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Title: The Orchid Thief : A True Story of Beauty and Obsession by Susan Orlean ISBN: 0-449-00371-X Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 04 January, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.54 (129 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Passion for orchids. And the writer's passion for the story
Comment: I love to learn new things. That's why this 1998 book by journalist Susan Orlean appealed to me. It's about orchids. And one particular eccentric man with a scheme to grow rich from Florida's endangered Ghost Orchid. But mostly, it's about the passion surrounding the special world of the orchid lover. And, also, it's about the writer's own passion for a good story.
On a visit to Florida, Ms. Orleans just happened to see a small article in the local newspaper about John Laroche, accused of stealing orchids from the Fakahatchee Swamp. On a whim, she went to the trial, became interested in the subject and, with a sense of humor and a great way with words, she takes the reader on her own journey of discovery. I love Ms. Orleans' writing. For example, she describes John Laroche as having "the posture of al dente spaghetti" and "the bulk and shape of a coat hanger".
I identified with the writer's experience completely. I was right with her as she explored the hot mucky swamps. And I listened with her ears as she interviewed collectors, business people and law enforcement agents. I learned about the Seminole Indians and their own particular story. I learned a lot of orchid history dating back hundreds of years which included a whole cast of European plunderers, smugglers and naturalists. And I learned about Florida, with all its beauty and land grabbing and swamps and personalities. A lot of research went into this book. It's full of facts and figures as well as the writer's personal observations. It certainly taught me a lot. It even drove me to the Internet to find out when the next orchid show will be in New York. I know I'll be there.
I loved this book and give it an extremely high recommendation. It certainly opened a whole new world for me.
Rating: 5
Summary: Flower powered.
Comment: I was inspired to read Susan Orlean's "true story of beauty and obsession" after seeing the movie "Adaptation" twice in one week. THE ORCHID THIEF is a fascinating love story: "When a man falls in love with orchids, he'll do anything to possess the one he wants. It's like chasing a green-eyed woman or taking cocaine . . . it's a sort of madness" (p. 78). And Orlean's book is as much about exotic orchids as the eccentric characters who collect them.
THE ORCHID THIEF evolved out of a article Orleans first published in "The New Yorker" magazine about John Laroche's 1994 trial for removing endangered orchids from Florida's Fakahatchee swamp. Thirty-six-year-old Laroche is a tall, skinny guy, "with the posture of al dente spaghetti," Orleans writes, "and sharply handsome, in spite of the fact that he is missing all his front teeth" (p. 4). Laroche's life has been a series of obsessions, from Ice Age fossils, turtles, and old mirrors, to orchids. In writing about Laroche's criminal lust for orchids, Orleans ultimately discovers her own "unembarrassing passion--I want to know what it feels like to care about something passionately" (p. 41). Laroche's oddball obsessions offer Orleans a meaningful lesson in "getting immersed in something, and learning about it, and having it become a part of your life" (p. 279).
With its lessons in living a passionate life, exotic flowers, quirky characters, muddy swamps filled with snapping turtles, rattlesnakes, bugs and critters--who could ask for anything more from a book?
G. Merritt
Rating: 4
Summary: Passion turned obsession
Comment: I first saw the movie 'Adaptation': a film adaptation of the book 'The Orchid Thief.' The movie became, before the end, myopic in that hollwood-filming-itself way that only large budget films with too many contributors can manage. It boils down to who will win in controlling the story: the subject of the book (Laroche), the writer of the book (Orlean), or the screenwriter (played by Nicolas Cage). To make a long story short, the movie was so-so but the orchid descriptions and photos made my wife and I gasp in astonishment. Also, the Laroche character was compelling in an unexplainable way.
So I decided to read the book. The book is non-fiction and thankfully has little to do with the strange plot of the movie. Even if you don't normally read non-fiction, however, you'll like this one as the author uses that fluid, conversational, New Yorker style that pulls you in and delivers interesting anecdotes at just the right times. If you like Updike's writing, you'll enjoy that of Orlean.
