It seems to me that too many of the novels that I have been reading recently
make some mention of orchids in a way that stereotypes them and uses them
just as a symbol to describe a person with fancy tastes.

For example, the book I just started reading includes "Jordan had done
considerable research on the billionaire. He knew about [snip ...] His
passion for opera, his famous collection of American art, from Copley to
Whistler to O'Keefe. His fondness for orchids." Grrr!!!

There used to be a time, when I was thrilled to see any mention of orchids,
but now I grow annoyed when I see them mentioned offhand like this by
someone who obviously just puts in the almost by now obligatory mention of
orchids to satisfy the fad, or to paint a stereotype with broad strokes.
Someday I would expect a book author to come up with a novel idea: a
billionaire whose tastes are so refined that he considers orchids to be
beneath his notice, since they are now available to anyone. Or a billionaire
who pretends to be interested in orchids to seem more in touch with the
common man, while in reality it's his secretary who occasionally takes pity
on the orchids and waters them just often enough to prevent them from drying
out, but since she is too busy, she luckily does not have time to overwater
them, and thus they thrive. Or the struggling school teacher who loves
flowers, but she can't afford cut flowers on a regular basis, since they
fade so quickly, she would need to spend a fortune refilling her vase, so
her thriftiness brings her to buy a few orchids to have something in bloom
all year. I have not seen anything like that in a novel yet though.

What do you think about the mentions of orchids in pop-culture, books,
movies, and what-not?

Joanna

On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 03:23:43 GMT, "J Fortuna"
wrote:

It seems to me that too many of the novels that I have been reading recently
make some mention of orchids in a way that stereotypes them and uses them
just as a symbol to describe a person with fancy tastes.

For example, the book I just started reading includes "Jordan had done
considerable research on the billionaire. He knew about [snip ...] His
passion for opera, his famous collection of American art, from Copley to
Whistler to O'Keefe. His fondness for orchids." Grrr!!!

There used to be a time, when I was thrilled to see any mention of orchids,
but now I grow annoyed when I see them mentioned offhand like this by
someone who obviously just puts in the almost by now obligatory mention of
orchids to satisfy the fad, or to paint a stereotype with broad strokes.
Someday I would expect a book author to come up with a novel idea: a
billionaire whose tastes are so refined that he considers orchids to be
beneath his notice, since they are now available to anyone. Or a billionaire
who pretends to be interested in orchids to seem more in touch with the
common man, while in reality it's his secretary who occasionally takes pity
on the orchids and waters them just often enough to prevent them from drying
out, but since she is too busy, she luckily does not have time to overwater
them, and thus they thrive. Or the struggling school teacher who loves
flowers, but she can't afford cut flowers on a regular basis, since they
fade so quickly, she would need to spend a fortune refilling her vase, so
her thriftiness brings her to buy a few orchids to have something in bloom
all year. I have not seen anything like that in a novel yet though.

What do you think about the mentions of orchids in pop-culture, books,
movies, and what-not?

Joanna

If the author were to do sufficient research to suggest he knew what he was
talking about, and if it could be fitted realistically into the plot I wouldn't
mind.

I'm currently having trouble with the early stages of Dan Brown's "Angels &
Demons". Perhaps I'm being unfair, but it seems to me he's doing the
information equivalent of name-dropping. Sort of "Look at all the things I know
about..." That I hate. Just like dropping orchids casually into a novel to add
some culture (pun intended).
Dave Gillingham
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To email me remove the .private from my email address.

J Fortuna wrote:

What do you think about the mentions of orchids in pop-culture, books,
movies, and what-not?


You mean in books other than the Nero Wolfe mysteries? Wolfe was
always portrayed as a knowlegeable orchidist. I understand that the TV
series used silk orchids instead of real ones, but that's not a
surprise. Keeping orchids fresh under the hot lights of a film set
would be a big challenge.

Then there's Raymond Chandler's --The Big Sleep--.

Orchids( and other exotic plants) appear in Huysmans' --A Rebours-- as
symbols of the main character's decadent personality and tastes.

I don't think the mass-market availability of orchids has filtered down
into pop culture yet. People still think of them as exotic, expensive,
finicky plants, the playthings of the rich and eccentric.

