Herra Darvinin puutarhuri

by Kristina Carlson

Finlandia-palkitun kirjailijan romaanissa usko, tiede, pyhä ja arkinen soivat moniäänisesti, satiirin säröjä kaihtamatta

Pienen kentiläisen kylän kuuluisuus on herra Darwin, jonka luona käy vieraita Lontoosta asti ja jonka kylpyhuoneessa on ihmeellinen laite, joka suihkuttaa lämmintä vettä.

Myös herra Darwinin puutarhuri Thomas Davies on kyläläisten silmissä outo lintu. Tiedetään, ettei mies usko Jumalaan, ja huhutaan, että hän aikoo tappaa itsensä. Hän jopa poltti kuolleen vaimonsa hyvän tammisängyn!

Jumalattomuuden nimi on tiede, sanovat kyläläiset. Ja kun ihminen pystyttää itselleen uusia epäjumalia, siitä seuraa rangaistus.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Finnish Literature, Novella, Novels, Historical, British Literature

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

History in books? Nonsense, even a bronze statue of a military man on a horse has more life …. Written history is past tense.

This book was published by the UK small press, Peirene Press “a boutique publishing house with a traditional commitment to first class European literature in high-quality translation”.

It was part of their turning point series from 2013: “Three internationally acclaimed female authors depict pivotal historical moments from within a domestic setting.” – the other two books being The Mussel Feast (an allegorical examination of the fall) and Chasing the King of Hearts (a remarkable, true life account of the Holocaust).

The pivotal historical moment here is the publication of Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” and the way it set up the tension between science and faith, and the vacuum the loss of certainty left behind, one of course filled in terrible ways in the 20th Century as foreshadowed in an unattributed pub conversation.

You preach science and progress, but what happens when the sacred leaves through the back door? Wordly gods come along and replace the sacred. Soon they’ll start behaving as if they were omnipotent

The book is set in the Kent village of Down – whose most famous inhabitant is Darwin, never a character in the book although his gardener, Thomas Davies (recently widowed, with two children, one physically weak, the other seemingly mentally handicapped) is a key character who stands out in the village for the strength of his grief and the weakness of his faith.

The book gets off to a false start with an opening chapter which seems to attempt to fit bird noises and village life to the rhythms of Church bells and Church liturgy. Whether this is a translation difficulty or down to the original is unclear, but it is definitely a misstep, and one which places the reader on the backfoot in the remainder of the opening in coming to terms with what is an unusual (but actually very effective style).

Large parts of the book are narrated using a polyphonic approach which flits between the different villagers (in a small number of cases speaking collectively as we) with characters starting in the named third person and then quickly moving to the first person, mainly in an unadorned style and in the present tense, for example:

Jennifer Kenny is folding clean sheets on the kitchen table, even though it is Sunday. She looks out of the window. Thomas Davies, the gardener whose wife died strides along the road. I took soup and bread to the house of mourning but he merely started darkly and grunted something

Where the I is in fact Jennifer Kenny rather than a universal (or omnipotent) narrator – although in the very last sentence of the book a narrator takes possession of the I.

Over time via this very effective mechanism, we learn more of the lives of the villagers, their thoughts and struggles and relationships and also something of the village as both a group of individuals and as a collective. One section, narrated in the past sentence, tells of an incident when the disgraced villager verger returns to the village and is beaten up by the man of the village (acting almost as a collective); another section (from which the above quotes are taken) reproduces snatches of conversation and observation from an evening in the local pub when the local reading group of women is interspersed with the male regulars; a closing section includes a small enconium to the English spring.

Threaded through the book though is a meditation on faith and science, on grief and consolation.

Late in the book, Thomas meditates of a snow scene

No traces in the garden either; no footprints left by Mr Darwin, no traces of his stick

But actually the traces and footprints of Darwin’s work are threaded throughout the book.

In complete (and presumably deliberate contrast) to the quote which opens my review – this gentle but profound book (written of course mainly in the present tense) brings history to life and completes an outstanding set of novels it published in 2013 by this excellent small press.

[Antonomasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feb 2014.

