Life in the Garden by Penelope Lively

Life in the Garden Reviews

• 
  Elyse Walters

  Audiobook... read by Heather
  Lloyd. 5 hours and 56 minutes.
  
  This was another ‘soothing’ audio-experience.
  Yesterday I listened to Alice Hoffman read a 57 minute novella and found Alice’s voice to be very comforting and uplifting
  
  Today...has been another day of being read to with soothing voices.
  I’m turning into a blissful mellow-marshmallow.
  
  After finishing this audio-book- “Life in The Garden” - thirty minutes into my two hour hike -
  I ‘still’ felt a need for another ‘soother’...
  So....
  I picked a Dani Shapiro book, “Still Writing”, as my next ‘soothing’ companion buddy while I hiked on.
  I always find Shapiro engaging, intimate, and comforting to be with her.
  
  I noticed Dani Shapiro’s book was the perfect bookend with Penelope Lively’s book.
  Both ladies mentioned Virginia Woolf so much as their inspiration that I swear — I need to read more Virginia Woolf books myself.
  
  Helen’s voice was perfect for Lively’s words.....
  Dani’s voice was perfect for her own words..( still haven’t finished hers, yet, though).
  And...
  This would make a nice gift book for anyone who values the connection between gardening reading, and writing.
  The relationship between writing and gardening is a beautiful marriage.
  
  My audiobook/memoir-listening these past few days are all blending together...
  (life energy, plant energy, reading & writing energy)....
  It’s not the most horrible of days 🌻📚✍️🐛🍄🌷🌿🍂🌺
  
  Lively shares about many garden sanctuaries, and the inspiration they are for writers and vice versa.
  Yellow, green, blue, purple ....
  exquisite colors and smells....
  ....gardening, writing, writers, reading, ....
  ....becomes a marriage of sorts.
  The prose lavishly engages us with its architecture, veggies, flowers, other authors and their relationships with Mother Earth and gardens.
  
  I laughed when Lively said
  American’s call ‘their’ garden a backyard.
  True: sometimes!
  
  Many years ago - early 70’s when I was in Cambridge, England, I walked into a family‘s garden…lovely as can be and said, “oh my gosh your backyard is gorgeous”.
  After several funny looking faces I learned the term ‘backyard’ was consider their garbage area.
  Oops!
  
  Yep.... another ‘soothing’ listen.
  Interesting history of various gardens in England...
  And most....
  Lively’s passion for gardening and gardens comes through loud and clear.
  
  But...
  she never talked about the value of worms 🐛 in the garden. I guess my husband could write that book.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Diane Barnes

  I love Penelope Lively, both her fiction and non-fiction. She's one of those down-to-earth authors who tells her story and gets out of the way in her novels, and saves her personal opinion for essays and autobiography. She is an avid gardener, and in this one gives us gardens in art, gardens in literature, and gardens in real life. If you like to putter around in your own little plot (mine is the size of a postage stamp), you'll enjoy this. If not, you may be bored. It worked for me.
• 
  Barbara

  "To garden is to elide past, present, and future; it is a defiance of time."
  
  Penelope Lively reflects with insight and wit the essence of both gardens and gardeners, as well as the importance gardens have had on literature, art, and history. Examples from authors such as Frances Hodgson Burnett, Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, Jane Austen, and others are given. Monet, Matisse, Manet, and Renoir also found gardens to be important in their work. Lively makes the case that all these authors and artists were also gardeners.
  
  The history of gardens being representative of social position and wealth is a fascinating section of this book. From the palatial manor to the allotment garden, better known as a community garden in the U.S., gardens have been changed by culture, fashion, wealth, and now the media. In past centuries it was acceptable for the woman of the estate to garden; housecleaning would be for the hired help. Now, Lively points out, the reverse is more often true. (Although most wealthy women today would hire help for both jobs.) I found this observation particularly interesting and amusing.
  
  Lastly, the author shares her experiences gardening, from a childhood garden in Cairo to a large garden in the country and her present city garden in London. She shares the commonalities among gardeners, how they view the garden as "a place of escape, of release from demands, requirements, obligations, simply the engagement with an impervious world".
  
