THE BOOK IS ABOUT MORE THAN GARDENS: Readers of "Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden" get a three-fer reward: a romp through fields of reading, eating, and planting. There are 72 essays in this 1981 book, some as short as one line (Mazes) and most considerably longer including almost a novella on herbs and 12 pages on Women's Place. Each essay has thoughts related to plants & gardens but can veer into quotes from the world's literature which author Eleanor Perenyi assumes her readers know, care about, and which she at times puts straight.
See for example her five page essay on Pruning (p.190) which begins:
"Never before or afterward did a gardening style evoke so much attention, generate so much literary heat, as one that overthrew the formal garden with its geometrically determined space and sculptured evergreens and replaced it with an imitation of wild nature....The leaders were Pope, Addison, Horace Walpole, and their friends among the Whig aristocracy..."
And she must have enjoyed cooking & eating, since perhaps a third of these green thoughts include recipes. Archival pictures (not included in this unillustrated edition) show a movie-star slender & elegant blonde. Her later years find her elegant in a more Julia Child way. P 181, e.g., has a fine recipe for potato salad and one for herbed fingerlings she grew herself that seem worth an addition to the waistline. The fingerlings were smuggled in but have since, Perenyi notes in a relieved way, been found in legal nurseries.
AMONG ITS FINE QUALITIES: This book is likely to be read years from now:
--Perenyi had directed the proceedings at gardens larger (her husband's vast estates in Hungary) and smaller (her acres in Connecticut). She writes as knowledgable amateur as do, among others, Vita Sackville-West & Henry Mitchell. Essays begin with artichokes, asparagus and ashes, go on to a long list of culinary herbs such as borage, lavender, and tarragon, continue through toads, tomatoes and tree-houses and conclude with women & agriculture through the ages. The essays are arranged alphabetically, a refreshing change from the gardener's year organization.
--What she has to say may be superseded over the years with new cultivars and new techniques but is likely to stand oak firm on topics such as mulch, mauve, and pesticides. However, this is not a comprehensive, how-to book or an in-depth source on matters such as roses or ranunculus. There are other books for that.
--Perenyi was the editor of magazines such as Mademoiselle and Harper's Bazaar, a regular contributor to The Atlantic Monthly, the author of a prize-winning biography of Frans Liszt, and of a memoir of her life with her husband in Europe. She was a writer first and foremost, and her skills shine in "Green Thoughts," in which there seems to be nary a clunky sentence.
--Nor a dull sentence. Perenyi held strong opinions on every topic about which she wrote here. She disdained, for example, seed tapes and people who used them; her admiration for dahlias was almost unbounded; and she gave a go-out-and-win-the-game talk on failures. Her observations were ahead of her time in matters such as organic gardening, her advice makes sense, and her authoritative voice seems like instructions to Adam & Eve.
Here she is on Makielski Berry Farm, then located in Ypsilanti:
"This lttle company has a list, not a catalog, and wouldn't be worth mentioning except that they carry the only decent gooseberry I have been able to discover in America. The name is Poorman and while not comparable to the English fruit, it is far better than the dreary and ubiquitous Pixwell." (p 275)
--The book includes a ten page small print index that looks professionally done, a section on where to order plants and seeds that while it may be out of date, still makes for more good reading, and introductory material by series editor Michael Pollan and garden writer Allen Lacy. Perenyi is among the few writers who can make these popular authors seem serviceable rather than scintillating.
ANY READER ALERTS? This book helped inspire a new generation of gardeners. However, its pleasures may be best enjoyed in small portions. Strong views can seem fresh. A lot of them at once can feel ill-tempered.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: At used book prices, as low as a penny, "A Green Thought" can be bought in quantities for the reader's own pleasure and for sowing with a generous hand among friends. A new copy is still a fine value & a sumptuous treat, perhaps given with a quality dibble & a package of Johnny's seeds.
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