A mini-review: Henry Bosco, Malicroix by Henri Bosco, translated by Joyce Zonana (New York Review Books, 2020).

The protagonist, Martial, has grown up cosseted by his adoptive family and bourgeois convention, spending his free time in a greenhouse where he grows flowers with a combination of scientific precision and sentimental appreciation. On being named the heir of his mysterious (indeed, near-mythical) uncle, he must find within himself something entirely different. That something might be called wildness, and it is as you would expect a kind of freedom—but a freedom born of solitary devotion to a single small place, which demands of him a severe duty.

“Bosco’s novel is a work of tremendous lyricism, but his meditations can also grow ponderous,” observes Kirkus Reviews. “It is a slow and quiet novel given to long descriptions of wind and rain and the Rhône.” But what appears to be stylistic convention serves to make the point of the novel. Martial must inhabit his small island not only physically but spiritually before he can come into his inheritance—an inheritance that is largely the island itself, but also something much greater.

It is one of those books that I only really understood after finishing it and am going to have to read again. I realize this is not everyone’s cup of tea, but if it is yours, and you have a very large cup to last the slow passages, I recommend it.

Love-in-a-mist, another of those perennials I must have planted from seed last spring but is only blooming now. A lovey flower with a much lovelier name than, say, “ranunculus.” (Update: it is actually in family Ranunculaceae. I should finish my research before posting.)

In the wide world I find
Nothing but disturbance, war and strife.
In my little garden
Love, peace, rest, and unity—
My flowers fight nevermore.

—Francis Daniel Pastorius, 1651–c. 1720

Zwei verliebten herzen / Haben einen schmertzen (Two beloved hearts have one pining)

Blessed Pascha to the Orthodox in the room!

For those of you in NC, I’m at the Greensboro Curb Farmers Market spring craft fair today from 11-4. It’s indoors, great for a rainy day!

From the front yard

Greetings to thee, Heavenly May of Eternal Wisdom, wherein there has grown the fruit of Eternal Blessedness. For eternal adornment I pray today for all the red roses a hearty love; for all the small violets, a humble inclination; for all the tender lilies, a pure embrace; and for all kinds of beautifully colored and lighted flowers, any heath or mead, forest or fertile plain, tree or meadow, which has been, may have been, or shall be brought forth…; for all cheerful songs of the birds, which ever have been sung on a May-twig, my soul bids thee uncreated praise; and for the ornament by which all temporal Mays are adorned, my soul lifts itself up to Thee today—Thou Blessed May—that Thou wouldst help me in this brief time to praise Thee similarly so that I—living fruit—may be nourished by Thee eternally.

—Meister Eckhardt’s pupil Heinrich Suso, reflecting allegorically on the springtime garden. Thou Blessed May as a name for God is simply wonderful.

Framed version of the carving I wrote about last week. After reading more about the origins and context of the iconography I decided to title it “Crowned with Life.” More on that (and more carvings) next week, I hope.

Pinkladies.