  I loved this beautifully written commentary with its equally lovely cover. Lively's wisdom and satiric humor delights and allows refuge from the concerns of the day.
  
  "And if Eve had had a spade in Paradise and known what to do with it, we should not have had all that business of the apple."
• 
  Melora

  Oh dear. Penelope Lively has got me wanting to grow roses again. Well, and also plant mixed borders, fill containers with mounds and cascades of flowers, and arrange some sort of a “water feature.”
  
  I enjoyed this tremendously! In her wide ranging little book Lively looks at gardens in literature, painting, and real life, considering the ways they are used to communicate ideas, convey character, and suggest social position, and also how they may simply give hints about the inclinations of their creators. She talks about gardeners, from the famous and wealthy, with grand estates and staff to do the digging, to the more modestly situated, with patio or allotment gardens. Memories of her own gardening experiences and those of family and friends are interspersed with reflections on literary gardens, public gardens, garden writers, garden designers, etc. From the philosophically abstract to the grubbily mundane, she explores gardens across time and countries, forcing me to add quite a few new books to my already too-lengthy tbr lists! Absolutely delightful.
• 
  Rebecca

  (2.5) I read the first 79 of 187 pages. This is a gorgeous physical book, literally one of the loveliest I’ve come across in years, what with its embossed matte cover with full-color flowers against a black background and the black-and-white botanical illustrations on the endpapers and opposite the start of each chapter. But this is writing by numbers: It feels so stiff you can see just how Lively filled in her original outline. One chapter even ends with “This has been a discussion of the written garden”. Early chapters are on the history of gardens, gardens as metaphors, and gardens in literature (Vita Sackville-West, Elizabeth von Arnim, the Sitwells, et al.). I think you’d have to be much more of a gardening enthusiast than I am – I’m a lazy, frustrated amateur at best – to get a lot out of this. I’ve been underwhelmed by the three fairly recent Lively books I’ve read; I have a feeling I need to go back to her most celebrated works, like Moon Tiger, to see what all the fuss is about. I’d also like to read her memoir of childhood.
  
  Favorite lines:
  
  “We garden for tomorrow, and thereafter. We garden in expectation, and that is why it is so invigorating.”
  
  “the concept of the garden carries overtones of paradisiacal potential. We may not feel that in our own, on a wet day with the weeds rampant, and the slugs and the snails and everything that creepeth upon the earth”
• 
  Trish

  Just opened this at a really busy time & know I would like reading this. "Gardening is genetic" she writes. What I think she means by that is a well-tended or enthusiastic garden can influence the way one thinks, and ever after one feels something is missing if there are no plants somewhere about. Not at all sure the skill is passed through genes...though my older sisters seem to have drained the goodness from that particular pot before I managed to make an appearance.
• 
  Chavelli Sulikowska

  This is a lovely, relaxing read – especially if you are a gardening enthousiast. Having just spent extended time living in Egypt, I particularly enjoyed her opening descriptions of the garden where she grew up in Egypt. Lively’s latest novel, written in her twilight years, is nostalgic, reflective and sumptuously full of a passion for all things flora and botanical. Her passages fluctuate between reflection and memory to the laments of gardening with arthritis, the changing of the seasons and instructions on pruning. Thoroughly recommend for not only gardeners but fans of Lively literature!
• 
  Chari

  
  Reflexiones acerca del impacto que tiene la jardinería, el comportamiento de las personas que la practican y cómo nos afectan los jardines; un libro que me limitaría a recomendar solo a quien el tema sea de interés.
• 
  Joaquin Garza

  El primer libro de este año habla un poco de otro de los deseos con los que he coqueteado parte de mi vida: el de tener un jardín.
  
  Desde que mi tía se compró en una librería de saldos una "guía completa de landscaping" para su enorme jardín en un pueblo en México, yo me quedé con esa sugerente y romántica idea de la jardinería. Lively lo que hace en su libro es contar, mediante una serie de ensayos, la función del jardín para los artistas (pintores y escritores), su historia, un recorrido por las diferentes teorías del jardín, el estilo del jardín y finalmente lo que significa estar en uno. Como la autora es británica, hay un momento en que muestra un dejo de chauvinismo jardinero y soslaya tanto al jardín renacentista italiano como al jardín francés. Por lo tanto, la mayoría del libro se va en discutir todo alrededor del jardín inglés.
  