Folks express surprise and awe when they learn I grow orchids in my
basement.
They wrongly assume I am rich; though they may well be right about the
eccentricity.

The fact they can buy orchids at Krogers or the local home improvement
store makes no difference.


J. Del Col

On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 03:23:43 GMT in 3n4Ye.15861$fb6.1878@trnddc08 J Fortuna wrote:

What do you think about the mentions of orchids in pop-culture, books,
movies, and what-not?

I'm reminded of Heinlein's quip in "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls" which
amounted to "Authors that write about what they know end up starving."

Plus, with the garbage I read it'll be something like
"Hiro Protagonist opened the airtight container for the bulbophyllum
Phalaenopsis to clear the room," in the event they get something
close to right.
Except it'll end up, by random chance, a non-stinking bulbophyllum
species because the author heard that bulbos stink and randomly
picked a species because he couldn't be bothered to do the research
and didn't want to go with the obvious of first or last in alphabetical
order.

By the way, are the novels you are reading the same sort of stuff
Heinlein's fictional author wrote?
--
Chris Dukes
Suspicion breeds confidence -- Brazil

J,

That's right, I did mean novels other than the Nero Wolfe mysteries. I love
Nero Wolfe mysteries -- among my favorite books. And the mentions of orchids
in them are ok. Though I find it curious that Phalaenopsis get mentioned
somewhere in the series as among the hardest orchids to grow, but maybe at
the time these books were written this was the case, plus different people
have trouble with different genuses depending on their environment, so maybe
Nero Wolfe's environment was not best suited for Phals. :-) Anyway, Rex
Stout's handling of orchids was ok.

You are right, it does indeed seem like pop-culture is as yet not
acknowledging the mass-market availability of orchids. Curious that.

I too at times get the reaction of oh you grow orchids, what an exotic,
difficult and expensive hobby. Weird.

I wonder how much longer it will take for popular consciousness to get a
clue about orchid mass-availability and relative ease of culture.

Joanna

"jadel" wrote in message
oups.com...

J Fortuna wrote:

What do you think about the mentions of orchids in pop-culture, books,
movies, and what-not?


You mean in books other than the Nero Wolfe mysteries? Wolfe was
always portrayed as a knowlegeable orchidist. I understand that the TV
series used silk orchids instead of real ones, but that's not a
surprise. Keeping orchids fresh under the hot lights of a film set
would be a big challenge.

Then there's Raymond Chandler's --The Big Sleep--.

Orchids( and other exotic plants) appear in Huysmans' --A Rebours-- as
symbols of the main character's decadent personality and tastes.

I don't think the mass-market availability of orchids has filtered down
into pop culture yet. People still think of them as exotic, expensive,
finicky plants, the playthings of the rich and eccentric.

Folks express surprise and awe when they learn I grow orchids in my
basement.
They wrongly assume I am rich; though they may well be right about the
eccentricity.

The fact they can buy orchids at Krogers or the local home improvement
store makes no difference.


J. Del Col

"?" wrote in message
rg...
snip
By the way, are the novels you are reading the same sort of stuff
Heinlein's fictional author wrote?
--
Chris Dukes
Suspicion breeds confidence -- Brazil

Chris,
The novels that I am reading are mostly mass market paperbacks, mostly
mysteries and romances. It's amazing how many of them do mention orchids at
least once in passing. I have not been reading much sci-fi/fantasy lately,
but I used to enjoy it, and still get back to it sometimes. I suspect that
there are not as many orchids in sci-fi books as in mysteries and romances,
since spaceships are less likely to harbor orchids, I think. That makes me
wonder which literary genres orchids have invaded by now. Orchids are
plotting to take over the world, one human (and one book) at a time. :-)
Joanna

On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 12:50:48 GMT in IGcYe.6184$9a2.2578@trnddc04 J Fortuna wrote:

You are right, it does indeed seem like pop-culture is as yet not
acknowledging the mass-market availability of orchids. Curious that.

I too at times get the reaction of oh you grow orchids, what an exotic,
difficult and expensive hobby. Weird.

Here's an experiment for you. Grab a friend or acquaintance that gives
you the "exotic, difficult, and expensive hobby" line.
Go to a grocery store or department store that sells orchids with that person.
Point in the direction of the orchids and ask "What do you see?"
I predict that you will be told "Plants," or "Flowers."

