The Green Pages: THE JAPANESE HOUSE: A TRADITION FOR CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE (Printed Media, Books, Magazines)

I watched a lady at the gardening section in Barnes & Noble pick up a book, skim through it quickly , put it back, pull out another, skim quickly, put it back... again and again and again. I finally asked her what she was doing... and she said she was looking for an easy-to-understand and easy-to-read book on gardens.

This book is not an easy book. But if you are willing... the chapter on "Garden" is well worth reading. Heinrich Engel presents a western author's take on the Japanese garden that is incredibly valuable and worth examining.

I frankly don't know whether this will interest you or drive you away... but just in front of the foreword is a Publisher's Note unlike anything I have ever seen in a book:

"At one time we urged that, in the interest of greater clarity, the manuscript be completely rewritten either by the author or else by a professional editor. But the author, pointing to the inevitable inadequacy of old words when having to use them to approach new concepts, has argued that such a rewriting would inevitably sacrifice something of his closely reasoned meaning and much of the imprint of the writer's personality, without which any book becomes a dull recital rather than a communion of minds.
... the decision to leave it as such was based on our conviction that this book is something important, something well worth the effort of understanding -- an amazingly thorough analysis and interpretation of the Japanese house and a sincere attempt to arrive thereby at certain universal architectural truths."

You may not read the entire book, but any gardener interested in Japanese gardens will be intrigued by the chapter on the garden.

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