The Gardener's Year

Karel Capek's delightful book, divided chronologically into chapters for each month, paints a comically self-effacing and impressionistic picture of a gardener's ups and downs as he negotiates the unpredictable forces of nature that govern the life of his garden, from January through December. Capek's sense of the powerlessness both in society and the natural world was magnified by the historical circumstances surrounding him, and he uses this sense to great comic effect in The Gardener's Year.His distinct voice is the foundation of a narrative that conveys a wonderfully vivid -- and at times wonderfully absurd -- sense of the way in which we try to grapple with the seductions, blows, and boons of the natural world.