Tuesday, May 01, 2012

The Paper Garden by Molly Peacock

The Paper Garden: An Artist Begins Her Life's Work at 72 by Molly Peacock
Copyright 2010
Bloomsbury - History/Biography/Memoir/Art
397 pp., incl. extensive bibliography and index

The subtitle and the gorgeous cover of the hardback copy of The Paper Garden (a poppy) drew me to this book. An artist who began her life's work at 72? One can always stand to read about something as hopeful as a dramatically late start in life. The Paper Garden had already been on my wish list for a year when I was contacted by TLC Tours. Would I like to review it? Why, yes, I certainly would.

As it turns out, The Paper Garden is not just about the paper artist, Mary Delany, and the artist didn't begin crafting and art in general at 72, but created her own method of paper collage at that age. The Paper Garden tells Mary Delany's entire life story but focuses on Delany's early artwork, her gardening, her two marriages and the long stretch of independence between those marriages and how they the combination of creativity and experience led to the making of her collages. Mixed in with Mary's story is a bit of memoir about the author, a poet who has drawn some parallels with her own life.

What I loved about The Paper Garden:

I adored the detail of Mary's life. She was truly an amazing woman; full of life, a woman of many lasting friendships, creative and intelligent, always busy, curious, engaged and engaging. While a major part of her broad creative work involves the fact that she was well-placed and suitably comfortable in life to have plenty of leisure time, I think I can safely say that Mary Delany used her time better than most. I enjoyed reading about her because she was a fascinating person and her master work, the flowers, capped off a vigorous, creative life. She was truly an amazing woman.

I've borrowed an image of one of the flower collages (a passionflower, which just happens to be one of my favorites of those few images in The Paper Garden) from the British Museum's website:

The detail is astounding. She cut all the tiny petals and curlicues after dyeing her paper and dissecting the flowers for accuracy of representation. And, then she added painted touches to shade and sometimes a real leaf of other part from the actual flower. Not only that, but she managed to amass a whopping 985 of these works of art before loss of vision halted her.

Besides the fact that Delany's life and the historical context were engrossing, I loved the fact that the author was passionate about her interest in Delany's life and work. She did a tremendous job of research, including numerous interviews, and her eye for detail, while overwhelming at times, made for a well-rounded picture of a talented, strong, admirable woman of the 18th century.

What I disliked about The Paper Garden:

I was expecting a biography, not the memoir bits, and I can't say I loved reading about the author's life. There were some minor parallels, but for the most part I found Molly Peacock's life story interesting but less entertaining than that of Mary Delany and not particularly relevant.

But, what I really found appalling and the reason this book will come with a family warning was the sexualization of the flower descriptions -- as in "disgusting". I considered stopping at page 6, when I came to the first passage that I found offensive enough that you'll have to highlight to see two of the words:

They all come out of darkness, intense and vaginal, bright on their black backgrounds as if, had she possessed one, she had shined a flashlight on nine hundred and eighty-five flowers' c***s.
--from p. 6 of The Paper Garden

At one point, I was so irritated by the sexual references (flowers to body parts) that I handed the book to my husband and pointed out a passage to see if he felt the same. "You read vulgar stuff," he said. Exactly. I see flowers as objects of beauty for their color, delicacy and contrasts, not for their reproductive bits and pieces (I always felt that way about Georgia O'Keefe's paintings, as well -- they're gorgeous representations of life to me, nothing more). Fortunately, as the author and subject aged, the sexual references tapered off and the cringe moments ceased. The Paper Garden intrigued me enough that I've ordered a copy of Mrs. Delany, Her Life and Her Flowers by Ruth Hayden, a book that is frequently mentioned in The Paper Garden.

Recommendation:

4/5 - A thoroughly-researched, passionate account of the life and work of Mary Delany, sharply detailed and poetic but marred by the authors insistent sexuality (with special emphasis on female body parts). In spite of the bits I considered unnecessary and offensive, I found the book so engrossing that I just ignored the parts I disliked and plowed on. Still, the book deserves a family warning.

