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Best regards, Andrew Stewart - - - Subscribe to the Washington Babylon newsletter via https://washingtonbabylon.com/newsletter/ Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <h-rev...@lists.h-net.org> > Date: July 14, 2020 at 1:31:22 PM EDT > To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org > Cc: H-Net Staff <revh...@mail.h-net.org> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-Environment]: Scown on Chang, 'Novel Cultivations: > Plants in British Literature of the Global Nineteenth Century' > Reply-To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org > > Elizabeth Hope Chang. Novel Cultivations: Plants in British > Literature of the Global Nineteenth Century. Under the Sign of > Nature Series. Charlottesville University of Virginia Press, 2019. > 240 pp. $29.50 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8139-4248-3; $59.50 (cloth), ISBN > 978-0-8139-4247-6. > > Reviewed by Jim Scown (Cardiff University) > Published on H-Environment (July, 2020) > Commissioned by Daniella McCahey > > Elizabeth Hope Chang's _Novel Cultivations: Plants in British > Literature of the Global Nineteenth Century _examines the agency of > plants in a wide range of British genre fiction from the 1850s to the > 1920s. Transported around the world during these years, plant life > was shaped by and also helped to shape the social, economic, and > ecological transformations of empire. Chang exposes how genre fiction > from these years uses plants, as imports and cultivars, to "explore > questions of exoticism, foreignness, selfhood, and subjectivity" amid > these global networks (p. 3). In so doing, such novels also offer > conceptions of plant agency and consciousness that begin to redefine > subjectivity beyond the limits of the human. _Novel Cultivations > _will be of interest to many, from those working on non-human agency, > world-ecology, and the crossovers between postcolonial and > ecocritical theory, to those interested in the workings of the > novel--and, indeed, the workings of plants--in the global nineteenth > century. > > Over five chapters, Chang leads her reader through a diverse range of > detective, scientific romance, imperial gothic, and adventure > fiction. Her wide array of "not entirely canonical literary examples" > and resistance to strict periodization underpin the book's strength > of argument (p. 17). Charles Dickens's _The Mystery of Edwin Drood > _(1870), Arthur Morrison's _A Child of the Jago _(1896), Arthur Conan > Doyle's _The Lost World _(1912), Charlotte Brontë's _Villette > _(1853), Richard Marsh's _The Beetle _(1897), Arthur Machen's _The > Three Imposters _(1895), Oscar Wilde's _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ > (1890), and H. G. Wells's "The Door in the Wall" (1906) are just some > of the texts to feature in chapter 2. These are contextualized by > horticultural works, including John Loudon's _Suburban > Horticulturalist _(1842), Thomas Fairchild's _The City Gardener > _(1722), and Shirley Hibberd's _The Town Garden _(1859). With all > five chapters including similar ranges of texts, each would benefit > from subdivision into titled sections. Nevertheless, supported by a > wealth of evidence, the book's chapters build on each other > effectively, drawing out the developing associations of personal and > horticultural cultivation while deftly showing the ways plants > reconfigured existing conventions of culture and nature, domestic and > foreign, subject and object, in the genre novel of the period. > > The first chapter, "Detecting the Global Plant Specimen," introduces > the global history of plant life in the nineteenth century and > examines the place of these plants in the development of detective > fiction. Chang's focus here is the narrative formulation of the > clue--"a plot element demanding a newly pronounced attention to > setting and the broader environmental reference setting implies" (p. > 34). When Ezra Jennings picks flowers from an English hedge that are > familiar from the unnamed country of his birth, plants trace global > networks integral to Wilkie Collins's _The Moonstone_'s (1868) > narrative structure. Chang shows that Collins's novel and Arthur > Conan Doyle's short story "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty" (1893) > thus develop the language of horticulture by figuring foreign > cultivars as objects of narrative significance. > > Chapter 2 examines plants within the urban gardens of imperial gothic > novels. Where plants in detective fiction offer clues that look > outward, supporting the "global acts of detection" needed to address > domestic crime, plants turn gothic narratives inward, disrupting > coherent senses of self and identity (p. 68). The glass Wardian case, > introduced in the first chapter as the technology by which plant life > was transported and