The Botany of Desire & Guns, Germs and Steel

In the book The Botany of Desire Michael Pollan introduces us to the relationship we share with plants. He talks of a subject and object and contemplates who is who. On page xiv Michael says “A Bumblebee would probably also regard himself as the subject in the garden and the bloom he’s plundering for its drop of nectar as an object. But we know that this is just a failure of his imagination.”. This is a great point, like the Bumblebee we tend to place ourselves as the subject as Michael also describes, but we must look at nature and our role in agriculture to find this may not be completely true. I found the writing of Michael slightly frustrating however. It’s not that I think he’s a bad writer, but rather for my personal tastes I found he ran with a point for too long. It felt like he was trying to dress it up and throw flamboyant descriptions at straight forward topics. It was almost like I was being taught how to do simple math (1+2) but with the length and description of an academic paper or Shakespeare play. In the second paragraph on page xvii he describes co-evolution and our role in on agriculture. That paragraph to me felt cluttered and I was almost hopeful for it to be done. He could have gotten the same point across with one maybe two concise statements rather than a whole paragraph.

In Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond I much preferred his writing style in comparison to that of Michaels. It was much more clear, concise and I actually enjoyed reading it due to its directness. One of the first points made by Jared on Page 116 was that strawberries not only utilize animals to disperse their seeds but control which seeds are eaten. I found it remarkable that what we consider a ripened fruit is a fruit that a plant has deemed ready for us to eat not the other way around.

References

 Michael Pollan (2001). The Botany of Desire, A Plant’s-Eye View of the World. Manhattan, New York: Random House.

Jared Diamond (1997). Guns, Germs and Steel, The Fates of Human Societies. New York, New York: W.W. Norton.