The Orchid Thief

The first thing I would like to say about this book is that without being told, you could tell that this book was written by a journalist. Her descriptions about her surroundings, attention to detail, and large vocabulary all point to this profession. You can also tell she did extensive research and became obsessed with the story every bit as much as Laroche was with his various excursions. I also find it interesting that she is jealous of Laroche because he has been so passionate about many things, and she claims she has never truly had this experience. I would argue that she is in love with writing, because you can tell that she enjoys crafting a truly detailed, complex story without making it seem too heavy of a read.

I like the fact that throughout the book, you see her become more and more enamored with this man, John Laroche, despite her instinctive feelings. She finds his aura to be fascinating, follows in his steps into the Fakahatchee Strand in search of the ghost orchid. Her descriptions of the different types of orchids are fascinating because of the fact that some orchids have evolved to look like food, a mating partner, or an enemy of certain bugs in order to assure pollination. Also, in keeping with a sort of journalistic sense of writing, she doesn’t keep a very linear story line. She jumps all over the place, relating John Laroche and orchids to incidents in science and history. Her story about Laroche is peppered with sub-stories meant to help us further understand his, an in turn, her obsession with orchids. With this treatment of the subject, she romanticizes the prospect of collecting orchids, making us feel as if we should attempt to become orchid hunters ourselves.

At times however, I find this story becomes kind of repetitive because of all her stories of interactions with the swamp and other growers, and then getting into the history of all those things as well. It is all very interesting, but it seemed like there were a few sections where she should have trimmed some fat. The sections where she is roaming around the blocks of land with the park ranger is interesting because she relates them to an abandoned suburb; a rather surreal image. When Savilla finally shows her a ghost orchid, we are happy to see that Orlean finally gets some sense of assurance that the orchid is real. I also find it intriguing that she got involved with the lives of other orchid thieves, almost living vicariously through them…or not so vicariously. You can tell the she was completely drawn into this world, to the point of obsession. The ending of the story I found to be disappointing because it was just more talk about walking through swamps, but this time she was excited to do it with Laroche. They see the roots of some ghosts orchids, get lost and then the story just kind of ends. Overall, I really liked the story, but I think with a little revision this could be an amazing story.


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