Valerie's review
The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World
by Michael Pollan
Valerie's review
The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan
Valerie's review
rating:
bookshelves:
greek-ecstatic
the premise--"a plant's eye view of the world"—could sound like a gimmick. he asks, Why would plants go to this trouble? Why would they evolve to affect humans in the specific ways that they have? Why would an apple be sweet? And be able to be pressed into cider to get us drunk? What needs of ours did the tulip evolve to gratify?
If I'd thought about it at all before, I think I'd subconsciously assumed that this stuff is incidental, that the plant is unaware of people, that it evolved sweetness to attract animals to disseminate its seeds, but of course it didn't mean us. If we found a way to get drunk off of it, that was us being clever, but not the plant. But actually no, Pollen says, the answer is somewhere in the middle. And the marijuana plant is a freakin' genius.
What follows is a treatise--in a quirky, discursive way--on our relationship to our ecosystem, (only one of our biggest issues at the moment). The original perspective shift is the first of many that...more
If I'd thought about it at all before, I think I'd subconsciously assumed that this stuff is incidental, that the plant is unaware of people, that it evolved sweetness to attract animals to disseminate its seeds, but of course it didn't mean us. If we found a way to get drunk off of it, that was us being clever, but not the plant. But actually no, Pollen says, the answer is somewhere in the middle. And the marijuana plant is a freakin' genius.
What follows is a treatise--in a quirky, discursive way--on our relationship to our ecosystem, (only one of our biggest issues at the moment). The original perspective shift is the first of many that...more