  Cuando uno entiende el furor de la cultura jardinera en el Reino Unido se acomoda mejor con este libro. En Foyles hay una sección completa de horticultura y jardinería. Hay filas para conseguir una parcela (o allotment) y poder cultivar vegetales ahí. Hay programas de la BBC de jardinería y hay un fiero espíritu competitivo. Además, cuando uno ve las cosas en inglés entiende que hay una diferencia fundamental entre jardinería (qué flores cultivar y en dónde se pueden arreglar mejor) y el paisajismo que Lively llama "paisajismo duro". Me di cuenta que a mí me importa más el paisajismo porque quiero ver las cosas más en conjunto y sobre todo me encanta la idea del "elemento acuático": el canal, el foso, el estanque, la cascadita. Entonces me imagino que a mí me valdría queso el tipo de flores y plantas mientras éstas no se secaran. Sólo sé que aquí se darían las orquídeas y las heliconias, y que tal vez se me olvidaría regarlas en estación seca.
  
  Pero lo más bonito del libro es esta exploración del jardín. El jardín está en todos lados y tiene tantos significados que nos atan a él que no hay más que salir a uno y llenarse completo de estar ahí.
• 
  Jaymi

  How did I not know who Penelope Lively was before now? Man-booker prize winner for Moon Tiger and one of the most insightful voices on memory and time? Yet again, I have been hit for six by my own ignorance (however charming and Emma Woodhousian it may be).
  
  'Life in the Garden' is Penelope Lively’s newest book and garden memoir. This sterling woman is in her 80s and is one of the most insightful, supremely intelligent and straight forward examiners of everything from archaeology to literature to gardens, horticulture and beyond! Her writing is wise, intelligent and just enough learned that my mother would describe her as ‘not overly enjoyable’ (which suits my tastes just fine). Life in the Garden is an examination of gardens—their history, what they mean to us, how they are presented in literature (Paradise Lost, Jane Austen, George Eliot and Beatrix Potter) and how the garden has been shaped by catalogues, garden centres (we call them nurseries here) and notable horticulturalists and landscapers—the likes of which include Gertrude Jekyll, Elizabeth von Arnim and Capability Brown. She talks about her own gardens too—a childhood in Egypt and her marital gardening ventures with Jack in Oxfordshire and then in London.
  
  Perhaps the most crucial take away for me, as someone who wants to explore gardens in writing, is their relationship to artists and the way in which our gardens become contrived and landscaped into serving a purpose. Penelope Lively discusses this point at length in relation to Claude Monet and his garden in Giverny which served as his grand experiment for colour, producing the very famous series of Water Lilies. She also touches on novelists in relation to their own gardens—Virginia Woolf and the wonderful Vita Sackville-West, the latter purposely chose the lesser of the garish flowers for Sissinghurst.
  
  Penelope Lively leaves the impression that gardeners turn into writers, or writers turn into gardeners, and both might be contrived from the other. She talks about gardens and plants and flowers in collaboration with life, which makes this book essential reading for anyone—not just gardeners, readers and artists, and I will be happy to hand it over to my mother for Christmas (which was its original purpose, ‘accidently’ swayed from). It has made me unspeakably happy to have read it and I think my mother will be grateful for a very thorough daughter indeed!
  
  Review posted at:
  https://suspectnarglesblog.wordpress....
• 
  Steve

  First things first: I don't garden, and I've never been particularly fascinated by, or interested in, gardening. Yes, yes, I've dealt with lawns and mulch and sod and weeds and ivy (ooooh, ivy, 20 years ago, the bane of my existence) and shrubbery and tree planting and pruning and wheelbarrows and shovels and shears and log-splitters .... but, but ... given the first opportunity, I found myself happily back in the comforts of a homeowners association with outsourced grounds-keeping. Which begs the question: why did I read this?
  
