Features:
- ISBN13: 9780375759482
- Condition: New
- Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
- Author : Karel Capek
- Binding : Paperback
- Creator : Josef Capek
- Creator : Verlyn Klinkenborg
- Dewey Decimal Number : 635.90207
- EAN : 9780375759482
- ISBN : 0375759484
- Is Eligible For Trade In? : Yes
- Label : Modern Library
- List Price : $14.00 (USD)
- Manufacturer : Modern Library
- Number Of Items : 1
- Number Of Pages : 144
- Package Dimensions : 0.50 inches (Height) x 3.60 inches (Length) x 0.25 pounds (Weight) x 1.20 inches (Width)
- Publication Date : 2002-02-19
- Publisher : Modern Library
- Release Date : 2002-02-19
- Studio : Modern Library
From the internationally acclaimed Czech writer Karel Capek comes this beautifully written and marvelously apt account of the trials and tribulations of the gardener’s life. First published in Prague in 1929, The Gardener’s Year combines a richly comic portrait of life in the garden, narrated month by month, with a series of delightful illustrations by the author’s older brother and collaborator, Josef. Capek’s gardeners—all too human, despite their lofty aspirations—often look the fool, whether they be found sopping wet, victims of the cobralike water hose, or hunched over, hands immersed in the soil, “presenting their rumps to the splendid azure sky.” In their repeated folly, Capek gives us not only cause for laughter but also, in the end, “testimony of the imperishable and miraculous optimism of the human race.” This Modern Library edition is published with a new Introduction by Verlyn Klinkenborg, a New York Times editorialist and the author of Making Hay and The Last Fine Time.
- Product Description
Customer Reviews:
Customers rated The Gardener's Year (Modern Library Gardening) 5.0 stars out of 5.0 based on 6 reviews:Gardener's Gentle Humor
by C.C. Hoffman (Bethlehem, PA) - 2007-01-11
I bought this book for a friend, as a gift upon her achieving Master Gardener certification. I expected something a bit different, a bit more practical, perhaps, but after leafing through the pages, I read the entire book before I gave it to her. Written by the man known to most of us as a European author of the early 20th century on more weighty subjects, this man's witty description of himself as the sometimes manic master of his small domestic garden both amuses and somehow comforts those of us who share his enthusiasm. I laughed long and loudly at Capek's description of what ensued from his planting of the seeds from just one packet, at the many dozens of little plants in little pots, all of which became bigger and bigger, and had to be taken outdoors, finally, to find places in a tiny garden patch. This is a short book, with short chapters, just right for picking up in odd moments during the winter months when we are only dreaming about the coming of gardening season once again.Wonderful and quick read!
by Therese M. Davis (Illinois) - 2006-08-22
I brought this as one of those suggested sells, you know the "people who brought blah blah blah also brought this book" . . . so I did. And boy am I glad I did! Karel Capek is a wonderful author who struck a resounding chord in the heart and soul of this gardener. It was not only wonderfully clever but inspired me to tend to my little rooted, green outdoor children and give them bushels of attention, care and compost ASAP!!! Loved it!Lowdown on Gardeners
by Keith C. Brown (Lafayette, IN USA) - 2005-07-06
This is the best book about gardeners I know of. With grace and humor, this book delightfully explores the glories and foibles of serious amateur gardeners. Any garden nut who reads this book without laughing and almost crying over this inciteful outing of the gardener's soul is a callous person indeed.Eternal spring....
by Dianne Foster (USA) - 2002-05-09
I don't know much about Czech literature, so I don't know if the Prague Spring had anything to do with the writing of Karel Capek, but I would not be surprised to discover a connection. "Leaves wither because spring is already beginning, because new buds are being made, as tiny percussion caps out of which the spring will crack....if we could only see that secret swarming of the future within us, we should say that our melancholy and distrust is silly and absurd and that the best thing of all is to be..living.."Karel Capek wrote those words in 1929 when he was 39 years old. By 1938, the year the Nazis invaded Prague, he was dead. His brother Josef died a few years later in Bergan-Belsen. But this book is not about those sad events. This book is about a year in the life of a good gardener, how ever extraordinary a writer he might have been. During his lifetime, Capek realized that humans were becoming enslaved by fascism and run-amuck technology. The ancient and cyclical daily practices of humans were dying before his eyes --the beet farmers stacking their fall harvests at the railroad stations; the wagon loads of manure that could be delivered for garden beds; the nursury men who understood plants giving way to "market garden centers" staffed by those who regularly misidentify plants and stocked with items that "move" (produce a high volume of sales). THE GARDENER'S YEAR is a reflective book. You don't have to garden to appreciate it, but if you garden, you will probably laugh on more than one occasion. Where is the gardener who has not struggled with a hose; Who has not looked with greed on a bald spot and attempted to squeeze six more phlox plants in, only to discover a dormant sping plant; And, where is the gardener who has not wandered about the yard with a plant in each hand trying to find just one more place for a perennial. Capek understood the gardener's soul. We are a greedy lot, obsessed with dirt, happy in a wagon load of s___, and hostile to many-legged life forms, but, we are also the best sort of human beings who understand the meaning and importance of life.Capek's writing reminds me of that of Henry Mitchell who wrote two columns (one on gardening the other on "everyday" philosophy) for the Washington Post. Like Mitchell Capek had the gift of converting his own gardening experiences into tales that inform, enlighten, and illustrate the best and the worst of human nature. "I tell you there is no death, not even sleep. We only pass from one season to another. We must be patient with life, for it is eternal."Amazon's Review is Totally Off Base.
by - 2002-03-17
There is humor and self-deprecation in The Gardener's Year...This is a book that will appeal to the gardener, the philospher, and the Zen deotee, the reader of self-help books, as well as the humorist. Here are quotes: "After his death, the gardener does not become a butterfly but ... a garden worm tasting all the dark, nitrogenous and spicey delights of the soil." "I find a real gardener is not a man who cultivates flowers; he is a man who cultivates the soil". "The life of a gardener is active and full of will." There are easy references to German philosophers, campanula alpina, Tolstoy, the perfume of manure. All this is presented with humor but there are no fools in this book. It could easily be subtitled "Zen and the Pleasant Art of Gardening." It didn't change my life, but it made it better. For Godsake, by this book!
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