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Summary: The newest "notes from the underground" by Charles Bowden
Review: Charles Bowden's "Blood Orchid" saturates his readers with honest,stream of consciousness reality from the depths of his cynical,twisted mind.Graphic sexual references hide around every corner tempting readers to find out what is this guy up to.Injections of candid truths relating Charles Keating are fascinating forays into our economic standards and the monsters created by a free market society.Stories don't get more brutal that this without real blood.A good read for those that understand their own capabilities,limitations,and appreciate the ugly potential of being human.Dostoyevsky would have been proud.
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Summary: Blood orchid
Review: Charles Bowden's book , Blood Orchid, can be seen as a book that rails upon the vilence and seriuos disregard of humankind. The author's reflection upon the Blood Orchid , a plant of dubious character, can be seen as a reflection of man kind itself and its disregard for all creation. Through the eyes of the native American, Bowden relates the loss of spiritual as well as the tempral well being. Dark and moody, the related subject matter goes from atomic destruction to insider trading. It demintrated the reality that, " everything is for sale." Strong, painful and forthright Bowden's Blood Orchid wrinches the soul and rveals hidden truths that enlightens, but often frightens.
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Summary: A dark book with an even darker story
Review: Charles Bowden's book Blood Orchid presents the twisted almost horrifying story of America's sordid past using the Blood Orchid as an extended metaphor to illustrate the self-destructive nature in American excess, pollution, materialism and even sexuality. Comparisons have been drawn between Bowden and Jack Kerouac, but where Kerouac's stories aspire toward Dharma, Bowden's is more Hell-bent. His writing lacks the optimism of Kerouac's but possesses an inherent wisdom and although his message of destruction is foreboding, it is a timely one. In light of recent events, this book should be required reading for anyone whose patriotism has blinded them to the faults of the American way of life.
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Summary: perplexing and tiring
Review: I have loved the essays I have read by Charles Bowden individually. Whether disturbing or provocative, he grabs you somewhere deep and won't let go. In a full length book, it is feeling too intense for me. The themes of our destruction of the earth and our intransigencies in our history keep returning and returning like the tide. As does the metaphor/image of the orchid. I didn't get very far into the book, I confess. I think I will have to let this one mellow on the bookshelf for a few years or a decade. Maybe then I will be angry enough to feel with along with it, or otherwise patient enough to let it come to me.
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Summary: A wild ride
Review: I'd be lying if I said this was an easy read, but Bowden warns the reader from the beginning that he travels fast. The subject matter is more than brutal and disturbing. It is enough to make you regret that you are a human being, but I am not sure that Bowden's goal is too make you feel hopeless. In many ways he is optimistic about the future in spite of the bloody past he graphically offers to the reader. He wants to move beyond explaining the past because as he says, "What is explained can be denied but what is felt cannot be forgotten." It would be impossible to read this book and not feel something, but the bigger sin in Bowden's eyes would be forgetting what you felt. The rawness and 85 mph pace of the prose alone makes this a difficult book to forget, but the subject matter and content moves you to question the deeper issues that plague a society that has forgotten how to feel, how to love, and how to live. I found portions of the book difficult to grasp and the book is mentally and emotionally exhausting in many ways. This does not diminish the importance of Bowden's message, but as a reader you need to be prepared to spend some time digesting the material.
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Summary: "Blood orchids. Everywhere."
Review: In the introduction to his 298-page book, Charles Bowden tells us, "I wrote this book because I had a simple, straightforward idea--we've been in a long war and we've lost that war and the war has poisoned us and our ground. If we admit these facts, we might survive. If we don't, it really won't matter if we survive because we will be functionally dead. Pick up any newspaper, our obituary is everywhere on the pages" (p. xiv). Bowden's prose is powerful, prophetic, hallucinogenic, and poetic. Although Bowden is not always easy to follow, he is worth the effort. In BLOOD ORCHIDS, he looks deeply into "the history of America" to discover "our governments are sick and that we are mentally ill and spiritually dead and that all our issues and crises are symptoms of this deeper sickness" (p. 139). After you've experienced this book, read Bowden's more recent BLUES FOR CANNIBALS.G. Merritt
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Summary: "Blood orchids. Everywhere."
Review: In the introduction to his 298-page book, Charles Bowden tells us, "I wrote this book because I had a simple, straightforward idea--we've been in a long war and we've lost that war and the war has poisoned us and our ground. If we admit these facts, we might survive. If we don't, it really won't matter if we survive because we will be functionally dead. Pick up any newspaper, our obituary is everywhere on the pages" (p. xiv). Bowden's prose is powerful, prophetic, hallucinogenic, and poetic. Although Bowden is not always easy to follow, he is worth the effort. In BLOOD ORCHIDS, he looks deeply into "the history of America" to discover "our governments are sick and that we are mentally ill and spiritually dead and that all our issues and crises are symptoms of this deeper sickness" (p. 139). After you've experienced this book, read Bowden's more recent BLUES FOR CANNIBALS. G. Merritt
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Summary: Blood Orchid
Review: This book reeks of "stinky-oscity!" Bowden tries too hard to write an artful dialogue, and loses (more like frustrates) the reader in this book of rants. There is no comprehension until the final chapter and by then either the reader has fallen asleep or has sold the book to a used book store.
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Summary: The Blood of the Human Orchid
Review: We are blood orchids, accordign to Charles Bowden. We have appetites-- sex, violence, mind-numbing pills. I liked the the last quote at the end of the book-- "Joy to the World." That song says it all. "Never understood a single word he said but I helped him drink his wine." That goes double for Bowden. I don't understand a single word he said (not all, anyway), but I drink his words all the same. Blood Orchid is as mind numbing as anything else. I'm numb after reading it. Maybe as I human orchid, I'm just bleeding.
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Summary: Great Western literature here!
Review: Wow- what a compelling novel. Couldn't put it down. I'd recommend it to everyone.
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