  For me, this wasn't a book about gardening, it was Penelope Lively's most recent book, ... OK, when one of your all-time favorite authors, I've now read more than 20 of her books, who, alas, isn't getting any younger, and she's also a (deserving) Booker Prize winner, puts out another book, well, it's hard to resist.
  
  I've typically preferred Lively's (far more voluminous) fiction to her non-fiction, although, again, having read her now for more than three decades, I'm intrigued by her reflections and observations. And, of course, as always, her writing is sparse and eloquent. She remains one of my all-time favorite wordsmiths.
  
  As for the gardening - it's an eclectic book - sprinkled or peppered with everything from literature to history and art and social status and commentary and ... well ... gardening ... including flowers (duh) and vegetables and trees and landscapes ... and pests ... Peter Rabbit ... hero or villain? ... and weather ... and styles and cultures ... and, well, you get the idea.
  
  This is by no means the first Lively book I'd recommend. She originally won me over ... completely ... with The Road to Litchfield, although, part of me thinks I should re-read it today to see how it's stood the test of time. Her Booker Prize winner Moon Tiger is an easy pick, and I was surprisingly enamored with her more recent short-story collection Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories. And, while I'm on the topic, I've always thought her (early) City of the Mind was under-rated.
• 
  Kirsty

  Penelope Lively is an author whose work I always gravitate back to. I was enraptured when I picked up her novel, Consequences in a seconds bookshop some years ago, and absolutely loved the reading experience.  I have read quite a few of her novels since, as well as her excellent memoir, Oleander, Jacaranda, which focuses upon her childhood spent living in Egypt.
  
  Although I do not have my own garden at present, gardening is an enduring love of mine.  I was therefore most excited to find Lively's Life in the Garden on my library's online borrowing service, and it proved to be just what I was in the mood for.  It is partly memoir of her own gardening escapades, and draws together a lot of other writers and their real and fictional gardens.
  
  Lively's exploration of gardens is very thorough, and she writes about so many different books which feature them.  She discusses at length the gardens of authors like Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, as well as the gardens which she herself has tended during her life.
  
  Lively writes wonderfully, and I wished that this book had been twice as long so that I had a lot more time to savour her words.  Life in the Garden is a tender, lovely, and gentle read; just the thing to relax with in this busy world of ours.  I was pulled in immediately, and can only hope that Lively writes another tome like this one in the near future.
• 
  Book's Calling

  „Kdyby měla Eva v ráji rýč a věděla, co s ním, vůbec nemuselo dojít na tu ošklivou záležitost s jablkem,“ píše Penelope Lively, dnes 88letá britská spisovatelka, které v češtině dosud vyšly pouze tři romány — V horkých vlnách, Měsíční tygr a Život v zahradě. A právě v tom nejnovějším se zabývá způsoby, jakými zahrady používají spisovatelé a malíři, proměnami zahradnické módy, sleduje zahradničení v podobě společenského ukazatele a taky to, jak zahrada vzdoruje času a řádu. Kniha je plná krásných myšlenek, zajímavostí i odkazů na celou řadu literárních děl, ve kterých se vyskytuje zahrada. Sám sice zahradu nemám, jen tu drobnou bytovou, ale přesto jsem si knihu s chutí poslechl (a zčásti přečetl). Audioverze z OneHotBook namluvená Libuší Švormovou je navíc úžasně uklidňující.
• 
  Beth Bonini

  "We garden for tomorrow, and thereafter. We garden in expectation, and that is why it is so invigorating. Gardening you are no long stuck in the here and now; you think backwards, and forwards, you think of how this or that performed last year, you works out your hopes and plans for the next. And, for me, there is this abiding astonishment at the fury for growth, at the tenacity of plant life, at the unstoppable dictation of the seasons."
  
  Penelope Lively is interested in time; it's a theme in all of her books, and also thoroughly explored in this piece of biographical writing about her life as a gardener. She also touches on literary gardens, artists' gardens, gardens as metaphors, and gardens as cultural phenomenon. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who doesn't have much interest in gardens or gardening, but if you are interesting in books and gardens you are bound to enjoy it.
  