I wonder how much longer it will take for popular consciousness to get a
clue about orchid mass-availability and relative ease of culture.

I fear this will go the way of pop culture and computers.
The genuses that they do see on a regular basis (Phals, Dends, Oncids)
will be the only ones they will accept as orchids. Everything else
will be "Plants."
Any predictions on which genus will become the Microsoft Windows of
orchids?

--
Chris Dukes
Suspicion breeds confidence -- Brazil

I recently purchased a used book because of the title: "Dream of
Orchids" by Phyllis A. Whitney. A sample sentence from the cover jacket:

"She must deal not only with two surprising half sisters, still tied to
the glamorous mother who had died mysteriously a year before, but also
with the strange and evil orchids that were to threaten Laurel and her
new love, and eventually lead to nightmare."

I don't think I'll spoil the book by revealing that the "glamorous
mother" died by bleeding to death after cutting herself while deflasking
orchids in her greenhouse!

Orchids and orchid culture are pretty accurately depicted in this novel,
except for the "strange and evil" part. :-)

John

I must read this book. I think know these orchids.

"John DeGood" wrote in message
...
I recently purchased a used book because of the title: "Dream of Orchids"
by Phyllis A. Whitney. A sample sentence from the cover jacket:

"She must deal not only with two surprising half sisters, still tied to
the glamorous mother who had died mysteriously a year before, but also
with the strange and evil orchids that were to threaten Laurel and her new
love, and eventually lead to nightmare."

I don't think I'll spoil the book by revealing that the "glamorous mother"
died by bleeding to death after cutting herself while deflasking orchids
in her greenhouse!

Orchids and orchid culture are pretty accurately depicted in this novel,
except for the "strange and evil" part. :-)

John

On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 13:03:51 GMT in XScYe.6187$9a2.3080@trnddc04 J Fortuna wrote:
Chris,
The novels that I am reading are mostly mass market paperbacks, mostly
mysteries and romances. It's amazing how many of them do mention orchids at
least once in passing. I have not been reading much sci-fi/fantasy lately,
but I used to enjoy it, and still get back to it sometimes. I suspect that
there are not as many orchids in sci-fi books as in mysteries and romances,
since spaceships are less likely to harbor orchids, I think. That makes me
wonder which literary genres orchids have invaded by now. Orchids are
plotting to take over the world, one human (and one book) at a time. :-)

Oh, so you do read the stuff that fictional author would have written
:-).

Oddly, the last couple of spaceship oriented sci-fi novels I read actually
had house plants play a role. Unfortunately, the house plants were
spider plants... (Cherryh's "Foreigner" series).
--
Chris Dukes
Suspicion breeds confidence -- Brazil

There is a spy/thriller novel, --Orchids for Mother-- by Aaron Latham,
set at the CIA in which "Mother" is the code name for a character based
on the notorious CIA head of counter-intelligence, James Jesus
Angleton, a man obsessed to the point of paranoia with the presence of
"moles" within the agency. Mother, like the real Angleton, is an
orchid fancier, though the novel has very little to say about that.

J. Del Col

There is also a short story (available on the internet for free) called
The Flowering of the Strange Orchid by H.G. Wells...I like it.

http://retirees.uwaterloo.ca/~jerry/orchids/wells.html

Ray Lloyd

There is also a short story available for free on the internet by H.G.
Wells. It is called The Flowering of the Strange Orchid, and though it
contains a few sterotypical references (sadly, not uncommon at the
time), it is a neat little story.

http://retirees.uwaterloo.ca/~jerry/orchids/wells.html

Ray Lloyd

i think the H.G. Wells story you mention is the basis for 'The Little Shop
of Horrors' musical.

i for one would love to see Neal Stephenson do a book about the orchid
hunting expeditions back in the 1700-1800s, since i absolutely love his
'Baroque cycle' trilogy.
no mention of orchids, but i highly recommend his work.

--mo--


"Ray L." wrote in message
ink.net...
There is also a short story available for free on the internet by H.G.
Wells. It is called The Flowering of the Strange Orchid, and though it
contains a few sterotypical references (sadly, not uncommon at the time),
it is a neat little story.

http://retirees.uwaterloo.ca/~jerry/orchids/wells.html

Ray Lloyd