I struggled to finish this book. I’ve started and stopped Omnivore’s Dilemma a number of times (nonfiction is always hard for me), but what I did read I LOVED. It was eye-opening, well-researched, easily understood, and moving! I was hoping for the same in this book, but it simply didn’t deliver.

The Botany of Desire has an interesting premise: plants have domesticated humans just as much as humans have domesticated plants. By evolving to suit human appetites (for sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control), these plants have endeared themselves to us and effectively ensured their species’ survival. Which sounds great! The problem is, though, that this book isn’t about that.

Pollan does detail the evolution of some plants which I found really interesting. I learned so much about all the plants mentioned. But the vast majority of the book is set aside for soliloquizing Pollan’s own philosophies and special interests? Some of these landed for me - I liked reading all about Johnny Appleseed for example. But the rest???

I almost quit reading this book in the Marijuana chapter. Perhaps weed has become much more normalized in the years since this book’s publishing, but that chapter genuinely gave me war flashbacks to being stuck talking to a guy about his experience with magic mushrooms at a party. Hearing about Pollan’s drug experiences was so uninsightful, self-important, and completely unrelated to the book’s thesis? And don’t even get me started on his obsession with Apollonian order versus Dionysian chaos. Referencing it a few times makes for a compelling literary allusion, but dozens and dozens of times??? He sounded like a frat guy who just took philosophy 101 and won’t shut up about it.

I did not expect the discussion of GMOs in the final chapter, but I thought it was so cool how he got to grow the Monsanto potatoes. I agree with a lot of Pollan’s points; particularly about his concerns about labelling GMOs, the unpredictability of complex ecosystems, the dangerous precedent around intellectual property, and how nascent the technology is. What I couldn’t accept was his argument around genetic engineering disrupting the “purity” of nature? I am definitely biased since I am a genetic engineer, but his stance just seemed so arbitrary. Genetic engineering is polluting nature, but not grafting or generating hybrids? He argued that genetic engineering relegated plants to an entirely passive role, but does their ability to tolerate genetic engineering not show again that they are evolving to suit human interests and therefore ensure their own propagation in an active way?!?!!

I did not leave this book feeling that Pollan proved his argument at all.