  It's also an ideal gift: and indeed, I received it from a friend. Fig Tree (an imprint of Penguin) did a beautiful job: the cover and endpapers are gorgeous.
• 
  Lyn Elliott

  If you’re interested in gardens as places for contemplation, creativity and inspiration, this is perfect. It’s physically a beautiful book, with an embossed decorated cover, printed with flowers, and each chapter is introduced by twining line drawings, mostly of flowers I don’t recognise but then I don’t have an English garden and it didn’t matter - they are lovely without names.
  
  But as Lively remarks, one of the things about being a gardener is that you take notice of plants, what they look like and where they are happy. Would I like one of these in my garden? Could I fit it in? How big does it grow? What’s its name? The last question can become an obsession especially if, like me, you want to know its Latin name as well as its common name so you know exactly what you’re looking for.
  
  It’s a joyful book, one to keep and dip into again and again.
• 
  Dominika Žáková

  (Tri a trištvrte*.) Záhradničenie a pestovanie formuje osobnosť, mení vnímanie času, odráža kultúru a históriu krajiny, pomáha mestskému ekosystému, ľudskej psychike a dokonca aj telesnej schránke, je záujmom, vášňou a aj povinnosťou.
  Kniha Život v záhrade toto všetko rozoberá čarovne, veľmi britsky, hoc často nesúvisle a “all over the place”- preto bol miestami pre mňa problém sa do nej na dlhšie začítať.
  State odkazujúce na záhrady v literatúre (najmä Tajnú záhradu a Virginiu Woolf) však menili môj výraz na emoji so srdciami namiesto očí a len dopĺňam- aké by bolo pekné, keby časť o Woolfovej začínala obmenou slávnej (a mojej najobľúbenejšej) prvej vety “Mrs Dalloway decided she would buy the flowers herself” na “Mrs Dalloway decided she would grow the flowers herself”!
• 
  Patricia

  The enjoyable part was Lively musing about a lifetime passion, especially her own gardens and her favorite plants. The book rambles in a conversational way that was delightful at times and disconcerting at others. A few parts were worse than disconcerting, notably when she describes ridding a garden of unwanted insects and weeds as "ethnic cleansing." This book could have used more careful tending.
  
  
• 
  Denisa T.

  Život v zahradě mě nalákal na svou překrásnou obálku, bohužel to ale není knížka pro mě. Autorka tu míchá své dojmy a zkušenosti se zahradničením spolu s dojmy čtenářskými a dalšími. Tu vám povídá obšírně o historii zahrad, tu o zahradách v díle Woolfové, tu o zahradách na obrazech Moneta nebo Van Gogha. A ještě častěji v románech u nás méně známých autorů. Potěšila mě zmínka o Čapkovi, ale jinak to pro mě bylo spíš nezáživné a nekonzistentní, dost jsem přeskakovala a moc si to neužila. Tohle asi vážně bude jen pro skalní (a vzdělané) fanoušky zahradničení :).
• 
  Andrew Howdle

  A book that is the perfect reading for a summer's day in England (or anywhere). Lively's chapters read like polished essays, witty and delightful. They are like essays in another sense: they feel like separate pieces that have been combined and unchecked. There is fair amount of repetition in the book, both of phrases and sources, which can be jarring and irritating. Lively has no like for the patrician gardeners, those who made gardens and never got their hands dirty in the soil. That is an earthy and valid view. On the other hand, there is an elevation of tone (on occasions) that make Lively come across as elitist or more simply: snobby. Strangely, I found "The Written Garden" to one of the least interesting chapters-- had expected this to be the gem in the book bearing in mind that Lively is an accomplished novelist. Overall, a pleasant diversion.
• 
  Alena

  Despite the 40 years and ocean that separate us, whenever I read Penelope Lively's non-fiction, I'm convinced that we would be "bosom friends." I was reluctant to read this one though because I am no gardener. Other than planting a couple pots a year and harvesting the vegetables my husband sows, flowers, lawns, gardens hold little interest for me.
  