Another from Peirene Press, a Finnish novella set in the late 1870s in the Kentish village of Downe (now with a somewhat less picturesque address in the London Borough of Bromley). The title character, one among many villagers whose thoughts we hear, is Thomas Davies, Charles Darwin's gardener, recently widowed and with two disabled children. (Darwin himself is a silent yet imposing presence in the book.) The cast and their concerns are the Thomas Hardy type of everyday country folk, busy, often judgemental; one feels that people have in a way been like them for hundreds or thousands of years, yet here they are in the time of the theory of evolution, with science challenging religion more publicly than ever before. Mr Darwin's Gardener has been described as a "postmodern Victorian novel"; I'd say modernist, though there are one or two postmodern touches. The narrative flits between many minds, their daily lives and their secrets and philosophies in the manner of Woolf or Joyce, though is very easy to read. The subject matter is, I suppose, quite dark, gritty and serious but the book is instead light and airy and charming, delicate even. The first couple of chapters were less satisfying, possibly due to the translation; it would be quite a task to translate sentences that copied the cadences of bird calls or church prayers (if indeed they do so exactly in the original) whilst also retaining their different narrative meaning - but the not-quite-fitting does show.
It's interesting to see how an author from abroad views England; in social attitudes Carlson seems spot-on, done more quietly and non-judgementally than a typical UK writer. Nick Lezard in the Guardian, who's more unreservedly keen on the book than I am, says There is another aspect of Joyce that this novel shares, an aspect that some people forget: that of tender inclusivity, of sympathy and understanding. There are a few small errors of the factual type: too many Scottish and Irish names, a cow that won a prize in Cheltenham (a bit far to travel to show cattle with no motorised transport), and an unlikely goshawk, but most of the time these can be forgotten, immersed in a lovely, though not fluffy, book.

[verbava · Rating 3 out of 5]

чарльз дарвін живе в селі, і в нього є садівник, а в мешканців села – багато я-наративів.

це маленька книжечка, і сюжет у ній теж маленький, якщо взагалі вважати сюжетом ті фрагменти подій, про які читачка дізнається з монологів окремих селян (і селянок; принаймні тест бехдель текст проходить без проблем, і в ньому є цікаві вікторіанські інтелектуалки, яких життя закинуло у глибоку провінцію, але не на схилку кар'єри, як дарвіна, що було б не страшно й особистим вибором, а від початку). утім, тут справа не в сюжеті, а в настрої, а з настроєм крістіні карлсон і її перекладачкам здебільшого вдається впоратися, хоча наративна стратегія спершу спантеличує. кожен персонаж тут говорить від першої особи, фокус перемикається приблизно раз на три (короткі) абзаци, і я, щиро кажучи, не про всіх запам'ятала, хто є хто, а тим більше хто кому ким доводиться. але ритм поступово затягує, і в цій конструкції з'являється якась навіть природність.

серед найкрасивіших і найвиразніших фрагментів – зимовий вечір, коли персонажі, зокрема й ті, хто не вірить, говорять із богом, як уміють.

God, You told me You were a room I could inhabit without fear, neither cellar nor loft nor kitchen. And You did not speak to me as You spoke in the Bible or to Joan of Arc, whom all thought mad; for I am not mad. You are the place where I am at peace, and where I do not need to rush from one thing to another, nor tidy up button boxes, nor take money, nor give back change, nor talk to people. That place is like a book I want to read, somewhere I go even though I am sitting in my chair.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd little book, with a mixture of past and present tense and first-, third- and first-person plural narration. Set in the village of Downe, it’s peripherally about the title character, Charles Darwin’s gardener Thomas Davies, a new widower with two children, one of whom has Duchenne muscular dystrophy (newly identified). It’s thin on plot, it must be said. Daniel Lewis, the verger of Downe for five years, was dismissed for stealing from the church and is beaten up when he comes back to town; some characters think and talk about Darwin’s theory and Davies’s bereavement; there’s an overturned cart.

My favorite section, “At the Anchor,” is composed of conversations at the village pub, and my favorite individual lines reflect on Darwin’s influence on contemporary thought:

“Mr Darwin is a tree that spreads light, Thomas Davies thinks.”

