TITLE: Gardener to the KingAUTHOR: Frederic Richaud
STARTED: September 7, 2008
FINISHED: September 9, 2008
PAGES: 120
GENRE: Fiction
FIRST SENTENCE: At Versailles all the talk was of war.
SUMMARY: [From barnesandnoble.com] August 1674 - Louis XIV, one of Europe's greatest sovereigns, celebrates his armies' victory over Holland. At Versailles, his favorite of the royal residences, everything must reflect the glory of the Sun King.
In this world of pomp and show, one man remains detached from the procession of servants soldiers, politicians, diplomats, flatterers, and self-seekers that daily surrounds the King. As gardener to His Majesty, Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie is master of his own domain, the royal fruit and vegetable garden. Louis' generals might proclaim the power of France abroad, but La Quintinie's espaliers and vegetable plots assert nothing less than man's mastery over nature: a garden that can feed a thousand at a sitting, standards of pruning that in three hundred years have never been surpassed. Once a lawyer who turned his back on a brilliant career to pursue his love of horticulture, La Quintinie became, in the process, as artist.
His skill is admired by the King and revered by savants, his freedom is envied by all - the rhythms he observes are not those of the courtly dance but of the seasons. As the autocratic might of the King fules the rising hysteria around him, La Quintinie's wide humanitarian sympathies are with the soil and those who live by it. For the kitchen garden at Versailles harbors not only a great courtier, gardener, and provider, but also a secret radical.
THOUGHTS: I still can't figure out the point of this book. This brief novella is a beautifully written study of the French court at the time. Other than that, I didn't get it. This guy loved his garden. I guess, in a way, this was a love story between man and the earth.
Now that I think about it, that is exactly what this is. Richaud has written a beautiful relationship between a gardener and his garden. He loves it, and he hates to see how his product is corrupted by society... much like how power corrupts the people.
Ah, metaphor. How I wish I got that as I was reading this book.
RATING: 4/10 [An "okay" book]
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