Adventures of a Botanist’s Wife by Eleanor Bor ~ 1952. This edition: Hurst & Blackett Ltd, 1952. First edition. Inscribed by the author. Hardcover. 204 pages.
My rating: 5.5/10. Not a poor book, exactly, but not what I had hoped for, hence the low rating.
*****
A rare disappointment, this book. It had all the hallmarks of a find: rich red and gold vintage hardcover binding, gorgeous maps on front and rear end papers, photographs and line drawings by the author throughout, and an extremely promising first paragraph:
When I married, in 1931, a member of the Indian Forest Service I brought with me as a dowry two table-cloths and a bull terrier. Apart from these possessions I was a portionless bride. As his own contribution, the bridegroom brought with him a large number of books, a torn pink cotton curtain and two spaniels. Also a trouser press used for pressing botanical specimens. And some camp equipment.
How could one resist?
I had hoped for a fairly detailed account of the author’s travels with her husband through the Himalayan foothills, with lots of descriptions of the flora of the region. “Botanist’s Wife”, right? While Eleanor was obviously aware of the natural beauties of the region, she seldom describes the flora in the kind of detail I was hoping for – “a meadow of primula and gentians” is about as much as she ever says, except for a quite detailed description of a Sapria species, a type of carrion-scented flower, which was once used to decorate her bedroom by her native servants, in the mistaken belief that she and her husband, famed Irish-born botanist Norman Loftus Bor, would find it delightful – Norman had raved over a prime specimen earlier in the trip, but the foetid odour of the bloom was not at all pleasant in close quarters!
This “autobiography” does not go into much detail of the sort that makes such accounts so potentially vivid and interesting. It is something of an arm’s length travelogue, with Eleanor often commenting a bit distastefully on the hygiene (or lack thereof) of the natives of the area she happens to be passing through. To be fair, she also comments on their favorable aspects, but it is a very much “we” and “them” account.
Where she unbends the most, and where we see glimpses of her true passion, is when she talks about her beloved pet dogs – a bull terrier and several spaniels – which travelled with her, occasionally on horseback, and required an inordinate amount of special arrangement to feed and care for in a region known for its high incidence of rabies, as well as various toxic plants, predatory animals, and various nasty insects and internal parasites. Having no children, it would appear that Eleanor’s maternal affection was lavished on her pets.
This short memoir’s greatest value is that it is something of an intriguing – albeit limited – picture of the wilderness areas of northern India and southern Tibet in the time between the wars, and into the World War II years, when Norman left the forest service and was engaged in some sort of secret war work which we are never enlightened on.
I found that I had a difficult time fully engaging with the narrative. The writing is quite stilted, and throughout there are numerous very promising beginnings of anecdotes which are left hanging with no resolution or conclusion, resulting in my frequently paging back to see if I’d missed something. I never had – it just wasn’t there.
I suspect the reality of Eleanor’s life was much more interesting and varied than she was able to communicate in this book. She appears to have an excellent relationship with her husband, and numerous long-enduring friends throughout the region of her Indian travels and, indeed, throughout the world. There is a picture of the author standing next to Jon Godden (novelist Rumer Godden’s sister) and two of the “seven kings of Rupa” which is never referred to in the text, though the seven kings themselves are discussed. Was Eleanor a friend of Godden’s, or is this merely a “tourist snapshot”?
Eleanor very wanted to be a published author; she relates that she was continually writing, but hesitated to describe herself as a writer to acquaintances because she had not had anything published.
She was also a striving amateur artist; her drawings, six of which are reproduced, are capable but not particularly “good” – they look like the work of a hard-working, conscientious student – much care is taken with detail and cross-hatching, but something is a little off in perspective; they look somehow a bit lifeless. The lovely end paper maps were drawn and illustrated by Ley Kenyon; Eleanor’s painstakingly stiff drawings suffer by the comparison.
The best and to me the most appealing of Eleanor’s efforts is this illustration used in the book’s frontispiece; it made me smile and soften somewhat in my criticism toward’s her authorial failings. She tried hard and did the best she could. And as this book shows, she did succeed in her quest for publication.
Would I recommend this book?
No, I don’t think I would, unless the reader is specifically interested in the ethnic groups and fast-changing lifestyles of the people of the area during the 1930s and 1940s. The author’s perspective might be a good addition to more detailed observations.
As an autobiography, it is not one of the better memoirs I have read, though I must repeat that it is not a “bad” book; it’s just that I had hoped for so much more. I will likely keep it for its curiousity value, to slip in beside E.H. Wilson’s Naturalist in Western China as an addendum of sorts to his vastly superior work written earlier in the century.
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[…] Adventures of a Botanist’s Wife (1952) by Eleanor […]
The above review came as a surprise to me as I found the book fascinating. I didn’t assume, like the reviewer, that because Eleanor was married to a botanist that her book would be packed with botanical detail. She was not a botanist and her descriptions of the landscape do mention many plants and flowers, including, on occasions, Latin names. Re the illustrations, I do agree that they are the work of an amateur and not particularly sophisticated. Eleanor was not a trained artist but I do think that drawing is such an important way to respond to the world, whatever the level of one’s skill, so it’s a pity to be so negative. The book would have lost something very personal if they had been left out. The above review also gives the impression that Eleanor and Norman lived at a distance from the people of the hill tribes. This just isn’t true, they made many friends and Norman learnt most of the languages he encountered. On page 13 Eleanor states that when she first knew him he could speak seven different languages of the country. This is extraordinary achievement, never mind his contribution to science. This is a unique story and should be accepted on its own terms and not be challenged or shaped by one’s expectations. One should remember the time it was written – Eleanor was very aware that ‘civilisation’ was already threatening these remote parts and deeply cared for the people and their environment.
Greetings, Phillip, and many thanks for commenting.
What interesting timing – I just had this book in my hand yesterday, as I was tidying shelves and doing some book culling; I must admit that this one almost landed up in the giveaway box, but I couldn’t quite do it so there it is, waiting for a someday re-read. And now, this morning, here’s your comment!Odd how often that sort of thing happens…
Please do remember that this blog is merely a random collection of my personal responses to the books I read, and that my opinion is not the be-all-and-end-all regarding any of the titles I encounter!
In this particular case I had wonderfully high expectations for the book, and it didn’t quite come up to what I’d hoped for. As a fairly serious botanist myself, I naturally look for topics of personal interest in anything remotely plant-related. In this case, I seem to recall that Eleanor did not perhaps share her husband’s passion for flora, though she found it interesting enough on a rather more superficial level. Fair enough, but I had hoped for way more detail than she provided. A sprinkling of names – common and/or Latin – isn`t enough to satisfy, I want to kneel down with the observer and see the detailed nuances of flower and leaf structure, colour and fragrance and all the rest. I want to be entirely transported, to see through the observer`s eyes. A demanding reader, I am, but when the writer hits all the marks, my joy and appreciation is boundless.
As I mentioned in one of my last paragraphs above, the book’s strength is perhaps in its anthropological perspective. There is no denying that Eleanor was deeply interested in the peoples of the region she travelled in, and her documentation of the changes they were facing is, by and large, sensitive and sympathetic.
Perhaps on re-reading my own perspective may change and I may better appreciate the memoir for what it is versus what I thought it might be; this quite often happens, especially when one has fore-knowledge of the writer’s bias/personal perspective.
I am wondering if you are perhaps personally acquainted with the Bors family? If so, I would be delighted to hear more about Eleanor and Norman on a personal level; this memoir was more of a tease than anything; there has to be a much more complex backstory to their lives which can’t help but be fascinating!