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The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession (Ballantine Reader's Circle) by Susan Orlean
Book Summary InformationAuthor: Susan Orlean Edition: Paperback Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published) Published: 2000-01-04 ISBN: 044900371X Number of pages: 320 Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession (Ballantine Reader's Circle)Book Review: Get Orchidelirium from Orlean Summary: 5 Stars
I went into this book with the only information I had about orchids being what I had gleaned from reading Nero Wolfe mysteries. (Wolfe is a portly detective who keeps thousand of the flowers in a greenhouse on the roof of his brownstone.) In addition, the main reason I read the book in the first place was--like most people my age--because I really enjoyed the movie Adaptation, which, for the unfamiliar, is a comedic film about screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's attempt to translate The Orchid Thief into cinematic form. But a couple of things prepared me for what I was getting myself into. First, Adaptation does a good job of introducing the audience to the characters of Susan Orlean and John Laroche before it takes them in an entirely different direction in the last third. And second, my own bibliophilic tendencies well-prepared me for the orchid obsession described within the book's pages. "John Laroche is a tall guy, skinny as a stick, pale-eyed, slouch-shouldered, and sharply handsome, in spite of the fact that he is missing all his front teeth." The first line of the book is one of those that could easily become a classic--a first line that, at the very least, will be included in one of those quizzes of first lines. It instantly describes the character 1 and puts you in a place where you are instantly familiar with him. (It is a testament to the moviemakers that they chose Chris Cooper for this role, who, like Laroche, is handsome--and became a sex symbol as a result of Adaptation--in spite of appearing in the film with no front teeth.) (This keeps turning into the film review I thought I wasn't going to write, but I think I'll just go with it and see how it turns out. It does make sense that I would notice similarities and differences in the film and book, so we'll just see what happens.) Orlean's prose is conversational and introspective. Like the film (there I go again!), the writer is really the main character here. She tells the story, and how the orchid obsession surrounding her affected her (for one thing, it made her fear contact with the flowers lest she become obsessed), and there are scenes where Laroche is not present, but never one where Orlean isn't. In the end, I was fascinated by Laroche, but I remained distant, as I was simply being told what things about him Orlean wanted me to know. However, Susan Orlean herself came through as a fully-realized character, with all her prejudices and motives intact. The Orchid Thief is a quick read and I enjoyed every page. My only complaint is with the ending. Kaufman calls the book "sprawling New Yorker-type stuff" and it resembles that magazine's fiction choices in the infamous manner of them not having endings. The book simply stops. I was being carried along--and didn't notice how close I was to the end due to the Reading Group guide in the back--and then I felt dropped as Orlean ends her book without even having finished her current scene. It was as if she said, "282 pages, that's enough" and then hurried up to finish. She normally used the mechanism of "show, don't tell," but in order to wind it up quickly, she tells an event, that could have taken up another five or ten pages, in half a paragraph. It was jarring and didn't fit in with the tone of the rest of the book. But, as I said, that is my only complain with a book that taught me a lot about flowers and about its author. I noticed that Orlean has written other books (some of which are in the column on the right), so I think I'll check some of those out.
Summary of The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession (Ballantine Reader's Circle)A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
A modern classic of personal journalism, The Orchid Thief is Susan Orlean?s wickedly funny, elegant, and captivating tale of an amazing obsession.
From Florida?s swamps to its courtrooms, the New Yorker writer follows one deeply eccentric and oddly attractive man?s possibly criminal pursuit of an endangered flower. Determined to clone the rare ghost orchid, Polyrrhiza lindenii, John Laroche leads Orlean on an unforgettable tour of America?s strange flower-selling subculture, along with the Seminole Indians who help him and the forces of justice who fight him. In the end, Orlean?and the reader?will have more respect for underdog determination and a powerful new definition of passion.
Praise for The Orchid Thief:
?Fascinating . . . tales of theft, hatred, greed, jealousy, madness, and backstabbing . . . an engrossing journey.? ?Los Angeles Times
?Irresistible . . . a brilliantly reported account of an illicit scheme to housebreak Florida?s wild and endangered ghost orchid . . . Its central figure is John Laroche, the ?oddball ultimate? of a subculture whose members are so enthralled by orchids they ?pursue them like lovers.? ? ?Minneapolis Star Tribune
?Artful . . . in Ms. Orlean?s skillful handling, her orchid story turns out to be distinctly ?something more.? . . . [Her] portrait of her sometimes sad-making orchid thief allows the reader to discover acres of opportunity where intriguing things can be found.? ?The New York Times
?Zestful . . . a swashbuckling piece of reporting that celebrates some virtues that made America great.? ?The Wall Street Journal
?Deliciously weird . . . compelling.? ?Detroit Free Press Orchidelirium is the name the Victorians gave to the flower madness that is for botanical collectors the equivalent of gold fever. Wealthy orchid fanatics of that era sent explorers (heavily armed, more to protect themselves against other orchid seekers than against hostile natives or wild animals) to unmapped territories in search of new varieties of Cattleya and Paphiopedilum. As knowledge of the family Orchidaceae grew to encompass the currently more than 60,000 species and over 100,000 hybrids, orchidelirium might have been expected to go the way of Dutch tulip mania. Yet, as journalist Susan Orlean found out, there still exists a vein of orchid madness strong enough to inspire larceny among collectors. The Orchid Thief centers on south Florida and John Laroche, a quixotic, charismatic schemer once convicted of attempting to take endangered orchids from the Fakahatchee swamp, a state preserve. Laroche, a horticultural consultant who once ran an extensive nursery for the Seminole tribe, dreams of making a fortune for the Seminoles and himself by cloning the rare ghost orchid Polyrrhiza lindenii. Laroche sums up the obsession that drives him and so many others: I really have to watch myself, especially around plants. Even now, just being here, I still get that collector feeling. You know what I mean. I'll see something and then suddenly I get that feeling. It's like I can't just have something--I have to have it and learn about it and grow it and sell it and master it and have a million of it. Even Orlean--so leery of orchid fever that she immediately gives away any plant that's pressed upon her by the growers in Laroche's circle--develops a desire to see a ghost orchid blooming and makes several ultimately unsuccessful treks into the Fakahatchee. Filled with Palm Beach socialites, Native Americans, English peers, smugglers, and naturalists as improbably colorful as the tropical blossoms that inspire them, this is a lyrical, funny, addictively entertaining read. --Barrie Trinkle
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