The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean
1998 Random House 282 pages
I saw the movie
Adaptations when I first got caught up in orchid-keeping. My brother insisted, once he had introduced me to the idea that I could share my home with orchids, that this step was required. He sent me the DVD and I dutifully watched: it was good. A good story, Meryl Streep of course an excellent star, and Nicolas Cage as the leading male, very good. Excellent: both of them as enticingly lush as any beckoning Ghost Orchid.
But now I have read the book on which the movie is based,
Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean, and I have to say this, even Streep is not a good enough actress to capture the essence of the female lead in this true story: the journalist, Susan Orlean. In fact, it is a compliment to Streep's own natural character, her own integrity of spirit, that she chose not to convey the full sense of Susan Orlean's ignorance, shallowness, and ......
what's the polite word? uhm....
bullshit.
Reading Orlean's book is like living near a fetid swamp. Most of the time you don't quite notice the steaming odor, but now and then a breeze hits your nose just right and you exclaim "what a stink!" and you wonder if you are damaging your own ability to think clearly if you continue to breathe this air.
Page 148 in the chapter "Anyone Can Grow Orchids" is like that. Orleans writes: "Just then one of Martin's long-legged mud-colored dogs trotted into the house and bit me really hard. I made enough noise that everyone noticed immediately. Martin grabbed the dog and started discussing how interesting this was because the dog had never bitten anyone before. I thought the conversation was rather academic, so after listening for a second I limped over to the house and went to find some rabies medicine...."
You know, if Ms. Orleans wants to really make an important contribution as a journalist, maybe she should forget about orchids and tell us about this "rabies medicine" that you can keep at home in case your dog bites anyone. She could have rescued herself by following up with a vignette about how this ignorant staff writer for the New Yorker discovers that if you think you have contracted rabies, you have to go into the hospital for a very painful treatment only after they have killed the dog and confirmed that it was indeed rabid.
If the people with the secret orchid lairs in Florida are hiding some kind of secret rabies medicine, we need to know about it! Give the girl the Nobel prize for discovering it!
Sheesh. Get this book from the public library if you must read it, because it is a sin to put any more money into either the publisher or the author's wallets. And if you do, remember this rabies incident when you read some of her trash-talk about the orchid growers, Seminoles, and other folks she met.
Here's a link to a
good interview with Streep and Orlean
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