I had to write an essay about this book for school, so I figured I might as well post it here too:

In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan attempts to prove his theory that plants play an equivalent role to humans in their own domestication. He takes four plants and aligns them with four human desires, showing how the plants conform to make themselves more appealing to humans. The apple satisfies the human desire for sweetness, the tulip for beauty, marijuana for intoxication, and the potato for control. As he works his way through these species, Pollan travels throughout North America and parts of Europe, connecting the histories, current situations, and potential futures of these plants. He examines the philosophies and religions that have shaped agriculture and shows how every cultural factor, no matter how big or small, has the capability to make huge changes in the way plants are or are not able to thrive in domestication.

For instance, before grafting, the apple would never have been able to thrive in the early American Midwest if there hadn't been a huge demand for alcohol, and hard cider in particular. I had no idea that the apple had ever been commonly used for anything but eating straight off the tree, but I learned that before grafting, the most logical use for apples was not in fact eating but rather drinking:

...the fruit of seedling apples is almost always inedible– “sour enough,” Thoreau once wrote, “to set a squirrel's teeth on edge and make a jay scream.” Thoreau claimed to like the taste of such apples, but most of his countrymen judged them good for little but hard cider–and hard cider was the fate of most apples grown in America up until Prohibition. (9)

This information is significant because as John “Johnny Appleseed” Chapman moved throughout the Midwest, he was distributing millions upon millions of genetically nonidentical seeds (instead of identical grafts) that created a ridiculous amount of diversity in apples. The reason that this was so surprising to me is because there is such a monoculture of apples today. In grocery stores, there are really only a few varieties of apples to choose from. It's interesting to think about the incredible diversity that could be brought back as easily as planting a few generations of apple seeds and letting nature run its course.

Diversity is very essential to life on Earth, as evidenced in the case of the potato famine in Ireland. If only the Irish had planted several other types of potatoes, an entire eighth of the population could have been saved. But that isn't what happened. Instead, the Irish planted only one type of potato, and even that was just the same genotype cloned over and over. When the blight hit, Ireland had no defense because the disease happened to affect the one food source they had. In the other main area of potato prominence, South America, the Incans could never have experienced such a major famine because “they cultivated such a polyculture of potatoes that no one fungus could ever have toppled it” (231). Basically, don't put all your eggs in one basket, because if you do, you may end up decimating a population.
Although I found this information about diversity interesting and surprising, the most intense reaction I had while reading this book was when I read this:

What, then, was the knowledge that God wanted to keep from Adam and Eve in the Garden? Theologians will debate this question without end, but it seems to me the most important answer is hidden in plain sight. The content of the knowledge Adam and Eve could gain by the tasting of the fruit does not matter nearly as much as its form–that is, the very fact that there was spiritual knowledge of any kind to be had from a tree: from nature. The new faith sought to break the human bond with magic nature, to disenchant the world of plants and animals by directing our attention to a single God in the sky. Yet Jehovah couldn't very well pretend the tree of knowledge didn't exist, not when generations of plant-worshiping pagans knew better. So the pagan tree is allowed to grow even in Eden, though ringed now with a strong taboo. Yes, there is spiritual knowledge in nature, the new God is acknowledging, and its temptations are fierce, but I am fiercer still. Yield to it, and you will be punished. (176)

This passage immediately had a wow effect on me. Although it isn't entirely related to the majority of the book, it was probably the thing that hit the hardest for me. I have an interest in religion and cultural history, and the Tree of Knowledge in Genesis has always been something that kind of confused me. How could knowledge ever be so bad that it needs to be expressly forbidden? But suddenly, after reading this passage, I could that knowledge wasn't being condemned, just paganism. I thought that this passage, and passages like it, were the strongest points of this book. The remaining content, while very well written, seemed somewhat repetitive and bland to me. It was only in Pollan's moments of inner musing that I felt really hooked and inspired to keep reading. I do think that the book is worth reading just for that, but I don't recommend it for people who have short attention spans or who would tire easily of somewhat dense writing. All in all, I'm happy that I read this book, but it isn't something I would quickly pick up and read again.

I thought the plot was interesting, but the present-tense writing drove me crazy and the ending felt very, very inconclusive.

Okay, so here's what I think about Sarah Dessen. I usually really like her books, but the key is to space out the times when you read them. I hadn't read a Dessen novel in over a year, so I didn't notice the formula much. But a while ago, when I was reading a lot of her books in a row, the formula was the only thing I noticed. All in all, I really enjoyed this book, but I'm not planning on reading another book of hers for at least 6 months.

Simple and fun.

Very predictable, but still an exhilarating and fun read.