The book centers, above all, on the fine line between passion and obsession. This dangerous transition is personified in real-world orchid figure Laroche of south Florida. While innocuously building a nursery business with his wife, he finds success and outlet for his passion for plants.
But as disaster besets him (fatal car crash, hurricane, divorce, financial woes, legal trouble), we start to see what really makes him tick. He is a survivor, a quick thinker, a schemer, a dreamer and, unlike most of us, a just-do-it person. Throughout his life he has a knack for focusing on something, quickly becoming an expert at it, and transforming that passion into a vocation.
Orchids, however, pull him into the land of obsession. We can see this by comparing Laroche with a spectrum of figures in the book who observe orchids with varying degrees of appreciation, lust, envy, wonder, nurture, exploitation, conservation and commercialization. Along the way we learn about the history of orchids in the Western culture, their natural habitats from the cloud forests of South America to the hot, humid jungles of southeast Asia. The author tells us how difficult it is to grow orchids from seed, but how emotionally and financially rewarding it can be to design your own orchid hybrid. Finally, we are told that orchids are immortal, with many plants alive for several human generations, being passed on with reverence, and are still going strong today.
This book contains much, well-researched information on orchids, orchid hunters, orchid growers, and orchid shows and societies but it is, most of all, an illustration of the phenomenon of human passion and obsession: the distinction being that passion is motivating and guiding whereas obsession is reckless and self-destructive. In obsession, the thing outside becomes more valuable than the self-image, and crazy actions are espoused. Hence Larouche's scheme to build an orchid lab on Native American soil, use their legal exemptions to collect wild ghost orchids from otherwise protected state preserves, and aim to be the first to clone and grow in quantity the extremely rare ghost orchid.
Laroche, missing a few front teeth and uttering phrases mixing plant names (in latin) with profanity embodies, in one man, the interesting mix of high culture and low intrigue that seem married to the international trade of orchids. Thankfully the book goes deep into the man Larouche, of his motivations and excesses, of his passions and interior wounds. This man, who is also the most compelling portion of the film adaptation of the book, is carefully plumbed in this non-fiction work.
The result of all this, for the reader, is a great appreciation for the evolutionary success of orchids, the importance of preserving them, shock at what people will do to acquire them, and perhaps a better understanding of why some people pursue things to their destruction while others can play in the same space, with wholesome enjoyment, forever.
I should warn you that, after the movie and the book, my curiousity of orchids led me to read five or six non-fiction, how-to books on orchid cultivation. I can report, based upon those other works, that the research in 'The Orchid Thief' is very good. There are little inaccuracies, mainly with regards to the claim that orchids have no natural enemies. A more correct statement is that they have not many natural enemies. However, I'm learning from my local orchid group, they still suffer from things like fungal rot, red spider mites and orchid viruses that can attack them. So while they don't seem to senesce or kill themselves through aging (they probably don't need to, since they reproduce so infrequently) they can in fact die of from these competitors, pests, and diseases.
So, yes, I'm growing an orchid plant now and have my eyes on a few others. Let's hope I keep my interest in the realm of passion, and avoid all the extremes of obsession highlighted in 'The Orchid Thief.' And wherever Larouche is now, my hat's off to you for your courage, ingenuity, resourcefulness, wit, charm, and--most of all--your passion!
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Title: Orchid Fever : A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy by Eric Hansen ISBN: 0679771832 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 13 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title:Adaptation (Superbit Collection) ASIN: B00005JLRE Publisher: Columbia Tri-Star Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $16.36 |
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Title: The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup : My Encounters with Extraordinary People by Susan Orlean ISBN: 0375758631 Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 08 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Adaptation: The Shooting Script (Newmarket Shooting Script Series) by Charlie Kaufman, Donald Kaufman ISBN: 1557045119 Publisher: Newmarket Press Pub. Date: January, 2003 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Ultimate Orchid by Smithsonian Institution, American Orchid Society, Thomas J. Sheehan, Smithsonian Institution, American Orchid Society ISBN: 0789480441 Publisher: DK Publishing Pub. Date: October, 2001 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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