I do love flowers, don't you?



©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

18 comments:

  1. I can see where you would have some problems with the very sexualized descriptions of the flowers, and the fact that a lot of this book was just a recounting of the author's life. I love the artwork though, and would be interested in seeing it, but I am not sure I would want to read the book. Thanks for the very insightful and honest review today. I enjoyed getting your perspective.

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    1. Well . . . not a LOT of the book was autobiographical. And, when I think back -- some of it was really interesting, particularly the part where she talked about meeting Ruth Hayden. That was extremely fun. It was worth overlooking the parts that were less interesting because it's a very detailed and passionate biography. I loved her enthusiasm.

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  2. The book is about an interesting subject, I must admit!

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    1. Yes, very much so! I'm looking forward to reading more and next time I'm in London, I want to see some of those collages in person!!!

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  3. The same Molly Peacock that wrote the poetry book I want to buy! Flower porn, huh?

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    1. Yep, same Molly Peacock. I'm interested in that poetry book, too.

      Flower porn. Uh-huh. You might actually love this book, since you're not a prude. ;)

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  4. This one has been on my wishlist for a while too. Thanks for a great review, Nancy! I always like reading your likes along with the dislikes. :D

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    1. Why, thank you, Andiloo. It's an excellent book. I'm looking forward to reading more about Mary Delany. I can understand how the author became obsessed with her artwork. It's pretty incredible stuff and the history -- her life . . . oh, wow. Fascinating stuff.

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    2. "Stuff", twice in one paragraph. Deduct 10 points.

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  5. I got this book from the library last year, looked at all the incredible artwork, but never got it read before it was due back at the library. The book did get into two of my posts, though, a Book Beginnings post and a Library Loot post. I found a 6-in-1 illustration of six of her flowers, which can be enlarged by clicking twice. Here's the link to my post, which has a link to the Library Loot post and a different book cover. (Is your copy a paperback?)

    http://bonniesbooks.blogspot.com/2011/10/beginning-with-filigree-handled.html

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    1. Cool. Yes, my copy is paperback. It has the cover image I posted.

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  6. I tried to read this one, because it was so beautiful to look at, but I just got bored. I don't remember any flower sex stuff - maybe if I had noticed that I wouldn't have gotten so bored! LOL

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    1. Probably not, since that quote above was on page 6. If you were going to notice it, you'd have noticed it right off the bat! :) I didn't find it boring at all, although there were parts I didn't care for. Fortunately, they tended to be brief enough that they never bogged me down.

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  7. The images do look beautiful, but I think the constant description of flowers as sexual objects would bug me, too.

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    1. The images are definitely beautiful. I'm looking forward to getting the other book I ordered because it's supposed to have a wider variety of images. I just thought the sexual comparisons were bizarre. The history was fascinating. Mrs. Delany did have the advantage of childlessness, so there was never a time that she had to set creative endeavors aside to deal with children.

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  8. The moment I heard about this book I knew I had to read it. I bought it last year and savored it over many months, blogged about it, and now yearn to see the originals at the Royal Albert and Victoria some fine day. Mary Delaney's story is an interesting and inspiring one, isn't it? I wrote about it last year. You have written such a fine review here.

    lifeonthecutoff.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/the-paper-garden-by-molly-peacock/

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  9. Hi Nancy, thanks so much for your insight and for your wonderfully fair and balanced review! The flowers really are gorgeous. Thanks for being on the tour.

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  10. Anonymous11:52 PM

    I feel I must say that I found this to be one of the most exquisite, unique, and evocative pieces of contemporary writing I have read in a frightening number of years. I don't mean to sound patronizing, only suggestive, when I say that you might want to look at the book as a large, grand piece of music, in which the various themes intertwine like the different motifs in a piece of music.And the flower images as well. Gorgeous, truly. I

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