Orwell’s Roses - Rebecca Solnit
Hi everyone!
Our next book will be Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit. It’s a beautiful book and perhaps a balm to some of the heaviness of our last book ‘On Fire’. Although a central theme is of course George Orwell, Solnit discusses the climate crisis, social movements, political language, histories of the left and structural inequalities in contemporary society.
We will be hosting our online book club on the 15th May and our IRL session on the 16th May from 7-9pm at Housmans, here's a link to tickets for the IRL event. Also Housmans have kindly offered us a 20% discount code for the book which is ilovebookclub and you can also use the code COLLECTION to save on postage if you want to pick the book up at the shop.
Since it’s sometimes hard to get through an entire book before we see each other again, for our next meeting we will focus on 3-4 key chapters in the text!
ORWELL'S ROSES - REBECCA SOLNIT
Outside my work the thing I care most about is gardening - George Orwell
Inspired by her encounter with the surviving roses that Orwell is said to have planted in his cottage in Hertfordshire, Rebecca Solnit explores how his involvement with plants, particularly flowers, illuminates his other commitments as a writer and antifascist, and the intertwined politics of nature and power.
Following his journey from the coal mines of England to taking up arms in the Spanish Civil War; from his prescient critique of Stalin to his analysis of the relationship between lies and authoritarianism, Solnit finds a more hopeful Orwell, whose love of nature pulses through his work and actions. And in her dialogue with the author, she makes fascinating forays into colonial legacies in the flower garden, discovers photographer Tina Modotti's roses, reveals Stalin's obsession with growing lemons in impossibly cold conditions, and exposes the brutal rose industry in Colombia.
A fresh reading of a towering figure of the 20th century which finds solace and solutions for the political and environmental challenges we face today, Orwell's Roses is a remarkable reflection on pleasure, beauty, and joy as acts of resistance.
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
Roses by Tina Modotti
Tina Modotti Biography - MOMA (Article)
Homage to Catalonia - George Orwell (Book)
In 1936, George Orwell volunteered as a soldier in the Spanish Civil War. In Homage to Catalonia, first published just before the outbreak of World War II, Orwell documents the chaos and bloodshed of that moment in history and the voices of those who fought against rising fascism.
His experience of the civil war would spark a significant change in his own political views, which readers today will recognise in much of his later literary work; a rage against the threat of totalitarianism and control.
"If you are ever feeling a bit political down read the first couple of chapters about anarchist Barcelona. We can make such a liberated world" - Loz
Talking About A Revolution - Yasmin Abdel-Magied
Yassmin Abdel-Magied started out a dynamic, optimistic, naive, youthful grass-roots organiser and oil rig worker before she found herself taking on the heft of the Australian political and media establishment, unintentionally. From her new home in Europe she brings her characteristic warmth, clarity and inquisitive nature to the concepts of 'the private and public self' and 'systems and society' that structure this collection.
In 'The Private and Public Self', Yassmin shares her passions for cars and cryptocurrency as well as the personal challenges around her activism and leaving Australia. She provides a hearty defence of hobbies and expands on the value and process of carving out a private life and self in an incredibly public-facing world. The concept of identity when one is a 'forever migrant' - by ancestry, and by choice - is interrogated, as is what it means to organise for social justice when you aren't sure where you belong.
In 'Systems and Society', through essays on cultural appropriation, the meaning of citizenship, and unconscious bias, Yassmin charts how her thinking on activism, transformative change and justice has evolved. She brings an abolitionist lens to social justice work and, recalling her days as a young revolutionary, encourages younger generations of activists to decide if it is empowerment they are working towards, or power.
In all these essays, written with the passion, lived-experience and intelligence of someone who wants to improve our world, the concept of revolution, however big or small, is ever-present.
What Remains and Other Stories - Christa Wolf (Book)
What Remains collects Christa Wolf's short fiction, from her early work in the sixties to the recently published title story, which was widely debated when it appeared in Germany in 1990.These powerful and often very personal stories examine a wide range of topics, from sexual politics to the nature of memory. In "What Remains," an East German writer who is under observation by the secret police traces the way in which this almost constant surveillance gradually destroys every shred of normalcy in her life.
