Starting the third task, I decided to have a look at the second task in order to remember what I have found interesting and what was striking. My book is called “A Dissertation on Oriental gardening” by William Chambers, which was written in 1772. Regarding this I chose to give the words “oriental gardening” a chance. Apparently this wasn’t a good choice as it lead me to “Augustine, The City of God” by St Augustine and “The Book of the Thousand and One Nights”, the first one being a religious book and the second a book of tales. They didn’t really have similarities with the book I was assigned to.
Then I decided to look for the word “gardening”. The most interesting citation that came up was from” Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo. The book is as we know not about gardening, however the citation, saying: “Gardening had taken its departure, and nature had returned.” was close to the theme of the book. The book discovers the oriental gardening while comparing it with the western way and claiming the western to be too organised at some points. The citation also focuses on the order of the western gardening and praises the nature and it’s sincerity and maybe wildness by doing so.
After searching for further words such as the name of the author and the methods used in gardening, I have realised that I somehow am not able to find some directly comparable books. So I will go back to the book “ The Book of the Thousand and One Nights”. As I mentioned in my argument, second task, before, the author also takes into account how gardens can shape one’s feelings. If the mention of the gardens in the tales are considered we can easily see that people experiencing it mainly focus on how it feels and how it takes them into a different world and sometimes how the atmosphere is radically different in there. Just like William Chambers observing the manner, in which the oriental gardens shape people’s perception with an aim.