... on its simplest level, a tribute by one fine essayist of the political left to another of an earlier generation. But as with any of Solnit’s books, such a description would be reductive: the great pleasure of reading her is spending time with her mind, its digressions and juxtapositions, its unexpected connections. Only a few contemporary writers have the ability to start almost anywhere and lead the reader on paths that, while apparently meandering, compel unfailingly and feel, by the end, cosmically connected.

Essayist that she is, Rebecca Solnit pursues her subjects down multiple pathways of thought, feeling, memory and experience, aided by historical research and the intuitive literary hunch, as needed. Like George Orwell as essayist, the subject of her latest book and her model, she deploys the full human instrument in service of her curiosity.

George Orwell too was known to roam, which might be one reason why Solnit’s latest book, Orwell’s Roses, is, from its beautiful cover to its impassioned coda, one of her very best. This multifaceted tribute to one of her principal literary influences is a reassessment of a writer best known for his fervent criticism of totalitarianism as 'threat not just to liberty and human rights but to language and consciousness'.

... a deeply political collection of interlinked essays, and at its center are the tensions between beauty and labor, joy and suffering.

... expansive and thought-provoking.

A triumph of meandering'.

Solnit’s own prose style...conforms to none of the rules outlined by Orwell in 'Politics and the English Language': to avoid 'lack of precision,' 'foreign phrases,' and 'a long word where a short one will do'.

It is a timely and original reappraisal, adding an extra dimension to a figure renowned for his political acuity who, it emerges, was equally interested in flowers.

It’s not easy to find new angles on such a prominent figure, but Rebecca Solnit has done just that. That she succeeds in impressive fashion will surprise no one who’s familiar with the work of the polymathic San Franciscan.

... a new, complex, and altogether deeper understanding, not only of the writer but also of the ways in which art and beauty fortify us in the fight for justice and the defense of truth.

Solnit lets her readers glimpse a side of Orwell rarely noted by other commentators. Count the references in his work to plants, farming, flowers, and nature, Solnit writes, and the pattern becomes more visible.

The aerodrome is made ready for one of those dizzying circular flights that Solnit does so well, 'a series of forays from one starting point' as she defines it, concentrating on a single species of flower 'around which a vast edifice of human responses has arisen,' veering off into all manner of political and socioeconomic byways, but always returning to the man in the cottage garden bent on storing up plenty for the generations ahead.

The book simultaneously is and isn’t about George Orwell, just as it is and isn’t about roses. It belongs in a whimsical category of its own, meandering elegantly enough through lots of subjects loosely connected to one or the other; more of a wildly overgrown essay, from which side shoots constantly emerge to snag the attention, than a book.

Solnit leads the reader on some fascinating excursions.

Solnit...describes a 1946 Tribune essay in which Orwell mentions the planting as 'a triumph of meandering,' and this phrase aptly sums up Orwell’s Roses. The most enjoyable sections among many for me were on Tina Modotti and Jamaica Kincaid.

Eager Orwellians, scrambling to get their hands on Rebecca Solnit’s book, can relax. Despite its title, long stretches of this book of 'forays' about George Orwell’s connections with nature are not even remotely about Orwell. Instead we are presented with a farrago of Solnit’s own, often abstruse concerns.

Unfortunately, Solnit spends most of her time looking into the anti-communist crusades of the past, territory that has been exhumed again and again over the past 100 years. Why she has done that now isn’t clear.

... a rambling book. It is lovely and musing, if occasionally irritating. I read it while feeling low and found it a solace and a spur.

Orwell’s Roses reads like a journey of discovery of the unfamiliar Orwell, first by Solnit, then by us. The first time through the book is exhilarating; it is almost impossible to predict where Solnit will go next. Readers are beneficiaries of Solnit’s erudition and eccentric research trajectories, and we learn much that would be hard to imagine fitting into a more conventional biographic narrative. There is a sense that Solnit has spun a perfect orb web, has organized all the tidbits, and has revealed a connected spiral that presents Orwell in new light.

In holding aloft all of these interrelated subjects and concepts, whilst also maintaining a sense of the whole, one feels that a more suitable form to encase Solnit’s work would be one that mirrors the workings of an ecosystem, rather than the rigid linearity of a book.

... invigorating.

... the book proves an entertaining ramble through the author’s life and Solnit’s consciousness.

... a wildly meandering thing, whose porousness of structure and resistance to neatness echo Orwell’s own advocacy of freedom.

... an extraordinary mixture of heterogeneous ideas yoked together not exactly by violence but by curiosity, happenstance and a fair amount of perseverance. This hybrid volume blossoms with a somewhat random succession of insights, non sequiturs and epiphanies, as Solnit would probably cheerfully acknowledge.

At times the book ranges so widely it gives the impression its author has Googled 'roses, art, politics,' but Solnit’s prose is always engagingly impassioned as she presents illuminating takes on beauty, nature, culture and happiness.

Orwell’s Roses shifts lyrically between Orwell’s life and a history of roses.

Orwell will always be relied on for his astute understanding of the threat of totalitarianism and its malignant lies; Solnit also ensures that we’ll value Orwell’s profound understanding of how love, pleasure, and awe for nature can be powerful forms of resistance..

A fresh perspective on the iconic writer.

[A] brilliant survey.