Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 199
 Good read, but not Pollan's best work.... June 5, 2010
D. Porter (UT USA)
Having read and enjoyed Pollan's more recent works, I looked forward to reading this one. While it was a worthwhile read, I did not find it as informative or enjoyable as his other books.
The book tells the story from the point of view of the garden rather than of the gardener. Pollan speaks for 4 plants (apples, tulips, cannabis, and potatoes) that have quite successfully recruited another species (us) to spread their genes across the globe. Historically informative (who knew that Johnny Appleseed was more interested in Apple Jack than Apple Pie), at times humorous (Pollan's own brief career as a cannabis grower is hilarious), and even insightful; Pollan is certainly a gifted author telling an interesting story. I believe I would have enjoyed it more had I not already read Pollan's other books.
 Plant's-Eye View June 1, 2010
M. K. Parker (Conway, Arkansas)
Histories that take us from the present state of things back to a long-forgotten (or never known) beginning, slowly unfolding each chapter of the story, captivate our imagination the same way stories about the day we were born command our interest. What, in terms of storytelling, could possibly be better than traipsing through history to uncover origins? What is more interesting than answering questions like "where did it come from," "how did we get here," "what did people once think?" What is more compelling than discovering the past?
Discovering the past from another perspective.
That is what Michael Pollan achieves in "The Botany of Desire." He crafts for us the histories of the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato as each developed a relationship with humans. Pollan tells us about the plants themselves and follows them from their early encounters with humans to the present day when humans often take them for granted. That is, Pollan tells us about a time *before* Golden Delicious apples and he tells us about the apple's journey to become what it is today. And the tulip's, and marijuana's, and the potato's. Pollan weaves these histories for us in terms of our desires and the desire each plant fulfills. Sweetness. Beauty. Intoxication. Control. When we think about our relationships with these plants (or their relationships with us) in terms of our desires, our human demands made manifest upon the world, the story becomes more than it was at first glance. Our tendency toward vanity takes us along with Pollan as he implies the enigmatic question: what is behind our desire? And, ultimately, what does it mean to be human?
And it gets better.
Pollan incorporates the myths of Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus and delves into the ancient Greek concepts of abandon, control and balance of the two. (By the way, of course, no discussion of Dionysus and Apollo is complete without extensive quotes from their no. 1 fan, Friedrich Neitzsche, which Pollan dutifully includes.) Pollan weaves the Dionysian/Apollonian thread throughout this work, and in doing so, both anchors and liberates his discussion through myth.
In the end, Pollan offers us a history of four plants in terms of human desire and myth. He gives us the facts, he gives us the history and he traces the origins. But he also weaves a mythology and hints at the mystery underlying it all. Like all long-term, intimate relationships, that of humanity and these plants is, ultimately, rife with betrayal, turmoil, passion, normalcy, love and desire. We almost certainly will never know the plants' side of the story (and it is human-centric for us to think of them in our terms). Perhaps, though, we come closest to thinking about it through Michael Pollan's "The Botany of Desire."
A Glorious Romp Through the Fields and the Orchards April 29, 2010
Melinda Lucas (Seattle)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is absolutely hands down the best piece of non-fiction I have ever read. I think I love it so much because the 4 main chapters (the apple, the tulip, cannabis and the potato) are related to the human desires for sweetness (the apple) beauty (the tulip) changing consciousness (cannabis) and control (the potato). Linking in these human desires and expressing them through plants is just an ingenious way to captivate the reader. I have read this book twice and much to my delight PBS just recently came out with a special on the book (with bonus material~~mostly conversations with Michael Pollan~~available on the PBS website) and that just enriches the whole experience even more. I got to meet Mr. Pollan at an author's event at Third Place Books and he is just an amazing speaker...funny, caring and so, so smart.
Read this book! It's Pollan's masterpiece. I have read his other books, but they are much heavier and this book is so wonderful. I can't recommend it highly enough!
Fascinating and Thought-Provoking April 19, 2010
Sara Wesolowski (Pittsburgh, PA United States)
In his usual fashion, Michael Pollan has taken a topic that many of us take for granted - in this case vegetation and it's relationship to man - and turned it on it's head. In the Botany of Desire, Pollan sets out to explain the history of plant evolution, how co-evolution works, and how the desires and needs of humans have driven plant evolution. He takes the story of four plants - apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes, four human desires - sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control, and wrote four fascinating essays filled with history, trivia, and science.
Unsurprisingly Pollan has left me with much to think about and even more to research. The story of the apple was by far my favorite - from both a historical and natural perspective. I always took the story of Johnny Appleseed to be an American myth, a tall tale. I never realized just how much of his story was based on history and I certainly didn't realize just how much the place of the apple in American culture owes to him. Nor did I know anything about how apples propogate or that they aren't even native to America, but actually spread throughout the world from forests in Khazakstan where you can find apple trees 60 feet tall and apples in any color you can imagine. The story of the tulips and the tulipomania that swept Holland was one I knew better, yet it was still quite interesting and definitely imparted some information I didn't know - particularly that while uncommon today, a virus that produced color variations in tulips is a large part of what made the tulip s desirable. The science behind the marijuana industry and how the American government's attempts to irradicate have actually pushed it evolve into something greater then it had been was all new to me and made for an interesting read. Moreso than any other section relied on science. This, combined with my complete lack of interest in drugs, made it my least favorite of the four essays, but compelling nonetheless. The final essay on potatoes was almost as interesting as that on apples. I learned so much about potatoes from their history in the Andes mountains to their place today in some of the most advanced sciences that it has really changed the way I look at this humble vegetable.
As I said above, Pollan has left me with much to think about and as usual has not dissapointed me. I'm definitely not going to be looking at any of these four plants in quite the same way as before. Pollan has a way of making one reconsider what we take for granted, whether it be our relationship to plants as in The Botany of Desire, or food as in Omnivore's Dilemma. I reccomend his books to everyone, and this book hasn't done anything to change that. While not the must-read that Omnivore's Dilemma is, The Botany of Desire is definitely a book that has something for everyone.
Starts strong, tapers off April 18, 2010
Aaron M. Slattery (Portland, OR)
An intriguing look at how humans interact with our edible environment. The first two chapters are worthwhile (especially Johnny Appleseed), but the chapter on Marijuana is much too abbreviated while the last one on potatoes has been examined by previous authors. Moreover, the authors fetishization and paragraph long metaphors are a little annoying.
Showing reviews 6-10 of 199
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