Second Nature by Michael Pollan
Philosopher Of Gardening
Eight years ago, Harpers Magazine editor Michael Pollan bought an old
Connecticut dairy farm. He planted a garden and attempted to follow
Thoreaus example: do not impose your will upon the wilderness, the
woodchucks, or the weeds. That ethic did not, of course, work. But neither
did pesticides or firebombing the woodchuck burrow. So Michael Pollan
began to think about the troubled borders between nature and
contemporary life.
The result is a funny, profound, and beautifully written book in the finest
tradition of American nature writing. It inspires thoughts on the war of the
roses; sex and class conflict in the garden; virtuous composting; the
American lawn; seed catalogs, and the politics of planting a tree. A blend
of meditation, autobiography, and social history, Second Nature is
ultimately a modern Walden: a true classic for our time.

Personal Review: Second Nature by Michael Pollan
SECOND NATURE is not your normal gardening book. There aren't a lot
of "how to" instructions here for planting, nurturing and harvesting. There
are, however, innumerable more important things here.
Pollan takes his reader on a journey of discovery, asking cogent questions
about man's relationship to nature, about the proper way to conserve
wilderness, about the social strata of contemporary seed catalogs, about
the best way to design a garden to achieve our spiritual goals (although his
way of expressing it isn't nearly as hokey-sounding as my wording), about
the sexual metaphors of roses, about the quasi-religious movement of
composting, and about the historical evolution in the way we have looked
at trees.
His writing is often humorous as well as something most of us can relate to
in our own experiences. In his early battles with garden-eating rodents, his
ill-considered attempt to napalm a woodchuck makes for absolutely
hilarious reading, and the story of his father's rebellion against the
neighbors' edict that he mow his lawn is exhilarating. Throughout much of
the book, we do, however, come to learn a serious lesson. The realistic
gardener does not attempt to subdue nature nor to surrender to it, but to
work with nature as a part of it, to be realistic in determining what can and
cannot be accomplished, and to influence rather than conquer (especially
since conquering is not really possible after all).
For both the neophyte and the experienced gardener, SECOND NATURE
is probably more important and useful than a "how to" book for it will reveal
the overarching philosophy that drives the gardener's actions. For the
suburbanite whose gardening is pretty much limited to manicuring his
portion of The Great American Lawn and planting a few decorative shrubs
here and there, it is utterly indispensable for it will reveal the shallow
artificiality of such kowtowing to social "propriety."
Pollan's lessons are painless. He never preaches. He never rants. He
never proselytizes. His writing is both humorous and instructive. It unveils
historical trends in man's relationship toward gardens, wildlands, and
lawns that most readers, with our limited visions of life in the 17th and 18th
centuries, never suspected. Most importantly, the reader finishes his book
with a genuinely new appreciation of man's place in nature, with an
understanding that it is okay to make his mark upon nature (because he is
part of it), and with the knowledge of how to make that mark positive, non-
destructive, and productive.
I heartedly recommend SECOND NATRURE to everyone who has ever
planted a garden (productively or otherwise), who has ever thought about
planting a garden, who has ever mowed a lawn, who has ever wondered
about the best methods of protecting wilderness areas, who has ever
written a letter in support of or opposition to environmental activists, or

who, though city-bound and surrounded by asphalt, has ever wondered
about man's proper place on the earth. SECOND NATURE has, if not
universal, then at least very widespread appeal to all sorts of readers.
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