{"id":41929,"date":"2022-07-15T09:05:12","date_gmt":"2022-07-15T16:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929"},"modified":"2022-07-15T09:05:15","modified_gmt":"2022-07-15T16:05:15","slug":"cheating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929","title":{"rendered":"Cheating"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I am knee-deep in several independent writing projects and so, this once (or once again?) I will cheat and put someone else’s review of a book (Orwell’s Roses<\/a><\/em>) I recommend up here, instead of my own. You still get the photographs of last week’s wonders in the mystery garden, though. And, in case you missed it, here are my own thoughts<\/a> on Orwell, gardening and the disappearance of marital labor, from some time back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Here is the link<\/a> to the review of Rebecca Solnit’s Orwell’s Roses<\/a><\/em> by Gaby Hinsliff. I am attaching the full text below for those who do not have access to The Guardian<\/em> where it was published last year. If you have read it already, you might also be interested in the 2022 winner, announced yesterday, of The Orwell Society<\/em>‘s Political Writing award: Sally Hayden’s My Fourth Time,<\/em> We Drowned. <\/em>Here<\/a> is a review from March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n


Orwell\u2019s Roses by Rebecca Solnit review \u2013 deadheading with the writer and thinker<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Inspired by George Orwell\u2019s love of gardening, Solnit\u2019s suitably rambling book should appeal to the green-fingered and the politically committed alike<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>T<\/strong>he roses are in dire need of pruning. My rambler in particular is getting very tangled; too many whipping tendrils snaking out haphazardly at all angles. But it\u2019s so pretty it\u2019s hard to be properly brutal with it, even though it would probably benefit from some judicious thinning. And yes, it is the experience of reading Rebecca Solnit\u2019s Orwell\u2019s Roses<\/a><\/em> that has jogged my memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The book simultaneously is and isn\u2019t about George Orwell<\/a>, just as it is and isn\u2019t about roses. It belongs in a whimsical category of its own, meandering elegantly enough through lots of subjects loosely connected to one or the other; more of a wildly overgrown essay, from which side shoots constantly emerge to snag the attention, than a book. But at its root is the fact that in 1936, the writer and political thinker planted some roses in his Hertfordshire garden. And when Solnit turns up on the doorstep more than eight decades later, she finds the rose bushes (or at least what she takes to be the same rose bushes) still flowering, a living connection between past and present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From this blooms the most enjoyable part of the book \u2013 a reflection on what gardening may have meant to Orwell, but also what it means to gardeners everywhere; beauty for today, hope for tomorrow, and a desire to create something for those who come after \u2013 all of which find an echo in the best of politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make a garden is to feel, in Solnit\u2019s words, more \u201cagrarian, settled, to bet on a future in which the roses and trees would bloom for years and the latter would bear fruit in decades to come\u201d. By the time Orwell\u2019s roses flowered that summer, the Spanish civil war had broken out. As they grew, Europe spiralled closer to conflict. But the buds would still swell and the petals would still fall, and in the midst of death there would be new life, a cycle that helps explain why gardens and nature more generally have been such a comfort to so many through the grief and loss of the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

But roses, in Solnit\u2019s story, don\u2019t merely symbolise the eternal. They also symbolise joy, frivolity and a kind of sensual pleasure not always associated with Orwell, so often presented as a rather dour and austere figure; a chronicler of hardship in his writings on the low-paid and exploited, and in his fiction a prophet of doom, warning against the evils of totalitarianism. By choosing to focus on the gardens he planted \u2013 in Hertfordshire and, later, on the farm he bought on the Scottish island of Jura<\/a> \u2013 and the happiness they brought him, Solnit restores something often missing not only from Orwell but from the political tradition of which he is part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But not all the branching diversions of this book are so successful. A chapter on coal, which ends by arguing that Orwell\u2019s planting of a garden half a century before climate change entered the public consciousness could be interpreted as the nurturing of \u201ca few more carbon-sequestering, oxygen-producing organisms\u201d, feels at best tortuously grafted on to the rest. I could have happily taken the secateurs to Solnit\u2019s musings on the coincidence between being served Jaffa Cakes on her British Air [sic] flight to Britain and then reading an article about Palestinian children visiting the beach at Jaffa \u2013 an anecdote that tells the reader nothing of any significance about either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