cultivated around the world, also offered a way > to grow exotic specimens amid urban pollution. Such glasshouse > technologies, Chang shows, "enable the sensory and epistemological > production of the empire" in the industrial city (p. 55). Drawing on > these associations, exotic plants in _Villette _and _The Picture of > Dorian Gray _parallel human and horticultural development, > fragmenting Lucy Snowe and Dorian Gray as unified subjects. In so > doing, these plants bring a suggestion of nonanthropomorphic agency > to gothic narratives as part of the genre's wider challenge to > normative conceptions of self and perception. > > Chapter 3, "Strange Country Gardens," continues the work of chapter > 2, illuminating the cultivated estate as a site that can fashion and > disrupt individual, but also national, identity. Like the urban > garden, the country garden of the period offers an artificial space. > The estate garden is here "charged with the simultaneous expression > of a historical English nativeness, demonstration of the geographical > reach of empire, as well as ... manifestation of individual taste and > aesthetic preference" (p. 86). Chang's reading of Frances Hodgson > Burnett's _The Secret Garden _(1911) demonstrates how the novel's > "anthrodocentric acknowledgement" of plant consciousness highlights > Mary's acculturation into the garden on her return from India, > facilitating her assimilation into British life (p. 101). As an act > of self-fashioning, Mary's cultivation of plant life simultaneously > "reproduces heritage land claims," Chang argues, naturalizing exotic > specimens in the English garden and thus hybridizing troubling > conceptions of colonial and native Englishness (p. 119). > > Chapter 4, "Acclimatization Abroad," turns from Britain to its > colonies to focus on the agency of trees imported into the lands of > settler and adventure fictions. Such narratives have traditionally > been read as divergent, yet Chang links them by showing how arboreal > management "anchors a narrative of wild adventure to its prospective > future of planned cultivation" (p. 124). The introduction of > eucalyptus trees in Rider Haggard's _Jess _(1908), for example, > figures aesthetic, environmental, economic, and public health > concerns as bound up with the cultivation of soils, plants, and > settler identity. This close attention to the natural, cultivated, > and economic histories of individual plant species is characteristic > of Chang's careful scholarship. > > The final chapter, "The Sentient Specimen Returns," also serves as a > conclusion. Chang argues persuasively that texts like Algernon > Blackwood's "The Man Whom the Trees Loved" (1907) explore emerging > scientific ideas of plant consciousness put forward by, among others, > Charles Darwin's son Francis. Blackwood's little-studied plant horror > overtly questions "the anthropomorphic limits of the self" through > the character of David Bittacy, who has returned with his wife to > live in Hampshire after a career in the Indian Forest Service (p. > 162). Narrative dissolution here parallels Bittacy's disappearance, > and presumed assimilation, into an English wood, in an exploration of > the limits of plant vitality. > > Such readings raise the question of whether fictional investigations > of plant consciousness offered narratives and metaphors of > development that, in turn, shaped the science. This seems plausible > in and through the work of polymaths, such as Grant Allen, whose > writing Chang references throughout. That more is not done to trace > the action of literary form in plant science is a possible criticism > of _Novel Cultivations_ but also a testament to the multiple routes > the book offers for further investigation. Examining plants as > horticultural specimens, Chang raises intriguing questions about the > agency of plant life in the period's developing agricultural science; > Haggard's writing on farming, discussed in chapter 4, suggests links > between cultivation and character in more agricultural contexts. And > the argument that plants and their nonanthropomorphic agencies were > integral to nonrealist literature's efforts at "epistemological > distinction from the deeply humanist project of realism" suggests > that plant life might be read in realist narrative, too, as a related > challenge to anthropocentrism (p. 101). Offering many such avenues > for future scholarship, Chang's original readings of plant > consciousness and agency in genre fiction make _Novel Cultivations > _an important touchstone for work in the environmental humanities. > > Citation: Jim Scown. Review of Chang, Elizabeth Hope, _Novel > Cultivations: Plants in British Literature of the Global Nineteenth > Century_. H-Environment, H-Net Reviews. July, 2020. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=54990 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
