Modern (Ethnobotanical) Literary Delights

A Sunday afternoon bonus special - I could not resist sharing this

I found this in today’s Observer newspaper …

In article about events at the Hay Literary Festival, it was revealed that the AI program ChatGPT had been asked to produce a fictional set-up to suggest exactly the kind of novel most likely to win plaudits with British fans of literary fiction.

Synopsis

Author: Clementine Barchester-King,

Her debut novel, The Weft of Nettles, is set in a decaying Suffolk rectory where twin sisters, Honoria and Dido, have seen out seven decades of hard winters. Then, when a young ethnobotanist turns up unexpectedly with a mysterious VHS tape and a burning desire to catalogue invasive species, their family secrets unravel, one overgrown hedgerow at a time.

Extract

The house had long since given up. Its windows blinked at the garden with cataractal indifference, its chimneys wheezed like asthmatic vicars, and a thin trickle of something untrustworthy emerged from the scullery tap. Honoria sat at the oak table, buttering toast with the gravity of a person embalming a small saint. “There’s something dreadfully political in the yew hedge again,” she said. Dido did not look up from her embroidery. “So shoot it.”

– Someone needs to actually write this book - I want to know what happens next.

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