But then into every garden a little bindweed creeps. The green-fingered and the politically committed alike will want to curl up with this book as the gardening year draws to a close and we reflect on a time during which nature has been more of a solace than usual. It\u2019s been a good year for the roses, at least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“A rose is a rose is a rose,” said Gertrude Stein. Well here is a musical bouquet of a rose and a rose and a rose. Faur\u00e9<\/a>, Schubert<\/a> in a Fritz Wunderlich performance, and Berlioz<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am knee-deep in several independent writing projects and so, this once (or once again?) I will cheat and put someone else’s review of a book (Orwell’s Roses) I recommend up here, instead of my own. You still get the photographs of last week’s wonders in the mystery garden, though. And, in case you missed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,1,36],"tags":[900],"class_list":["post-41929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literature","category-uncategorized","category-politics","tag-rebecca-solnit"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCheating - YDP - your daily picture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cheating\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I am knee-deep in several independent writing projects and so, this once (or once again?) I will cheat and put someone else’s review of a book (Orwell’s Roses) I recommend up here, instead of my own. You still get the photographs of last week’s wonders in the mystery garden, though. And, in case you missed […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"YDP - your daily picture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-07-15T16:05:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-07-15T16:05:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.heuermontage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/DSC_0223.jpg?fit=1800%2C1197&ssl=1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1197\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"friderikeheuer@gmail.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"friderikeheuer@gmail.com\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"friderikeheuer@gmail.com\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/#\/schema\/person\/07f5e2e1a464989019d5d8f7e126dd80\"},\"headline\":\"Cheating\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-07-15T16:05:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-07-15T16:05:15+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929\"},\"wordCount\":868,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.heuermontage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/DSC_0223.jpg?fit=1800%2C1197&ssl=1\",\"keywords\":[\"Rebecca Solnit\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Literature\",\"Nature\",\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929\",\"name\":\"Cheating - YDP - your daily picture\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.heuermontage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/DSC_0223.jpg?fit=1800%2C1197&ssl=1\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-07-15T16:05:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-07-15T16:05:15+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/#\/schema\/person\/07f5e2e1a464989019d5d8f7e126dd80\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.heuermontage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/DSC_0223.jpg?fit=1800%2C1197&ssl=1\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.heuermontage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/DSC_0223.jpg?fit=1800%2C1197&ssl=1\",\"width\":1800,\"height\":1197},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Cheating\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/\",\"name\":\"YDP - your daily picture\",\"description\":\"your daily picture\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/#\/schema\/person\/07f5e2e1a464989019d5d8f7e126dd80\",\"name\":\"friderikeheuer@gmail.com\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/44fa0fb05b030d7e5d5622a6018f585b45be32c599a49759dfabc96679686aec?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/44fa0fb05b030d7e5d5622a6018f585b45be32c599a49759dfabc96679686aec?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/44fa0fb05b030d7e5d5622a6018f585b45be32c599a49759dfabc96679686aec?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"friderikeheuer@gmail.com\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Cheating - YDP - your daily picture","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Cheating","og_description":"I am knee-deep in several independent writing projects and so, this once (or once again?) I will cheat and put someone else’s review of a book (Orwell’s Roses) I recommend up here, instead of my own. You still get the photographs of last week’s wonders in the mystery garden, though. And, in case you missed […]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929","og_site_name":"YDP - your daily picture","article_published_time":"2022-07-15T16:05:12+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-07-15T16:05:15+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1800,"height":1197,"url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.heuermontage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/DSC_0223.jpg?fit=1800%2C1197&ssl=1","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"friderikeheuer@gmail.com","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"friderikeheuer@gmail.com","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929"},"author":{"name":"friderikeheuer@gmail.com","@id":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/#\/schema\/person\/07f5e2e1a464989019d5d8f7e126dd80"},"headline":"Cheating","datePublished":"2022-07-15T16:05:12+00:00","dateModified":"2022-07-15T16:05:15+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929"},"wordCount":868,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.heuermontage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/DSC_0223.jpg?fit=1800%2C1197&ssl=1","keywords":["Rebecca Solnit"],"articleSection":["Literature","Nature","Politics"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929","url":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929","name":"Cheating - YDP - your daily picture","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.heuermontage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/DSC_0223.jpg?fit=1800%2C1197&ssl=1","datePublished":"2022-07-15T16:05:12+00:00","dateModified":"2022-07-15T16:05:15+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/#\/schema\/person\/07f5e2e1a464989019d5d8f7e126dd80"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.heuermontage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/DSC_0223.jpg?fit=1800%2C1197&ssl=1","contentUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.heuermontage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/DSC_0223.jpg?fit=1800%2C1197&ssl=1","width":1800,"height":1197},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=41929#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Cheating"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/","name":"YDP - your daily picture","description":"your daily picture","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/#\/schema\/person\/07f5e2e1a464989019d5d8f7e126dd80","name":"friderikeheuer@gmail.com","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/44fa0fb05b030d7e5d5622a6018f585b45be32c599a49759dfabc96679686aec?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/44fa0fb05b030d7e5d5622a6018f585b45be32c599a49759dfabc96679686aec?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/44fa0fb05b030d7e5d5622a6018f585b45be32c599a49759dfabc96679686aec?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"friderikeheuer@gmail.com"},"url":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?author=1"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.heuermontage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/DSC_0223.jpg?fit=1800%2C1197&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s7tJUX-cheating","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41929"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41975,"href":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41929\/revisions\/41975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}