"is a powerful fictitious recount of a woman living under Eastern Germany surveillance, openly watched by the stasi -- book was written in the 70s but only published after the Berlin Wall fell. It's reaaaaally good. this is more with your political power themes and language -- how ones external then very quickly internal language changes when youre naked in front of the state" - Pao
Erich Fromm's "Escape From Freedom" (Book)
Why do people choose authoritarianism over freedom? The classic study of the psychological appeal of fascism by a New York Times–bestselling author. The pursuit of freedom has indelibly marked Western culture since Renaissance humanism and Protestantism began the fight for individualism and self-determination. This freedom, however, can make people feel unmoored, and is often accompanied by feelings of isolation, fear, and the loss of self, all leading to a desire for authoritarianism, conformity, or destructiveness. It is not only the question of freedom that makes Fromm’s debut book a timeless classic. In this examination of the roots of Nazism and fascism in Europe, Fromm also explains how economic and social constraints can also lead to authoritarianism.
"One book on authoritarianism which I think has several themes pertinent to ecology is Erich Fromm's "Escape From Freedom" - a major Frankfurt School scholar's attempt to understand the phenomenon (and popular appeal) of fascism from a psychoanalytic perspective." - Franklin
The Disenchanted Earth: Reflections on Ecosocialism and Barbarism - Richard Seymour (Book)
From Richard Seymour, one of the UK’s leading public intellectuals, comes a characteristic blend of forensic insight and analysis, personal journey, and a vivid respect for the natural world.
A planetary fever-dream. An environmental awakening that is also a sleep-walking, unsteadily weaving between history, earth science, psychoanalysis, evolution, biology, art and politics. A search for transcendence, beyond the illusory eternal present.
These essays chronicle the kindling of ecological consciousness in a confessed ignoramus. They track the first enchantment of the author, his striving to comprehend the coming catastrophe, and his attempt to formulate a new global sensibility in which we value anew what unconditionally matters.
"not had the chance to read it yet but I have always find him to be a quite uniquely incisive writer on this topic from his wider writings." - Franklin
also seems to be increasingly writing on the thematics of freedom / liberty and authoritarianism (among other issues) on his Patreon blog, often quite explicitly exploring their bearing on the ecological crisis. - Franklin
Perry Anderson and Christopher Hitchens in LRB letters regarding Orwell’s collaboration with British intelligence services.
"Quite niche, I know, but I recently read a great exchange between Perry Anderson and Christopher Hitchens in LRB letters regarding Orwell’s collaboration with British intelligence services. (Hitchens was responding to Anderson’s article ‘A Ripple of the Polonaise’" - J D Stewart
REVIEW
“Orwell’s Roses” by Rebecca Solnit is a ‘love letter in prose to those roses, to Orwell and to the enduring relevance of his ethical sensibility’. It calls us to remember to enjoy beauty in a world that often times feels rather bleak, and emphasises the world changing potential of imagination and art. Written in Solnit’s signature collage-esque style, Orwell’s roses weaves between rose farms in south America, the class dynamics of the manicured estates of the British landed gentry and goes down into the coal mines of the UK before coming back up to engage with soviet era scientific method and political rhetoric. I loved learning about historic social movements and found comfort in the sentiment that each time we are seeking to make a change we’re not starting from scratch but we are instead re-propagating the seeds that the older generations have left us ❤️🔥
“Good exists as a kind of seed that needs to be tended more energetically or propagated more widely”
So what did the hothouse hive think?
The main criticism the group had was that despite emphasising the importance of engaging with and enjoying nature, Solnit does not extend into critiquing the lack of access to nature in present day England – despite situating a lot of her book there.
We also found it interesting that she didn’t draw modern day parallels between how politics can dominate scientific knowledge when she gives historical examples of it. She writes a lot about how the Soviet Union favoured Lamarckism over Darwinism and how this led to famine but she fails to extend this to the present day where right wing denial of climate science also puts us on a path for disaster.