“Great men are remembered, like Mr Darwin, a genuine monolith. We small folk are mere sand, washed by the waves as they go back and forth.”

“People in future decades and centuries will react to our ideas superciliously, as if we were children playing at thinking. We shall look most amusing in the light of new thoughts and inventions.”

Note: Peirene Press, which exclusively publishes novellas in translation, is a recent discovery for me. Their motto is “Contemporary European Literature. Thought provoking, well designed, short.” They publish the novellas in thematic trilogies, with headings such as “Male Dilemma: Quests for Intimacy” and “Small Epic: Unravelling Secrets.”

I purchased Mr. Darwin’s Gardener (translated from the Finnish) from a secondhand bookshop in Henley-on-Thames for £1. It is from the “Turning Point: Revolutionary Moments” series.


(Included in my blog post “Small Books Are Good, Too.”)

[Roger Brunyate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Book to Read Twice

I have not yet encountered a book from the Peirene Press that failed to interest me. Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman by Friedrich Christian Delius, Next World Novella by Matthias Politycki, and The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbecke, all stimulating novellas by European authors in fine translation, available on Kindle for less than the price of an art-house movie; I might almost order the entire series sight-unseen. All these have been German writers, but with Mr Darwin's Gardener I turn to a Finnish author with a book set in Victorian England. Much more unusual in construction, it is no less fascinating than the others, but it is the first I have largely failed to understand at first reading, and had to go back to read again.

The publisher's own description gives a clue:

A tale of God, grief, and talking chickens. Like Dylan Thomas in Under Milk Wood, Carlson evokes the voices of an entire village, and, through them, the spirit of the age. This is no page-turner, but a story to be inhabited, to be savoured slowly.

Forget the talking chickens; they are just a tiny element of Carlson's sound world as she evokes life in the village of Downe, Kent, in the later years of its most famous inhabitant, Charles Darwin. The comparison to Dylan Thomas is apt; we hear from the village publican, solicitor, vicar, doctor, shopkeeper, and schoolmaster, their wives and children, and from many others. But that was also my problem; they are intercut with one another and introduced with sometimes only a single name; it was only on second reading, filling in each of the thirty-some characters on a spreadsheet, that I was finally able to piece together who was related to whom, and who did what. I must also say that the Dylan Thomas comparison raised expectations that Carlson either did not intend or could not fulfill. Although structured as prose-poetry and often evocative, her lines lack Thomas' special music and his gift for giving each character a unique sound. I cannot tell if this reflects the Finnish original, or if it is a perhaps-inevitable loss in the translation by Emily and Fleur Jeremiah. But I think I might have enjoyed it more as prose.

In terms of ideas, though, it is a different matter. The book opens with almost all the village inhabitants going to church. All except Thomas Davies, Mr. Darwin's gardener. A gloomy Welshman, he is burdened with a triple onslaught of grief. His daughter Cathy is lovely but simple-minded. His six-year-old son John keeps falling down and is hopeless in schoolyard fights. And his young wife Gwyneth has recently died. The village rallies round to help him, but he cannot accept their unthinking piety. He may not fully understand the beliefs of his employer, Charles Darwin, but they have led him to ask questions, questions to which he finds no answers. Meanwhile—sometimes in a paragraph or two of narrative, sometimes in a free collage of voices—we get to know the ideas of the villagers, their various beliefs, their fears and self-delusions, and a great deal of the back stories that create little dramas within each family and jostle one against another. For example, Thomas has by no means a monopoly on grief; the Darwins have borne their own losses, and the recent death of a beautiful daughter has driven the village doctor to drink and his wife to delusions of authorship. Or there is mention of the shopkeeper's daughter who has left the village after being seduced by a handsome womanizer, who also happens to be a notorious free-thinker. This man has published a pamphlet on Darwin and his gardener, saying in part:

Mr Davies told me about his own life. His wife died at the age of thirty-two, and both his children are disabled or sick. Mr Davies opined that, according to the natural order, the likes of him should perhaps not live. His offspring are not capable of producing offspring who could survive in the cruel battle of life.

