Hi everyone!
Our next book will be Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit. It’s a beautiful book and perhaps a balm to some of the heaviness of our last book ‘On Fire’. Although a central theme is of course George Orwell, Solnit discusses the climate crisis, social movements, political language, histories of the left and structural inequalities in contemporary society.
We will be hosting our online book club on the 15th May and our IRL session on the 16th May from 7-9pm at Housmans, here's a link to tickets for the IRL event. Also Housmans have kindly offered us a 20% discount code for the book which is ilovebookclub and you can also use the code COLLECTION to save on postage if you want to pick the book up at the shop.
Since it’s sometimes hard to get through an entire book before we see each other again, for our next meeting we will focus on 3-4 key chapters in the text!
ORWELL'S ROSES - REBECCA SOLNIT
Inspired by her encounter with the surviving roses that Orwell is said to have planted in his cottage in Hertfordshire, Rebecca Solnit explores how his involvement with plants, particularly flowers, illuminates his other commitments as a writer and antifascist, and the intertwined politics of nature and power.
Following his journey from the coal mines of England to taking up arms in the Spanish Civil War; from his prescient critique of Stalin to his analysis of the relationship between lies and authoritarianism, Solnit finds a more hopeful Orwell, whose love of nature pulses through his work and actions. And in her dialogue with the author, she makes fascinating forays into colonial legacies in the flower garden, discovers photographer Tina Modotti's roses, reveals Stalin's obsession with growing lemons in impossibly cold conditions, and exposes the brutal rose industry in Colombia.
A fresh reading of a towering figure of the 20th century which finds solace and solutions for the political and environmental challenges we face today, Orwell's Roses is a remarkable reflection on pleasure, beauty, and joy as acts of resistance.
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
Roses by Tina Modotti
In 1936, George Orwell volunteered as a soldier in the Spanish Civil War. In Homage to Catalonia, first published just before the outbreak of World War II, Orwell documents the chaos and bloodshed of that moment in history and the voices of those who fought against rising fascism.
His experience of the civil war would spark a significant change in his own political views, which readers today will recognise in much of his later literary work; a rage against the threat of totalitarianism and control.
In 'The Private and Public Self', Yassmin shares her passions for cars and cryptocurrency as well as the personal challenges around her activism and leaving Australia. She provides a hearty defence of hobbies and expands on the value and process of carving out a private life and self in an incredibly public-facing world. The concept of identity when one is a 'forever migrant' - by ancestry, and by choice - is interrogated, as is what it means to organise for social justice when you aren't sure where you belong.
In 'Systems and Society', through essays on cultural appropriation, the meaning of citizenship, and unconscious bias, Yassmin charts how her thinking on activism, transformative change and justice has evolved. She brings an abolitionist lens to social justice work and, recalling her days as a young revolutionary, encourages younger generations of activists to decide if it is empowerment they are working towards, or power.
In all these essays, written with the passion, lived-experience and intelligence of someone who wants to improve our world, the concept of revolution, however big or small, is ever-present.
From Richard Seymour, one of the UK’s leading public intellectuals, comes a characteristic blend of forensic insight and analysis, personal journey, and a vivid respect for the natural world.
A planetary fever-dream. An environmental awakening that is also a sleep-walking, unsteadily weaving between history, earth science, psychoanalysis, evolution, biology, art and politics. A search for transcendence, beyond the illusory eternal present.
These essays chronicle the kindling of ecological consciousness in a confessed ignoramus. They track the first enchantment of the author, his striving to comprehend the coming catastrophe, and his attempt to formulate a new global sensibility in which we value anew what unconditionally matters.
"not had the chance to read it yet but I have always find him to be a quite uniquely incisive writer on this topic from his wider writings." - Franklin
"Quite niche, I know, but I recently read a great exchange between Perry Anderson and Christopher Hitchens in LRB letters regarding Orwell’s collaboration with British intelligence services. (Hitchens was responding to Anderson’s article ‘A Ripple of the Polonaise’" - J D Stewart
“Good exists as a kind of seed that needs to be tended more energetically or propagated more widely”
So what did the hothouse hive think?
The main criticism the group had was that despite emphasising the importance of engaging with and enjoying nature, Solnit does not extend into critiquing the lack of access to nature in present day England – despite situating a lot of her book there.
We also found it interesting that she didn’t draw modern day parallels between how politics can dominate scientific knowledge when she gives historical examples of it. She writes a lot about how the Soviet Union favoured Lamarckism over Darwinism and how this led to famine but she fails to extend this to the present day where right wing denial of climate science also puts us on a path for disaster.