Scan barcode
A review by gelert
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
I really thought I'd give this book 5*.
So much of it thrums with life using personal anecdotes and botanical knowledge to paint vivid pictures of times and places. The stories of strawberry and maple are to me the best part of this book.
Unfortunately in the last section - burning sweetgrass - the reading becomes a chore. While it was interesting to learn about the plight of Lake Onondaga I found the windigo metaphor fell very flat.
I am grateful to Robin Wall Kimmmerer for sharing her perspective and it is what suffuses the rest of the book with wonder. But when she turns to beat the drum of dread I can't help but feel like screaming about the wonder our modern world is capable of and the sheer enormity of our potential. The myth of degrowth is immensely harmful.
It is easy to wax poetic about a lost idyll and lament pollution but the miracle of the green revolution was feeding a population that has now surpassed 8 billion. Fewer and fewer people know the fear or a hunger moon. That hunger moon will become a distant dream. I reject an eden in which people can starve.
Still I am very glad to have read this book even if it fell short at the end it ran a good race.
So much of it thrums with life using personal anecdotes and botanical knowledge to paint vivid pictures of times and places. The stories of strawberry and maple are to me the best part of this book.
Unfortunately in the last section - burning sweetgrass - the reading becomes a chore. While it was interesting to learn about the plight of Lake Onondaga I found the windigo metaphor fell very flat.
I am grateful to Robin Wall Kimmmerer for sharing her perspective and it is what suffuses the rest of the book with wonder. But when she turns to beat the drum of dread I can't help but feel like screaming about the wonder our modern world is capable of and the sheer enormity of our potential. The myth of degrowth is immensely harmful.
It is easy to wax poetic about a lost idyll and lament pollution but the miracle of the green revolution was feeding a population that has now surpassed 8 billion. Fewer and fewer people know the fear or a hunger moon. That hunger moon will become a distant dream. I reject an eden in which people can starve.
Still I am very glad to have read this book even if it fell short at the end it ran a good race.