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A review by brice_mo
The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise by Olivia Laing
2.75
Thanks to NetGalley and W.W. Norton for the ARC!
Olivia Laing’s The Garden Against Time is a carefully manicured reflection on the garden as a social symbol and site of class demarcation, but it occasionally gets a little too lost in the weeds.
If you’ve read the marketing copy for this book, you already know that Laing began an 18th-century garden restoration project during the pandemic. It’s a starting point that seems like it should be fruitful; however, like many projects born during COVID, The Garden Against Time struggles with the tension between interiority and insularity, unfortunately skewing toward the latter. Laing’s usual preoccupations just don’t seem to fit within their framing device here, as the isolated origin of the work makes many of the author’s sociological observations feel more voyeuristic than astute.
The Garden Against Time seems to celebrate the garden as a site of escapism while also suggesting it’s an impossibility. Laing offers lush descriptions, treating readers to sensorial delights—I could almost smell the soil and taste the pollen hanging in the air—before interrupting them with discussions of history and politics. Sometimes, they work to shed light on the history of land access and ownership—I also loved all the material about Derek Jarman—but often they read like unexpected digressions. While this approach feels masterful and holistic in a book like Everybody, here it feels less focused—like someone sharing every fact that comes to mind after a wikipedia deep dive. Or, to use some garden imagery, it feels like an invasive species.
Perhaps these complaints are a matter of faulty expectations, but the book feels like it was written as a way to pass the endless, shapeless hours of the early 2020s. It never blooms beyond feeling like a COVID curio—cumbersomely divided, with its political distance in tension with its earthy intimacy. In the end, it’s disappointing because it feels like there are two great versions of The Garden Against Time if Laing picked a focus and an editor trimmed 50-100 pages. Even so, there’s still much to appreciate here, and I recommend the book to readers who understand what they are signing up for.
Olivia Laing’s The Garden Against Time is a carefully manicured reflection on the garden as a social symbol and site of class demarcation, but it occasionally gets a little too lost in the weeds.
If you’ve read the marketing copy for this book, you already know that Laing began an 18th-century garden restoration project during the pandemic. It’s a starting point that seems like it should be fruitful; however, like many projects born during COVID, The Garden Against Time struggles with the tension between interiority and insularity, unfortunately skewing toward the latter. Laing’s usual preoccupations just don’t seem to fit within their framing device here, as the isolated origin of the work makes many of the author’s sociological observations feel more voyeuristic than astute.
The Garden Against Time seems to celebrate the garden as a site of escapism while also suggesting it’s an impossibility. Laing offers lush descriptions, treating readers to sensorial delights—I could almost smell the soil and taste the pollen hanging in the air—before interrupting them with discussions of history and politics. Sometimes, they work to shed light on the history of land access and ownership—I also loved all the material about Derek Jarman—but often they read like unexpected digressions. While this approach feels masterful and holistic in a book like Everybody, here it feels less focused—like someone sharing every fact that comes to mind after a wikipedia deep dive. Or, to use some garden imagery, it feels like an invasive species.
Perhaps these complaints are a matter of faulty expectations, but the book feels like it was written as a way to pass the endless, shapeless hours of the early 2020s. It never blooms beyond feeling like a COVID curio—cumbersomely divided, with its political distance in tension with its earthy intimacy. In the end, it’s disappointing because it feels like there are two great versions of The Garden Against Time if Laing picked a focus and an editor trimmed 50-100 pages. Even so, there’s still much to appreciate here, and I recommend the book to readers who understand what they are signing up for.