I am glad to say that the combination of this gross misunderstanding of natural selection and the gardener's Welsh pessimism does not end as bleakly as one might think. Indeed, Carlson concludes with a nine-page section that is a perfect evocation of the English spring, and the spiritual rebirth that goes with it. Here (even in translation) she finds her own lyrical voice with an assurance that need fear no comparison to Dylan Thomas or to anybody else.

[Kathleen Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved Asko Sahlberg's The Brothers, translated by Fleur and Emily Jeremiah, so I picked up this book, by another Finnish author Kristina Carlson, translated by the same team, with some anticipation. I wasn't disappointed.

It is impossible to describe this book - a novel, yes, but not in any conventional sense. Poetry in prose? Certainly that. There's a concentration on language, observation, a polyphony of voices. Kristina Carlson is also a poet, so it's no surprise to find her prose so rich and allusive.

Thomas Davies has lost his wife; he has two children with congenital defects and is an aetheist; he is Mr Darwin's gardener. The villagers watch him, as they watch each other. We move in and out of their heads, listening to their thoughts and opinions and most intimate concerns.

The doctor drinks and his wife cries. Stuart Wilkes invents impractical domestic objects. Jennifer Kenny brews herbal remedies; her niece dreams of the novel she will probably never write. Rosemary Rowe fears her violent husband. Thomas Davies ponders the meaning of life and finds consolation in the garden; 'the most beautiful thing about plants is their silence'.

A stranger arrives in the village, but then he is recognised as someone whose identity stirs the men into violent action; 'revenge brings great satisfaction'. But the body disappears, causing consternation and fear.

It is difficult for any writer to take the reader back past the two great watersheds in human psychology - Darwin and Freud. How do you get inside the minds of people who believed that the world was created, complete with all the animals, in 7 days, and were not troubled by theories of self-consciousness? Kristina Carlson, writing very simply, about the day to day concerns of the people, their hopes and private tragedies, takes us back to a Kent village in the 1870s, very successfully.

Kristina is a highly regarded author in Finland. I was lucky enough to hear her talk at one of the Peirene Press supper clubs, where she said that this novel is the one she had wanted to write since she was sixteen. It's beautifully translated. I notice a lot of 2 star and 1 star reviews because people have found it difficult. If you try to read it as a conventional novel then, yes, it will not meet your expectations. It's post-modern, experimental - a fluid, multi-layered, multi-voiced narrative that flows like music. You have to forget everything and immerse yourself in the language and the voices.

For me it is like water in the desert to find a novel that hasn't come out of the Creative Writing Factory, a novel that is about language and image, that carries ideas and stirs the imagination. We live in the characters' minds, translated through time. I read it twice and will read it again. It's the kind of book you can just dip into, like a collection of poetry.

[Roberta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Per quanto sia stata una lettura gradevole, dubito che di qui a un paio di mesi mi ricordi di questo libro.

Nel paese in cui Darwin si è ritirato, un tipico villaggio inglese, il suo giardiniere diventa una sorta di punto catalizzatore per le storie degli abitanti, e non sono storie particolarmente felici, ma nemmeno abbastanza drammatiche da elevare il paese a palcoscenico letterario.

[Elina Mäntylammi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Herra Darwinin puutarhuri kantaa suurta surua, taitaa olla täysin seonnut ja ainakin hylännyt Jumalan. Darwinin kotipaikkakunnalla kuohuu: kyläläiset juopuvat oluesta ja Jumalasta, joku on juopunut myös tieteestä. Miten tämän kaiken kanssa eletään?

Carlson kirjoittaa välillä hersyvän hauskasti, kun hän törmäyttää maailmankuvia, filosofioita ja persoonallisuuksia yhteen. Hän uudistaa proosakerrontaa hykerryttävästi ja laukoo lakonisia totuuksia pikkukylän henkilöiden nimissä. Ilman suruja ei elämästä selviä kukaan, ja jonkinlaiseen maailmanjärjestykseen jokainen yrittää elämäänsä sijoittaa.

