Plants and People

Posts

The Omnivores Dilemma

Reading both Omnivores Dilemma and Botany of Desire you realize how Pollan can adapt his voice to the message he is trying to convey to his audience. In Botany of Desire he is trying to paint the world of botany using his literary paint brush. This is a stark contrast to his voice in The Omnivores Dilemma where his writing technique feels much more grounded and relatable. Throughout this book and his shared experiences, he brings you along for the journey with him and you don’t even notice. When Pollan is describing “the Salatins brick colonial” his description makes me feel as though I could blow the dust off the neatly framed needlepoints. But much more than his writing style I find his messaging and principles throughout the book are presented in a much more manageable and relatable fashion. When Pollan describes the “killing zone” and how “the most morally troubling thing about killing chickens is that after a while it is no longer morally troubling” makes me think of the lack...

Botany of Desire

I'm still in Kamloops Reading Pollan’s Botany of desire tends to make me nervous as his writing style can either come across as witty and fun or slightly drawn out and boring. Starting off this chapter I began to worry as his first metaphor well, let’s say it was not my favorite. Pollan begins by using a lot of religious symbolism and analogies, which I though was odd and slightly out of place. It was not until he started talking about cannabis that I began to understand what he was eluding to. I’m by no means religious, however I gather he is making a connection between the temptations of an ex illicit drug such as cannabis and picking the apple off the tree in the bible (or one of those books, genesis?). Even though his metaphor made more sense to me, I still didn’t like it. My feeling began to change however when Pollan described his interaction with the police chief while buying some fire wood; I did something I had not yet done while reading Pollan, Laugh. Later in this cha...

Triumph of Seeds

Thor Hanson begins this chapter by describing the seeds of a tree he had spent a lot of time with during his doctoral research, the almendro tree. Thor describes the almendro tree is as if it is where a mother, not only developing protection for its seed but also providing food to the rest of the forest. The almendro tree to Thor is not just a tree, but a real person. On page 117 Thor presents almendro as a conscious character, for example saying that the “almendro wants its seeds dispersed”. This reminds me of a book by Frans de Waal, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? In this book, Frans discussed behaviorists and ethologists, the main distinction being their interpretation of an animals (or in this case a plants) actions in their environment. Based on how Thor talks about the almendro tree, I would categorize him as a behaviorist. He tends to make little distinction when describing a tree, insect, rat or human. To him they are all capable of preforming tasks and...

The Botany of Desire

The Title of the first chapter is sweetness plant: the apple, on Page 17 Pollan says that “back when the experience of sweetness was so special that the word served as a metaphor for a certain kind of perfection”. So, this chapter should really be called perfect plant: the apple. While the apple is truly sweet, not all its history comes from a candy shop. In this chapter, they describe a apples of the time being used as a cider. Due to it being used in an alcoholic beverage, the Women’s Christian Temperance declared “war” on the apple. This is not bad for a sweet fruit to evoke such emotion. However, this emotional attachment to fruit seems to be found all over early America. On page 15 Chapman is quoted as saying “but that is only a device of man, and it is wicked to cut up trees that way” in reference to grafted trees “the correct method is to select seeds and plant them in the ground and god can only improve the apple”. If only phones were a thing during Chap...

Omnivores Dilemma

While I do like Michael Pollan’s writing style, I believe his angst to make an interesting story occasionally obstructs the scientific accuracy even if slightly. He made misstatement many time when trying to convey a point but two on pages 20 and 21 made me want to immediately point this out. The first is when he says “After water, carbon is the most common element in our body”, well no carbon IS the most common element, water isn’t an element. The second was when he said “It is more than a figure of speech to say life is created out of thin air” air is a combination of molecules many of which are not required for photosynthesis. This may be very nit-picky, however when writing a book trying to make scientific points a certain level of credibility needs to be maintained. It makes me nervous that he sacrifices that for entertainment value. I enjoyed Pollans use of George the corn farmer from Iowa in this book. He is the focus of Pollan early on, and he takes u...

GUNS GERMS AND STEEL

I found the way Jared Diamond introduces the two paths of human history to be an eye-opening reality for me. I have never thought of how there are agricultural practices and hunter gatherer practices are differentiated. In chapter 4 Jared Diamond speaks on how hunter gatherers tend to only have children once every four years because they need their children to can run with the tribe before rearing another young. He also points out that hunter gatherers generally don’t have political systems or the same hierarchical structure as with agricultural based societies. It is proposed that having these resources being heavily available (an excess of available calories) allows for individuals to differentiate themselves beyond the pressures of a “normal life” such and hunting and gathering. This is when you see kingdoms, taxes, Priests, armies etc. In chapter 4 on page 93 Jared Diamond begins to ask why crops and agriculture developed in early years in places like Iraq an...