A Short History of Gardens, Gordon Campbell

Lodewijk Toeput, Pleasure Garden with a Maze, 1579-84

(September 13, 2019 ¬_¬ ) Gah, I can't believe how long it took me to struggle through this book! I chose it initially because of its shortness (184 pages, pages the size of a mini iPad) and thatʼs why I didnʼt just give it up -- I kept thinking SHOORLY I could get through it.

But it was awful reading, both physically -- the type is small and tightly spaced, there is maybe one paragraph indent per page, the pages are dense grey -- and literally -- the prose is dry and academic, and the organization is nothing more than grocery-listing.... and you could tell that space was at a premium by the content as well as by the printing, because Campbell is at pains to fit a lot in. It covers all the gardens in the world, from the beginning of time, in 184 pages! Put together for us by an old-school scholar who merely marshals the facts and dully regurgitates them.

Also, for a book on gardens, which are after all a visual art, there is almost no illustration -- there are a few tiny colour plates tucked in the middle of the book, and a few black-and-white photos throughout the text, but really it is all a bit of an insult to the topic.

I just kept renewing and renewing this library book, putting it aside till the next renewal in favour of more interesting books, knowing that I would never not have access to it. No one else would ever want to borrow it.

But this past spring (2019) I was introduced to a few of the Monty Don garden series on the BBC (French Gardens, Italian Gardens, Around the World in 80 Gardens, The Secret History of British Gardens, Big Dreams, Small Spaces, etc.) and was fully blown away by the beauty and interestingness of the topic -- it was like enjoying my old fine arts courses.

So then I came back to the Gordon Campbell book, thinking surely he will at some point mention Monty Don, since Don was so obviously an expert on the history of gardens and on the importance of certain gardens, and all of his books and series predated Campbellʼs book.

But he never mentions him once, nor includes any of his books or films in the reference section. He only comments at one point that the British people are very fond of gardening and armchair gardening to the tune of an important number of GNP pounds per year, alluding to shows like Monty Donʼs (and thereby echoing Monty himself who several times mentions in various series how big an industry gardening is in the U.K. GNP-wise and how beloved).

So I realized what was going on here -- Gordon Campbell saw how scholarly and art-historical the topic could be thanks to Monty Don and his ilk, and decided to stake a claim to it as the bona fide academic (professor at Oxford) and therefore more credible expert. Heʼs “discoveringˮ the topic as far as serious academics are concerned.

Then, he couldnʼt get a lot of money together to support a big book with lots of colour illustration (and maybe, as an academic, would not have wanted to produce anything too showy anyway), so he put out what he could -- a tiny, crammed pocket dictionary of a book.

I say “Yuckˮ to you, sir.

Why do I give it even 2 stars then? Because it's acceptable academics and, though dull, the prose is error-free and understandable. And, obviously, he recognized a good topic.

Mrs. Simcoe's Diary, Elizabeth Simcoe

Elizabeth Simcoe, Niagara Falls, Ontario, July 30, 1792 

(December 20, 2019) I started reading this because it was short, and it felt like “a good thing to do,ˮ to read up on the early organization of Upper Canada, kind of a duty read, but hopefully quick and dirty.

And then I took forever to get into it .... mostly because I knew I would always be able to renew it at the library... as with The History of Gardens, nobody was going to be putting such a run on Mrs. Simcoeʼs Diary that I would have trouble keeping it (but people did request it once or twice over the past year and a half... no one ever requested The History of Gardens for the two and a half years I had it).

But then I finally did read a long stretch of it... and I realized that Simcoe was journeying down the same path that I have driven every six months for the past almost 40 years... it struck me first that I had a lot in common with her experience when she was in Quebec City in midwinter and was gobsmacked by how warm people kept their houses and ballrooms... she was always commenting on being too warm indoors in the middle of sub-zero weather... and I thought, guess what, 225 years later Quebeckers are still keeping their homes superhot in the winter, way hotter than we ever did in Ontario (and my parents were very fond of being warm).

But then the Simcoes proceeded down the St. Lawrence and it was like a tick-off of all the geographical points I have come to feel like old friends after going by them 160 times... the ile of Montreal... Mrs. Simcoe rode out to “La Chineˮ one day to see the rapids but her only comment was “the roads were very badˮ... then the Simcoes travelled down the St. Lawrence... they passed Gananoque, Cornwall, Kingston, all the usual suspects one by one, stayed in York (Toronto) for a while, then made it down to Niagara, my old stomping grounds, where Mrs. S. refers to many landmarks I recognize... and they lived in Navy Hall, which I remember well... and they would go up to visit Queenston, Fort Erie and Chippewa, just like we do 200 years later... and at the end there is also a lot of description of the area I live in now, which to them was “the head of the lake,ˮ and where Cootes Paradise was already named and didnʼt seem to Mrs. S. to be as swampy as usual marshes.

Anyway, it was so interesting to get Mrs. S.ʼs impressions of all these places so long ago... and to think of how they were travelling and living in the wilderness here... and to think George Washington was alive and causing trouble in the States, and Marie Antoinette was executed while they were here... It was all a bit disorienting... when I learned Canadian history it was presented in total isolation... it felt like Canada was separate and very young, and the rest of the world was very old... and that is partially true but Canada obviously has some history too.

Even more striking than the foreshadowing of my own life and geography was Mrs. S.ʼs fortitude... she came over here in a wooden boat in the fucking 1790s to begin with, then when they got here, the Simcoes lived in tents and huts basically... often sitting around outside under “a bowerˮ in the middle of winter. They had tons of servants and a battalion at their service, but it was still a very primitive way of living and they just bore it. Very few complaints of hardship.

They brought with them only two of their children, the two youngest, and then Mrs. S. had another one while she was here! That daughter survived only a year and a half or so, but the shortness of her life doesnʼt appear to have been related to primitive conditions.

I really have to admire Mrs. S.... what she went through, and the talents she had... amazing.... 225 years ago!

And so many things so completely unfamiliar in the way people lived back then.

Maeve in America, Maeve Higgins

from Anglonerd.com

(July 22) It was such a pleasure to read this that I finished it before I knew it; it is so funny and touching in all the classic Irish ways (how can that style be so particular and yet so endlessly new?) as well as in all the ways.

It arrived out of the blue as something Kerry brought to the hospital for me to read... the inscription showed that Jane had brought it to her when she was in the hospital... and it is perfect for that, but also for any other time.

And despite having many other books to finish, I kept going back to Maeve’s with eager anticipation, which is how it should be with a book... not how it is with a few I’ve been slogging through for duty reasons (I’m looking at you, History of Gardens).

Anyway, I found Maeve in America so easy and delightful to read that it was restorative.

I want to give it 3.5 stars probably because it contrasted so sharply with the slog books.