[Ellie · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the village of Downe, a gardener is mourning the loss of his wife. It just so happens he is Charles Darwin’s gardener. Avoiding the prying minds of the rest of the village and turning his back on religion, he is considered a loner. He has questions; if he doesn’t believe in God then what should he put his faith in?

I’ve been struggling with how to word my feelings for this little book. You could open it up at any point and read something, thought-provoking, beautiful or amusing in itself. Peirene Press pride themselves on “literary cinema”; books to be devoured in the time it takes to watch a film. Yet here, the lack of a structured plot makes it a book that doesn’t suit one sitting. I generally like plots in novels, and I think if this were any longer I may have grown tired of it, but as a novella it works so well.

It’s hard to keep track of the narrator, so my advice would be not to try. It becomes a much more enjoyable read when you let go! The narration passes between the villagers and it becomes this wonderful portrait of a village in a moment of time. It’s just like sitting in the local pub and listening to different conversations, only these are the villager’s inner thoughts. Charles Darwin’s presence means that their thoughts veer towards those of religion and science. But some of them are still preoccupied by more everyday things as well as the need for gossip.

[Andrew H · Rating 4 out of 5]

An experimental and modern novella. In part it is an eclogue, a song to fertile nature. On another level, it is a work concerned with metaphysics and the conflict between religion and evolution. The novella is a swirl of voices and multiple storytellers, all focusing on the village of Downe, Kent, near to the home of Darwin. An original reading experience.

[Mikko Saari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kiehtova kirja. Darwin lymyilee taustalla, eikä se puutarhurikaan niin suuresti äänessä tai huomion suorana keskipisteenä ole. Miellyttävän vähäeleinen ja moniääninen kuvaus kylästä ja siitä, mikä saa pienen kylän kuhisemaan.

Ei sovi niille, joille on tärkeää, että kirjassa on selkeä juoni. Mutta jos haluaa kokeilla, miltä vähän tajunnanvirtaisempi ja runollisempi proosa tuntuu, Herra Darwinin puutarhuri on kyllä sopivan lyhyt makupala – vaikka teksti tuntuisi vaikealta, sitä ei ainakaan ole liikaa. Kannattaa kokeilla, kyllä tämä sen verran kiehtova juttu oli.

[Anna Ursin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sekava kuin mikäkin

[Tonymess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, today’s title, “Mr Darwin’s Gardener” by Kristina Carlson (translated by Emily Jeremiah and Fleur Jeremiah), would be the most “experimental” of the Peirene titles I have read to date. I use the word “experimental” as I have heard somebody else use it to describe this book, personally I hate that description as it can automatically alienate a number of potential readers, I would prefer to call it “less conventional”.

On the surface our story is about Thomas Davies, a man stuck down with grief over his wife’s death, he is left alone to raise two young children who are “not quite right”, and by the way he’s Charles Darwin’s gardener. Our story opens on with a section called “A Sunday In November” and although written in the first person, we see the story unfolding through various parishioners’ eyes, as they are off to church. A number of them think about godless Thomas working for a godless man (Darwin), he is shunned:

Do-gooders understand disease and even death, but not the fact that I want to be alone. Solitude is what they themselves fear most.
When I was out of my mind and the children were asleep, I wrote:
The silence of plants calms the mind. I am glad that plants do not run off like animals or fly away like birds. They stay put for hundreds of years, like oaks, or they vanish for winter and rise from the ground like the blue lily of the east, and they spread joyously like the balsam that flings its seeds far.
When Gwyn was dying, I did not think about where she was going, but about what she was leaving. She was abandoning Catherine, John, and me. She did not leave abruptly. Death held the door ajar for many months.
I wrote that a plant dies easily, and annual’s stem withers after the seeds have developed.
The villagers believe it is not worthwhile for a family such as ours to carry on living. They think that is the law of nature. In his newspaper article, Lewis put thoughts in my mouth that many find pleasing in their terribleness.
Anything goes, whether it comes from God or science or one’s own head. As long as the evidence supports a notion one believes anyway. Village theology amounts to raking with a flea comb. Inappropriate thoughts are tidied away. At the same time, the hair falls out.

