REVIEW - A Field Guide to Surreal Botany

Part of blog about Surreal Botany day.

Plants that bear cats, or cities, or wormholes for fruits. Plants that have faeries dancing around them, that inspired or were named after great writers. Some deadly, some intelligent, all marvelous. That's A Field Guide to Surreal Botany, a non-fiction fiction book about impossible, or just unaccepted, flora from the four corners of the world.

The book's edited by Jason Erik Lundberg, and Janet Chui, from Singapore-based publisher Two Cranes Press. Acutally, Janet's responsible for half of the book's fun, since she also did the beautiful illustrations within it. Jay Lake, Ben Peek, Stephanie Campisi, Steve Berman, Mark Teppo, Matthew Kressel, Darja Malcom-Clarke and Vera Nazarian are just a sample of the writers included.

The Guide is exactly what it says: a compendium of "real" articles detailing dozens of impossible plants. And every new one is stranger than the last. The Guide is divided by continent of origin, with a fifth section detailing plants not bound by specific environments. The articles have everything a botanical guide has, be them notes on the plants' discoveries, their ecologies and life cycles, special properties and, sometimes, pieces of mythology.

Since the book uses non-fiction as structure, and more, a biology book structure, it must be said that the Guide is not boring or tedious. Far from it. First because of the mad and utterly fun ideas contained within. Crying or singing plants, or parasitic plants called Poseur Nosehairs, for example, are deeper in meaning than many short stories. Besides, some entries detail the plants' histories with micro pieces of somewhat traditional micro-fiction. The styles vary from deep mythology to fantasy to magical realism and science fiction.

The whole book has lots of lovely entries, but my favorites are in the Asian section. Specially the Tautau and the Padmamukhi, respectively a vine that grows in ears and a plant that blossoms when bodhisattvas are born. The species native to Brazil are also quite fun.

As I've already said, Janet Chui's illustrations are responsible much of the readers' experience. Drawn in a style present in old botanic guides, colored and penciled and full of side notes, the pictures are quite beautiful.

I can't think of a better gift than this book. It can be kept in a shelf and be consulted for inspiration, or be left over the coffee table and serve some flash fiction along with fine biscuits. Or it can be read cover to cover and appreciated as a fine salad, with green leafs that tastes like dreams.