Blood Orchid: An Unnatural History of America

Blood Orchid is a work that defies categorization, it is as much a history of America as it is a piece of philosophy. Bowden writes in his introduction, "I have clocked 7,000 miles by truck in the last thirty days and I am hunkered in a motel room high in the Rocky Mountains and yet no nearer to God." Nor to a concrete point either it would seem. Bowden writes about war, and how we go about perpetuating our own destruction through it. It is in this social critique that I see Bowden's rant moving with a purpose. That purpose is to reveal life for what it really is, and he does so successfully. Blood Orchid is a piece of philosophy of life, albeit a fairly depressing one, Bowden writes about life as we have made it, and in that does an excellent job.

As the Hammer Orchid seduces its prey with false promises of satisfaction, Charles Bowden draws his readers into his own personal saga of pain with an impressive display of anger and wrath. Multitudes of partially coherent and mostly unrelated images of sex and war are thrown to the reader at a steadily unrelenting pace, leaving one with the choice of either leaving them at the table, or ingesting them wholly and accepting the emotional heartburn that will accompany the feast. For those who choose the path of greater resistance, the rewards will follow. A highly recommended but particularly difficult read, intended for those with a passionate devotion to nature, man, history and their shared bonds.

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.

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

A must read for every American. Imagine that the problems we see every day are not individual issues, but are symptoms of a more global sickness. Bowden challenges the reader to face the truth about our culture, America as we know it is dead, as he says, pick up a newspaper, our obiturary is on every page. Written from the optimistic perspective that a problem identified can be a problem solved, Bowden delivers a powerful contribution to our modern times. A must read.