The Overstory

I loved the initial short story-like introductions to each character in the first half of the book. I also enjoyed when their stories began to intersect at some point in the middle. But then it became a bit of a slog focusing on eco-terrorism. I admit to skimming the final third, which is too bad because it means I probably missed some really great individual sentences.

I shouldn't like this book. it's an extensive brain dump of information about forest intelligence, how trees in fact communicate with each other to warn of impending threats. How a vast underground network connect trees across thousands of kilometres creating a plant neurobiology. We have eco-warriors Watchman and Maidenhair, she a survivor of a near death electrocution that has left her with the ability to communicate with light beings that exhort her to save the trees! And to be honest it gets a little scattered nearing the end, juggling 9(!) different characters, some of whom I'm still a little unsure as to what they're supposed to represent, what story they're trying to tell.

But damn can Powers write about nature. I realize that my literary fiction diet is made up of cityscapes and suburbs. Characters that rarely look up from the concrete under their feet. Powers gets us outdoors and manages to evoke the wonder you felt staring at a massive redwood, or the spare jack pine on a rocky outcrop bending against the wind. It's a rare talent that can tread that line between deeply researched science and woo-woo nature gazing but Powers pulls it off with aplomb.

Paradigm shifting - you'll never look at eco-warrior hippies the same again, it's hard to when you completely agree with them.

I'm also committing to this right now in this review to no one, I'm going to learn the names of all the trees.

Made me cry and gave me a new found appreciation for trees.

First half would be a pretty solid 5/5, then it just kept dropping as I kept reading after that...

The prose is astonishing. The author has a remarkable ability to weave many stories together to make a point about what we are doing to nature and how we are overlooking what nature can give us and how it can save us from a climate catastrophe. As a lover of nature and someone very concerned about our climate emergency, I found this story spoke to all of my concerns. It portrayed various individuals who independently found some solace in nature and acted out of that love. It's a book I hope to get a chance to re-read.

I absolutely loved the first section of this book. It was a little harder to get through the middle section and don't really know how the author could have better wound the stories together. Overall, very well written, very purposeful and absolutely worth reading but not a quick read.

The first few chapters were so ambitious, Powers describes this thing this half an idea that's ethereal and also very concrete. You want to keep reading just to keep feeling close to that idea. By the end though I had lost what was so inspiring about it and the writing felt overwrought and corny.

I am at heart an environmentalist. I enjoy books about the environment, especially well written ones. This is one of the well written ones, a few rough spots here and there, but definitely not anything that detracts from the story.

My grandpa loved trees. He cared for many during his lifetime. He planted trees for his children and grandchildren when they were born. He saved quotes about trees - jotted on note cards and stashed inside books, to be found years later. As I read this book, I couldn't help but think how much he would have loved it.

The Overstory begins with a cast of characters that seem to have no connection, and proceeds to weave them together in a fascinating and beautiful canopy. We know that people are connected in ways we don't always understand. Apparently, so are trees - and the tragedy of the loss of these magnificent creatures is only beginning to be understood. This book becomes a thing much greater than the sum of its parts - a masterpiece.

The most irritating book I've ever read. Irritating in that uniquely American way, with all the usual faux pas related to identity. It's schmaltzy, overwrought, and littered with sentences that pained me to read.

“It's what his muscles know, especially that largest muscle in his inventory - his soul.” 

🤮🤮

This won the Pulitzer and I can see why. Vast in scope, sprawling even, it's a deep-think that tugs at what it means to be a human in this world and our self-destructive, collateral-damaging place in it. It's also a story of seemingly futile, but important, efforts to right wrongs ... no matter what, by folks who simply care. Folks who noticed.

With my editor hat on, I think this book should have been trimmed down 100 pages, but what an ambitious work. It deserves its kudos and will not be the last book I read from this author.

The Overstory's theme of nature and its ubiquity in a seemingly omnipotent way is present in every possible way. In structure, the novel has not one main protagonist but many characters developing and branching out with leafing connections. In timeline, the story of generations is told, not the story of a single day or month or year or decade – a timeline significant even to that of the oldest chestnut. In tone, with the trials and tribulations although heart-wrenching at points, coldly relayed as if from the perspective of a stoic oak. In title, as an understory is the layer of vegetation on the forest floor. And of course, in content, in prose with diction that somehow ethereally wraps around your brain and simultaneously leaves you with a clear image. The novel poses interesting questions crossing borders between morality and objectivity, between environment and Earth, and between life and sentience, not unlike [b:The Monkey Wrench Gang 99208 The Monkey Wrench Gang (Monkey Wrench Gang, #1) Edward Abbey https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1349067863l/99208.SY75.jpg 2803318]. In The Overstory, Powers has achieved, not humanizing trees (a task previously accomplished by Dr. Seuss) but making the reader empathize with “tree-ified” people.

I tried. I really tried. The first vignette about the Hoels was well-done and I thought I was in for a truly lovely book. And each successive story got worse and worse. I just found myself not caring. Once the character's stories started interweaving, it got worse and I could not finish.

Here are discussion question from the PBS News Hour Book Club.


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/arts/discussion-questions-for-the-overstory