Of course that was Thomas Davies’ voice, some others are harder to decipher, others very simple as they’re named, some voices go for pages, some for just a paragraph. The second section, “A stranger in August”, sees the arrival of a stranger and our various narrators hypothesise on who this stranger is, “it is because Mr Darwin lives here, and godlessness is a worse threat than in neighbouring villages”, the stranger must be here to sell Bibles, deluxe ones of course.

For my full review go to http://messybooker.blogspot.com.au/20...

[Visa Kohva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carlsonin kirja kertoo jonkin verran puutarhurista, jonkin verran jumalasta ja ateismista sekä erittäin paljon asenneympäristöstä 1870-luvun englantilaisessa pikkukylässä. Ympäristöä tutkitaan useampien silmien kautta, palaten välistä Darwinin puutarhuriin. Vaikka kirjoitustyyli ja tapahtumaympäristö olivat mielenkiintoiset, ei kirja vetänyt minua täysin mukaansa. Ehkä parisataa sivua lisää olisi syventänyt kokemusta... tai sitten ei.

Kirjan arvosteluja on mielenkiintoista lukea: vaikka rakenne ei ole loppujen lopuksi kovin rikottua, vie pienempikin poikkeus pisteiden sijoittelussa tai kappalejaoissa ison osan huomiosta lukiessa. Kuin shokkikohtaus teatterissa se varastaa huomion ja keskittää keskustelun yksityiskohdan ympärille.

[Peony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kaunista kieltä. Tätä kirjaa voisi lueskella uudelleenkin..aivan mistä kohdasta tahansa. Välillä en ihan tiennyt, mitä lauseiden pituus palveli. Luulen että se oli osasyy miksi myöskään minulla ei oikein juoni/tarinan punainen lanka pysynyt hyppysissä. Oli myös jostain syystä vaikea muistaa kaikki kyläläiset. Tämä saattaa olla kirja, joka paranee uudelleen luettaessa. Täydellinen kirja tietyssä mielentilassa! Jos taas sattuu olemaan lukuhalua selkeälle tarinalle, niin tätä kirjaa ei kannata tavata sellaiseen väliin. Kauniiden ilmausten takia tekisi mieleni antaa 4 tähteä, mutta ehkä sitten toisella lukukerralla? :)

[Merel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tavallaan tämä kirja on mielenkiintoisesti kirjoitettu ja kaunista kieltä, mutta jotenkin en päässyt ärsytykseltäni nauttimaan lukukokemuksesta.

Minua ärsytti pisteiden puuttuminen ja epämääräiset, loputtoman pitkät lauseet ja alati vaihtuvat näkökulmat. Jotenkin myös koko kirjan pointti jäi aika hämäräksi, hahmot etäisiksi ja ehdin ajoittain jopa pitkästyä, vaikka oli näin lyhyt kirja kyseessä. Runollisuus ja tunnelma lienevät tämän kirjan suurimmat meriitit, mutta hieman liian usein tuli tunne, että tämä on hiottua tekotaiteellisuutta, joka ei kosketa millään tavalla.

[Desertorum · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hyvin runomainen ja jotain kauniita kuvauksia sisältävä (monellakin taholla todettu) pieni kirja. Luulin ja toivoin tältä kirjalta jotain ihan muuta kuin sain (se on toki ihan oma vika), jotain ihanaa puutarhakuvausta ehkäpä...Kerronta jäi itselle epäselväksi ja hahmot sekoittuivat keskenään. Luin pääosin sumussa ja koin hetkittäin selkeän hetken. Liikaa sumua. Ehkäpä kokonaan runomuoto olisi toiminut paremmin? Tai ehkä tätä pitäisi jaksaa maistella pidempään, siihen ei vaan tarinan kiinnostavuus riittänyt.