  Or so I thought. In Lively's hands, gardens were lovely metaphors, beacons of hope, treasured observations and memory makers. Her ruminations on gardens in art and literature, in history and in culture are wise and wonderful.
  
  She remains a pleasure to read.
• 
  Lisa

  My mother was not a great reader, but she was a keen gardener across three continents and Life in the Garden would have been the perfect birthday gift for her. Penelope Lively is a great raconteur and this memoir of her own life in gardens is nostalgia reading for any of us with memories of English gardens and of creating our own gardens, wherever they happened to be.
  Lively thinks that there is a genetic element to being a gardener, and that it passes through the female line. She tells us about her grandmother’s garden in Somerset, her mother’s garden in Cairo where she spent her childhood, and then about her own two gardens in Oxfordshire and her current small urban garden in London. There are hints, here and there, that although her mind is as sharp as ever, Lively is getting on a bit, something I’d rather not think about because she has been part of my reading life ever since I discovered Moon Tiger, which won the Booker in 1987. My mother was lucky to spend her last years with the garden she had created on the Gold Coast; I don’t think she would have thrived if, like Lively, she’d had to downsize to a small courtyard garden.
  Like my mother – who loved it when I came up during term holidays and took her for short expeditions to the nearest Bunnings Garden Centre – Lively can’t help but be captivated by the marketing of new plants. In the chapter ‘the Fashionable Garden’, she traces the history of garden fashion, noting that
  

  These days, garden fashion is dictated by television gardening programmes, by garden journalism, by what is available and conspicuous in garden centres. Both television and garden centres are relatively recent dictators – neither was around when I first took an interest in gardening in the 1960s. But we have always gardened according to the written word, and some very persuasively written words at that. In the early part of the twentieth century, and back in the nineteenth, writers were the garden gurus of the day. Not usually fiction writers, but devoted gardeners – maniacal gardeners indeed – who turned themselves into writers in order to spread the message. (p.81)

  
  To read the rest of my review please visit
  https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/02/07/l...
• 
  Cheryl

  
  
  Extolling the written garden, it’s authors, (often real gardeners) and that painted (ditto) Lively embanks on a tour of bouquets, from Virginia Woolf to Beatrice Potter, then introduces the creators: those manipulators of Mother Earth that create the perfect visual “Ahhhh” we do serenely absorb.
  Historically noting gardens of bygone eras, some still maintained (and some with original trees) nods are given and thumbs turned downward. Quoting critics, explaining styles, addressing locations, it’s an informative read best read by those of us who wholeheartedly empathize.
  The divide of expanse and limitations, crews and sole digger, there is much ado in the gardening world. One time of much desired tulips, as expensive as homes, crazed the need to be envied. Tsk!
  When I lived it Germany, I was enthralled by the acres of allotted gardens. Cubicles of land, an outhouse-sized shed, where apartment dwellers (I assumed) could grow their own. Lively mentions the British versions, their history, need and continuation.
  So it’s a gambit of garden.. near A to Z. Will you learn anything? Probably not, but her style is light, often a bit snarky, and a nice read to add to your bookshelf.
• 
  Annagrace

  Low-key history + low-key racism + a deep love of her subject (with particular swooning attention to English gardens). Some beautiful descriptions which cannot rescue the rest for me.
• 
  Lori

  I do not consider myself a gardener. Those that have known me for any length of time would laugh at the thought of anyone considering me a gardener. I've always LOVED beautiful gardens or even a well-planned "yard" as they are called here in the states, but an incredibly busy life left me with little time for "gardening" beyond noticing that, once again, that plant purchased not so long ago was on the brink of death, perhaps water?...no...too late. My black thumb history never kept me from enjoying lovely gardens and, possibly even helped me tend to enjoy them even more since they looked to be almost unattainable for me. I have begun to redeem myself in recent years, but my intentions are still well ahead of my accomplishments.
  
  This rather lengthy lament on my lack of gardening prowess is to assure you, dear reader, that even if you are not a master gardener or landscape architect, even if you struggle to keep the lowly mum looking appealing once it leaves the garden center, there may be something here for you to consider, ponder and enjoy.
  
