This Organic Life
by Joan Dye Gussow
I'm going to permit myself a DNF (Did Not Finish) on this. I assumed it was going to be great so I kept plugging along. I was almost halfway through when I finally said, "But when's it going to get good?" So I checked a few reviews to figure out why it had a 3.95-star rating when I found it drudgerous. (I know that's not a word but it ought to be.)
Oddly enough, the ratings are pretty consistently good--people almost universally liked this book. But a couple of reviewers felt the same way I did and even pointed out some future developments that were going to make me dislike the second half even more than I had the first.
Why was it so much about the house and so little about the garden? Why were they rebuilding a house in a floodplain, anyway? I wished there's been some better organization of it all--it seemed jumpy and shallow, not deep. I hate supermarkets as much as she does and for the same reasons, but reading about them left me with a sour taste in my mouth. I don't mind being educated on things, but the writing didn't have to be so bitter and hopeless.
Oh! I see now that it was published in 2001. A lot of the things she's writing about weren't widely known back then--she was breaking ground when she documented how much energy it takes to ship a strawberry from California to New York. She was a pioneer--a first lady of local eating. In 1960, my A&P grocery used to buy produce from local farmers, in season, but by 2001 the big volume shippers from California were preeminent. Only recently have stores begun offering better choices.
Okay, then I won't diss on her book. It just didn't go down well.
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