[Orange Bleu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nevšedně pojaté ztvárnění odvěkého sváru víry a rozumu, střetu evolucionismu s kreacionismem, potažmo hostilního maloměstského uvažovaní bojujícího se sebemenším náznakem jinakosti. Charles Darwin jakožto postava v příběhu zcela absentující, o to více však signifikantnější. Volně plynoucí toky myšlenek & asociací, připomínajících místy až automatický text, a mnohohlasné výpovědi na pomezí básní v próze či experimentální literatury v sobě asi potenciál oslovit široké čtenářské masy přímo neponesou, v každém případě však jde o dílko originální a nadmíru zajímavé.

[Katri · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kirjan tyylillä oli paljon potentiaalia, mutta tarinan puute teki kirjasta varsin tylsistyttävän. Hahmojakin oli niin paljon, että olisi pitänyt pitää muistiinpanoja samalla kuin lukee, että muistaisi kuka on kuka. Toisaalta, eipä sillä ollut mitään merkitystä, vaikka ei ketään muistanutkaan, koska kirja oli vain elämän kuvausta ja pohdintaa. Harmillisesti pohdinta ei ollut niin hyvää, että se olisi jaksanut kannatella kirjaa.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a cornucopia of garden produce, Mr Darwin's Gardener yields an abundance of philosophical observations, as Thomas Davies, seen by the villagers as being cursed with bad luck or bad genes, contemplates life, natural tendencies and the activities of those around him. and the villagers have their own thoughts on the matter.

My complete review here at Word by Word.

[Sammalpeura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kun tottui kirjailijan tapaan kirjoittaa, aukeni uusi kaunis suomen kielen maailma. Sivuja teoksessa ei ole paljon, mutta näiden kansien väliin mahtuu suuren maailman ajatukset, murheet ja kauneus.

Että joku osaakin kirjoittaa kirjan, jossa vilisee lauseita, jotka viipyilevät muistin pinnalla kuin vesihelmet vielä kauan lukemisen jälkeen.

[Tanja · Rating 1 out of 5]

Kirjaa lukiessa kävi selväksi, miten välttämättömiä välimerkit ja perustellut kappaleenvaihdot ovat. En pystynyt lukemaan loppuun, koska tarina ei kantanut niin hyvin, että olisin unohtanut lauseopin. Pilkku ei ole tarpeeksi vahva lopettamaan lausetta, sanonpahan vain. Tai sitten en ole tarpeeksi taiteellisesti valveutunut, että ymmärtäisin kirjailijan käyttämiä epätehokeinoja.

[Pihla · Rating 1 out of 5]

Aivan käsittämättömän huono kirja. Sekavaa kirjoitusta, ei juurikaan juonta. Lauseet jatkuvat päättymättä, välimerkkejä puuttuu. Jos tämä on korkeaa kirjallisuutta, niin ei sovi minulle. Meinasin jättää kesken.

[Marina Sofia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little difficult to get into, with the shifts from third to first person, the multiple points of view. But little by little, it accumulates humour, sadness, depth, light, shadow. A book to read again.

[Elina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pääsin kirjan rytmiin kiinni vasta loppuvaiheessa. Tämä teos olisi ansainnut rauhalliset lukuhetket joissa keskittyä sanoihin, siihen kenelle ne on kirjoitettu ja tapaan jolla ne on kirjoitettu. Rauhallinen ja soljuva.

[Karen Mace · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a quirky little book that looks at the victorian age and the contrasts of opinions amongst a community on the subject of grief, religion and evolution.

It's written in a slightly strange way, that takes some getting used to, but through the variety of perspectives there's a touching and thought provoking story of a man dealing with his grief of losing his wife, leaving him with 2 disabled children, and the thoughts that run through his head as he tries - and fails! - to make sense of it all.

The majority of the community in which he lives are all very religious, so they can't understand his questions and issues with god and belief so he almost becomes the talk of the town for the wrong reasons as they sneer at him and fail to appreciate the struggles he's going through. He's angry at the world but they can't understand his pain - as you reader, you connect with him more than the other villagers! There's the contrast of seeing the world through his pain and focussing on the injustices of the world, alongside the miracles of life as the world carries on regardless of his suffering.

I did lose track a few times with the constant changing of voices, but underneath it all there are some beautiful little observations while you follow this man searching for seeds of hope while he's in a dark place - very telling with his job as a gardener which is all based on looking forward and the anticipation of each season ahead.