  Penelope Lively is a rather new author for me. She's an incredibly adept author who had me constantly thinking, "Yes! She so gets it!" Her keen observations and careful plot development left me seeking more. When I learned I had won this book in a GoodReads give-away, I was excited but initially a bit disappointed when I realized it was not a work of fiction. Upon receiving my copy and after reading the intro, I sighed with relief and settled down for a comforting, adroit exposition of "Life in the Garden" which I can't imagine being more skillfully considered. This could easily be read in a single setting, but I did not. I savored her musings over several weeks, preferring instead to enjoy it a chapter at a time, sitting on my covered porch, in the peaceful setting of my own garden.
  
  Lively devotes a chapter to each of the following...The Written Garden while examining the gardens from literature, The Fashionable Garden, Time and Order in the Garden, Style and the Garden, Town and Country and Reality and Metaphor. Quoting a well-known garden writer commenting on eighteenth-century pretentiousness: "...English landscape was invented by gardeners imitating foreign painters who were evoking classical authors. The whole thing was brought home in the luggage from the grand tour. Here, look - Capability Brown doing Claude, who was doing Virgil...It's the Gothic novel expressed in landscape. Everything but vampires..." I'll admit, I have a tendency to skim over lengthy quotes from academic works, but I went back and read many of these quotes again because they were so insightful. For Americans, the formal British garden, the grandeur of a Capability Brown landscape or the less formal "cottage garden" are all styles and settings which most of us have seen and admired for their various appeal, but the actual origins and social influence beyond the finances required for an army of gardeners to create the gardens, never occurred to me.
  
  I found especially interesting her examination of the garden in art. Most of us are familiar with Monet, his gardens at Giverny and his ever-famous Water Lillies. I love Monet's garden paintings and know that they have set a high bar for so many would-be gardeners that aspire to at least a tiny section of a garden that would evoke the "feel" of Monet. It never before occurred to me that Monet actually carefully planned out his gardens, colors, placement and developed them for 20 YEARS so that his gardens would be the settings and color combinations he wanted to paint. Life imitating art, art reflecting life...
  
  The entire book is just under 200 pages. It is filled with references to plants that would shrivel and die in my central Texas environment but there is so much here to ponder, reference and explore. It was delightful to join Lively as she contemplated her childhood in the Egyptian desert garden, her extensive Oxfordshire garden from years past and now, her tiny London plot. From this short little gem of a book, I have referenced numerous books to either visit for a first time or re-visit with a different perspective. I have a list of gardens to explore during my next few trips to England and I have found the perfect gift for those who I know enjoy their time in the garden, whether their thumbs be black or green.
  
  
• 
  Suzy

  5 stars for the heartfelt and well-researched subject matter
  
  Penelope Lively has inherited her love of gardening down through her family’s generations, as well as a wealth of knowledge and mad skills. She shares her unique perspective and first-hand experience of gardens and gardening throughout history in six chapters.
  
  - Reality and Metaphor
  - The Written Garden
  - The Fashionable Garden
  - Time, Order and the Garden
  - Style and the Garden
  - Town and Country
  
  I loved what she had to say and learned a lot about gardens real, gardens imagined, plants and flowers of England, how garden design has changed throughout the centuries, fiction and non-fiction writing featuring gardens, how types of gardens reflect class and society in England and the wonderful, seemingly egalitarian system of “allotments” throughout the country. (The only reason I had a picture of these was from seeing the wonderful movie Another Year, a lovely Mike Leigh ensemble film that starts with the planting of the main couple’s garden in their allotment and follows them through the four seasons.
  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1431181/)
  
  5 stars for the beautiful book design
  
  This is a gorgeous physical book! I read the one with the cream background on the cover, and I see there’s one with a black background that looks equally beautiful. At the turn of each section, there is a lovely black/white illustration of various plants.
  
