The Overstory – A Novel

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Yet it would not work as a narrative if the main characters were not richly detailed. There is always a risk with a book of this sort that at least one of the strands can feel redundant – dead wood, if you will – and, unfortunately, there are some longueurs from time to time, not least in the shape of Neelay, a paraplegic who is master of all he surveys in his virtual world (named, appropriately enough, Mastery) but who fails to realise that far greater riches can be obtained from the wonders around him. Here, Powers becomes didactic; he seems to write with distaste for Neelay’s “swollen, snapped claw” and how “he’s grown so gaunt he’s set for sainthood”, and the sympathy that he extends to his other creations is in shorter supply. You will careen through this book. The prose is driven. You don’t really get to draw breath … The writing is steel-edged, laser-sharp when Richard Powers wants it to be. When he sets out to nail meaning, it’s done. There are sentences you return to and wonder at. Irish Times Olivia Vandergriff is a druggy college student who almost kills herself on a pot high then hears voices that turn her into an ecowarrior. By various ways and men, she ends up fighting the destruction of California’s redwoods. Eventually all the different characters and messy plotlines start getting tangled together. There​ is something exhilarating in reading a novel whose context is wider than human life The Overstory is part short stories, part tree porn, part rant, and part ramble. It adds up to an impressive literary achievement that will linger with me for a long time, even while the reading experience is generally tedious. At times the characters are intriguing, at least once does plot play a role, and there’s even a fleeting moment of tension. In other words, if you only enjoy edge-of-your-seat thrillers--this isn’t your book. If you’re obsessed with trees, it might be. A] majestic redwood of a novel... Combines the multi-narrative approach of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas with a paean to the grandeur and wonder of trees... It is fitting that it ends with a message of hope Observer

A lot of the tree information I am already familiar with, as are many prospective readers, but there’s always more to learn. A magnificent saga of lives aligned with the marvels of trees, the intricacy and bounty of forests, and their catastrophic destruction under the onslaught of humanity’s ever-increasing population … A virtuoso at parallel narratives ... gripping… Powers’ sylvan tour de force is alive with gorgeous descriptions; continually surprising, often heartbreaking characters; complex suspense; unflinching scrutiny of pain; celebration of creativity and connection; and informed and expressive awe over the planet’s life force and its countless and miraculous manifestations … [A] profound and symphonic novel. Booklist (starred review) A] rich literary canopy … Powers , one of a remarkable generation of polymathic American novelists including William T. Vollmann and the late David Foster Wallace, has produced a brilliant encyclopaedic [novel] … A rich entanglement of discourses, disciplines, data, characters and styles, mirroring the most biodiverse ecosystem. Times Literary SupplementThe Atlantic called the novel "darkly optimistic" for taking the long view that humanity was doomed while trees are not. [9] The Guardian was mixed on the novel, with one review claiming that Powers mostly succeeded in conjuring "narrative momentum out of thin air, again and again"; [10] another reviewer excoriated the novel as being an "increasingly absurd melodrama". [11] Library Journal called the book "a deep meditation on the irreparable psychic damage that manifests in our unmitigated separation from nature". [12] Ron Charles of The Washington Post offered up effusive praise, writing that this "ambitious novel soars up through the canopy of American literature and remakes the landscape of environmental fiction". Here is a big, brave, ambitious novel… The writing is breathtaking, the message is devastating. This book will fill you with wonder. Saga Magazine

Some of these trees were around before Jesus was born. We’ve already taken ninety-seven percent of the old ones. Couldn’t we find a way to keep the last three percent? As a boy, Neelay Mehta becomes obsessed with computers. While climbing a California live oak, Neelay falls and becomes paralyzed from the waist down. While at Stanford University, he receives inspiration from the campus trees and decides to create an immersive world video game where players conquer, expand, and interact over game content.

Book Summary

Nature's Internet: How Trees Talk to Each Other in a Healthy Forest, by Suzanne Simard. Youtube video of TED Talk, July 2016

Adam Appich – “an inquisitive boy who is fascinated with insects and later becomes interested in human psychology and how humans can only understand things that are put into narratives. His father planted a tree before the birth of Adam and each of his four siblings; as a child, Adam conflated the characteristics of each tree with his siblings.” There are trees that flower and fruit directly from the trunk. Bizarre kapoks forty feet around with branches that run from spiky to shiny to smooth, all from the same trunk. Myrtles scattered throughout the forest that all flower on a single day. Bertholletia that grow piñata cannonballs filled with nuts. Trees that make rain, that tell time, that predict the weather. Seeds in obscene shapes and colors. Pods like daggers and scimitars. Stilt roots and snaking roots and buttresses like sculpture and roots that breathe air. Solutions run amok. The biomass is mad. While at college studying Actuarial Science, Olivia Vandergriff is accidentally electrocuted and her heart stops. A wonderful tour of how human lives can intersect and become engaged with that of trees. The complex narrative of nine separate characters who grow alone, have different kind of formative influences from events involving trees, and then converge in mind or action by the middle of the book on the political fight in the 80s over the logging of the last old-growth forest plots in the Pacific Northwest. In the process we get to experience a satisfying interplay and integration between tree-hugger spirituality (or cult mentality from some perspectives) and the surprising discoveries about the ecology and botany of trees in recent decades.Ray Brinkman and Dorothy Cazaly begin dating, but Dorothy struggles with commitment because she sees it as a form of ownership. They finally get married and make plans to plant something in their yard every year on their anniversary. Did you know that so many early cultures valued trees? Why do you think that was? And why is it no longer true, for the most part? It’s also a book about an assortment of characters, mostly pairs, and their interactions with, or passion for, trees and forests (and sometimes each other). Alert to the large ideas and generous to the small ones; in an age of cramped autofictions and self-scrutinising miniatures, it blossoms. Daily Telegraph