[Annalisa Ponti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oggi sono severa e ingiusta. E la recensione della rivista di cui mi fido gli ha dato 5 stelle. Quindi sono anche rancorosa.
Perché in realtà è bellissima l’ipotesi di trovarsi immersi nella comunità che vive intorno a Down House, dove Darwin trascorre l’ultima parte della sua vita. Che cosa possono avere avuto in testa gli uomini e le donne di quel piccolo centro costretti, anche loro malgrado, a fare i conti con l’evoluzionismo e, più in generale, del progresso tecnico e scientifico di quei decenni? Ci sono la fede e la sua assenza, la paura, l’ammirazione, la quotidianità facile e difficile, le stagioni che passano intessute in una narrazione a più prospettive che non è così importante seguire. La tesi c’è e non c’è. E c’è anche, forse il protagonista, il giardiniere di Darwin e la sua storia che è tragedia umanissima ma anche no.
Scritto bene, lungo (o corto) il giusto è un buon lavoro. Ma più un buon prodotto che un buon libro per cui oggi, che sono severa ingiusta rancorosa, metto solo tre stelle.

[David Jennings · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meike's publisher's introduction says this is Peirene's "most poetic book yet". It didn't really work for me and I also missed the profundity referred to by the reviewer on the back cover.

There's are a few hints of ideas about the interplay of natural selection and social protection. As Kropotkin's Mutual Aid (published 30 years after the date when this book is set) showed, these ideas don't have to be opposed to each other.

The gardener may be following some ideas from Darwin about human tinkering with natural selection - also known as breeding - and there's some experimentation going on with electricity and crops that seems misguided from our vantage point. But the treatment is half-formed and directionless.

The same goes for the main action in the middle of the book, a rural vigilante reprisal that may be connected with some conspiracy theorising about Darwin. This seems promising, but almost as soon as this connection arises, it evaporates from the narrative.

I'd say suggestive but half-baked, rather than poetic.

[Tatu Hocksell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pidin Herra Darwinin puutarhurista. Huomionarvioista novellissa on fokalisaatio. Carlson vaihtaa kerronna perspektiiviä tiuhaan tahtiin, mikä tuo tarinaan hauskan lisän. Tämä myös tekee lukukokemuksesta hankalamman etenkin jos sen lukee pienissä osissa kuten minä. Tarina sijoittuu 1800 luvun Englantiin johon moderni maailma on tulossa vauhdilla. Kirjassa käsitellään tämän kyläläisissä aiheuttamia tunnelmia. Erityisesti vastakkain ovat tieteellinen maailmankuva ja uskonto. Herra Darwinin puutarhuri Thomas Davies edustaa tieteellistä maailmankuvaa. Muut kyläläiset katsovat Daviesiä Raamatun näkökulmasta ja vertaavat hänen kärsimyksiä ja omiaan esimerkiksi Jobiin. Minulle suurin anti oli kirjan seesteinen tunnelma, lukiessa pystyi hyvin kuvittelemaan rauhaisan maalaiskylän Englannissa lumen hiutalaien tippuessa hiljalleen maahan.

[Johan D'Haenen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The tongue is a sort of red carpet. One has to watch what hurries out along it."
Zoals de titel aangeeft, speelt dit verhaal zich af rond de tuinman van Charles Darwin. Maar in feite gaat het over het dorp en de dorpsbewoners van waar die tuinman woont. Die tuinman is atheïst en weduwnaar met twee kinderen. Het verhaal wordt een verhaal over God, verdriet en allerlei gepraat, een aaneenschakeling van wijsheden en pseudo-wijsheden, toogpraat, theekransjespraat, vogelpraat en ga zo maar door.
Carlson roept niet alleen de stemmen op van een gans dorp, maar ook de tijdsgeest, de tegenstelling tussen evolutiewetenschap en godsgeloof.
Dit verhaal is geen page-turner, en moet met mondjesmaat geproefd worden, iets om regelmatig bij stil te staan en over na te denken.