  2 stars for the clunky writing
  
  I have recently enjoyed Lively’s latest collection of short stories,
  The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories. Delightful! So, I was really surprised at how clunkily written this was. It felt like business writing, the old “tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them and then tell them what you told them”. In this book of essays, this structure became, unfortunately, predictable. And throughout the book, she said frequently “more about that later”. I wondered if she felt she was whetting our appetite, but for me this was annoying with a capital A! I never knew if she actually said more about “that” later. My last gripe is that she went off on tangents in every section and then made a little remark about why she went off on that tangent. Where was her editor! I wondered if she was rushing this to press, wanting to make sure these heartfelt essays were published.
  
  Nonetheless, I'm glad I read Life in the Garden and would recommend it.
• 
  Amálie

  Život v zahradě mě bohužel zklamal, co se obsahu a jeho formy týče. Nudila jsem se a čtení to bylo vskutku úmorné až nezáživné. Útěchou mi byl překlad, který byl stejně kouzelný jako obálka a úvodní stránky s jemnou kresbou rostlinek. Úplně nejmilejší mi však byla dvoustrana věnována Čapkovi a jeho dílu Zahradníkův rok.
  Veškeré informace se zdály být rozčleněny, ale pro jejich ohromné množství se slívaly do jednoho chumlu, tedy do všech (stran a růžků) jednotlivých stránek knihy.
  Většinu času jsem měla pocit, jako by Penelope Lively sepisovala jakousi zvláštně koncipovanou a nekonečnou seminární práci "O zahradách a kde všude je najít". Čili se jala popisovat všeckery příběhy zahrad fiktivních, malovaných, knižních, mýtických a v neposlední řadě také těch opravdových (malých, velkých, obrovských, venkovských, městských, zapomenutých)... Nechyběl tak ani výčet zahradníků, umělců, známých osobností a prostých duší + domněnky o tom, kdo ve skutečnosti byl správným zahradníkem či nikoliv.
  Působilo to na mě jako (do jisté míry) subjektivní rozbory knih, uměleckých děl a lidí. Nejspíš by na tom ani nebylo nic špatného, kdyby se to všechno netvářilo tak dokonale, perfektně. A přitom to bylo tak nudné, krásné a hrozné zároveň! Možná ta britská esence? Nechápu to a mrzí mě to, chtěla jsem mít tuhle knížku ráda.
  2.7
• 
  Hannah

  I started reading this book while staying with my aunt who has a spectacular, well established garden of large proportions. I finished it at home, where pots 3 or 4 deep line all sides of my courtyard. And while these gardens are opposites in many ways, at their core is a love for growing and creating. A wonderful example of the great variety that exists in gardens. No two are the same, but a love for the act of gardening itself (and not just the pretty garden that results) is what binds gardeners together.
  
  Penelope Lively writes about gardens the way Nigella Lawson writes about food - without pretension and with true delight. This makes it a joy to read as you will find plenty of commonality with Lively and learn many a new thing. From growing up in Egypt to her small London garden by way of large estates, country gardens, vegetable plots and everything in between. If Lively hasn’t lived it, she’s certainly wondered about it and wants us too wonder too. A gardeners’ mind is enquiring and inquisitive, and it shows well in this book.
  
  A wonderful read for any gardener, large or small.
  
  
• 
  Ruth Brumby

  Someone should have told her not to include 'ethnic cleansing' as a light hearted term for getting rid of slugs. Otherwise her opinions are delightfully expressed and the sense of personal history compensates for their lack of contemporaneity; it does feel like an old person's writing. It's a bit variable; parts have the excellent simplicity and clarity that I associate with Penelope Lively and parts feel a little under-researched and under-edited. I enjoyed reading it though, learned some interesting facts and made a long list of other books that i should have read but haven't yet.
  
  I admired it more on re-reading. The rambling and diversions are I think actually quite well planned and the writing is mostly a very clear summary of ideas about gardening.
• 
  Sem

  I'd have enjoyed this more had it just been about gardening (though I deplore her taste for white flowers) but as so much of it was about writers and gardens and I don't care for most of the writers she references it was a bit of an up and down affair. I'd thought that the garden parts would carry me through but I became irretrievably bored somewhere around Nancy Mitford and Edith Wharton. I can imagine that many readers would love this book and, certainly, I like the sort of book it is, but in the end three stars seemed a bit of a stretch.