BOOK REVIEW
Nature stirs a fertile mind
By Robert Braile, Globe Staff | March 29, 2005
Among Flowers, By Jamaica Kincaid, National Geographic
There has always been a mysterious weave of the natural and the surreal in the writing of this native of Antigua, a fascination with landscape as dreamscape, where reality lies between the known and unknown, where the only constant is contradiction.
The landscape in ''Among Flowers" is Nepal's Himalayas, a place of searing heat and bitter cold, benign children and Maoist guerrillas. Kincaid, an avid gardener as well as the author of ''At the Bottom of the River" and other works of fiction and nonfiction, hiked there recently with friends, searching for exotic flower seeds to plant in her garden.
But …show more content…
She fears landslides and leeches but marvels at white-haired monkeys, dazzling butterflies, a pure alpine lake, a vivid night sky, and 30-foot-tall rhododendrons.
Such contrasts define both the Himalayas and Kincaid. As the trek becomes harder, Kincaid writes, ''My difficulties were these: I found each plant, each new turn in the road, each new turn in the weather, from cold to hot and then back again, each new set of boulders so absorbing, so new, and the newness so absorbing, and I was so in need of an explanation for each thing, that I was often in tears, troubling myself with questions, such as what am I, and what is the thing in front of me."
There are times when the contrasts are obvious or tenuous, from distant mountains seemingly close enough to touch to a native child's T-shirt with ''Paris" written on it, referring to the city -- ''Paris" also being a local plant. Also, Kincaid's voice can be mechanical. And she can be too allegorical for her own good, assigning significance where there is none.
But such moments are rare. Reading this intriguing meditation is like gazing at the disparate stars of Kincaid's night sky itself, searching the heavens for a sense of who and what we
Nature stirs a fertile mind
By Robert Braile, Globe Staff | March 29, 2005
Among Flowers, By Jamaica Kincaid, National Geographic
There has always been a mysterious weave of the natural and the surreal in the writing of this native of Antigua, a fascination with landscape as dreamscape, where reality lies between the known and unknown, where the only constant is contradiction.
The landscape in ''Among Flowers" is Nepal's Himalayas, a place of searing heat and bitter cold, benign children and Maoist guerrillas. Kincaid, an avid gardener as well as the author of ''At the Bottom of the River" and other works of fiction and nonfiction, hiked there recently with friends, searching for exotic flower seeds to plant in her garden.
But …show more content…
She fears landslides and leeches but marvels at white-haired monkeys, dazzling butterflies, a pure alpine lake, a vivid night sky, and 30-foot-tall rhododendrons.
Such contrasts define both the Himalayas and Kincaid. As the trek becomes harder, Kincaid writes, ''My difficulties were these: I found each plant, each new turn in the road, each new turn in the weather, from cold to hot and then back again, each new set of boulders so absorbing, so new, and the newness so absorbing, and I was so in need of an explanation for each thing, that I was often in tears, troubling myself with questions, such as what am I, and what is the thing in front of me."
There are times when the contrasts are obvious or tenuous, from distant mountains seemingly close enough to touch to a native child's T-shirt with ''Paris" written on it, referring to the city -- ''Paris" also being a local plant. Also, Kincaid's voice can be mechanical. And she can be too allegorical for her own good, assigning significance where there is none.
But such moments are rare. Reading this intriguing meditation is like gazing at the disparate stars of Kincaid's night sky itself, searching the heavens for a sense of who and what we