of a good gardener, how ever extraordinary a writer he might have been. During his lifetime, Capek realized that humans were becoming enslaved by fascism and run-amuck technology. The ancient and cyclical daily practices of humans were dying before his eyes --the beet farmers stacking their fall harvests at the railroad stations; the wagon loads of manure that could be delivered for garden beds; the nursury men who understood plants giving way to "market garden centers" staffed by those who regularly misidentify plants and stocked with items that "move" (produce a high volume of sales). THE GARDENER'S YEAR is a reflective book. You don't have to garden to appreciate it, but if you garden, you will probably laugh on more than one occasion. Where is the gardener who has not struggled with a hose; Who has not looked with greed on a bald spot and attempted to squeeze six more phlox plants in, only to discover a dormant sping plant; And, where is the gardener who has not wandered about the yard with a plant in each hand trying to find just one more place for a perennial. Capek understood the gardener's soul. We are a greedy lot, obsessed with dirt, happy in a wagon load of s___, and hostile to many-legged life forms, but, we are also the best sort of human beings who understand the meaning and importance of life. Capek's writing reminds me of that of Henry Mitchell who wrote two columns (one on gardening the other on "everyday" philosophy) for the Washington Post. Like Mitchell Capek had the gift of converting his own gardening experiences into tales that inform, enlighten, and illustrate the best and the worst of human nature. "I tell you there is no death, not even sleep. We only pass from one season to another. We must be patient with life, for it is eternal." 36 of 37 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazon's Review is Totally Off Base.,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Gardener's Year (Paperback)
There is humor and self-deprecation in The Gardener's Year...This is a book that will appeal to the gardener, the philospher, and the Zen deotee, the reader of self-help books, as well as the humorist. Here are quotes: "After his death, the gardener does not become a butterfly but ... a garden worm tasting all the dark, nitrogenous and spicey delights of the soil." "I find a real gardener is not a man who cultivates flowers; he is a man who cultivates the soil". "The life of a gardener is active and full of will." There are easy references to German philosophers, campanula alpina, Tolstoy, the perfume of manure. All this is presented with humor but there are no fools in this book. It could easily be subtitled "Zen and the Pleasant Art of Gardening." It didn't change my life, but it made it better. For Godsake, by this book!
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best-ever essays on the GARDENER and Garden!,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Gardener's Year (Paperback)
I'll make this short. These essays are simply the best ever about the act of gardening and the gardeners themselves. Anyone who has ever tended a garden for any length of time will immediately relate to the situations and the people in these writings. They are humorous as well as accurate. You'll laugh at yourself and your friends through these wonderfull essays.
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