The Overstory

In this Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Overstory, one of the characters offered some profound advice to his students. “You can’t see what you don’t understand. But what you think you already understand, you’ll fail to notice.”Before we bought our current family home, we visited. With most of the furniture moved out and life hidden from view, the rooms were staged for a buyer.All except the young boy with autism, who could not be subdued during our tour of the home for sale. He sat on the couch and jumped up to pace, groans for words, his hands thrown against his stomach in uncomfortable, unpredictable bursts. His mother, long in patience and able to see what most could not, interpreted his enthusiasm for us and for our young children.His mother saw what we could not, knew everything was fine.In her son’s honor and in his name, a young tree had been planted years prior in the backyard of the house that we wanted to buy, because the boy’s parents understood. They saw. They did not fail to notice.Yes, we bought the home and our children played for hours in that backyard. We did not see the boy’s tree, just as we didn’t see the boy.The author of this book has caused me to see that tree, and others, much differently.Other trees including the ones no longer there. The author screams his warning to see their disappearance, page aftrr page.Our children chose instead to live in the wild little forest growing on the edge of our property line, beneath the boy's tree. Here, they buried their childhood.Deceptively dense on a postage stamp of swamp, this little forest was rife with potato vines, knee-high undergrowth and thin trunks that bent in the wind to shake off little white flowers. It sheltered courage within the walls of a young boy’s fort; it sprouted imagination in a backlot to short films on a young girl's handheld camera. Those leaves and vines covered hope and shame and anger and joy and love and peace.Then, just as our children all entered their teens, our little town outgrew itself. Progress sent machines to tear down our forest and build a mandatory retention pond.Every vine, every stump, every little white flower was erased from the yard and forever from the planet, so that our neighbors could use more water and so that the water would have some place to go other than out onto our dirt roads. Against our will, the machines tore away everything but the autistic boy’s tree. Quietly, this had grown tall, with a trunk too wide to hug.Today, that tree is the lone survivor of our backyard forest. This beautiful, magnificent tower of memory tells the stories of my three kids’ childhood.I just finished reading The Overstory by Richard Powers. I read it because I love trees (not just the one in my backyard), and because I want to read good writing. This book offers both.Powers tells the stories of 9 characters whose lives all profoundly intersect with trees. And what do all stories do, one of those characters asks in the book? “[Good stories] kill you a little. They turn you into something you weren’t” (page 412).Is that why I read? To become something I wasn’t? To grow? Or to put it another way, to die just a little? Is it death?The author wants us to think about the environment like we’ve not thought about it before. He doesn’t serve up a green brochure or a scientific journal article disguised as a flimsy four-part play. He introduces us to people and pulls them together in ways that surprise and distress and move and frighten his reader. After all, propaganda about the destruction of trees would not make us think differently. We would just see what we think we see without understanding, without knowing.“The best arguments in the world won’t change a person’s mind,” says one of the characters in this book. “The only thing that can do that is a good story.”He got me thinking anyway. Powers ends his novel on the second to last page with a reminder that “the word ‘tree’ and the word ‘truth’ come from the same root” (page 500).Because of his story, I see trees with new eyes. But Powers begs his readers to do more than just listen and nod. He storytells his heart out and, in return, begs me to die a little.

This book is a must read for several reasons. First of all, it’s beautifully written. Second, it addresses how we live on this planet with other life forms, and how interdependent we are. Third, it dramatizes how human exploitation of nature will end with us humans losing. I wish it were science fiction, but read it and you decide.

What of the life of a tree? Will it live on to sing its epic ballad, vibratory, electric, never ceasing to deliver free food and shelter for its own and other species? Or will it be cut short by a race of highly evolved life forms who, in the thrall of rabid capitalism, will do anything to show a quarterly profit? This is one of the question raised by Richard Power's latest novel The Overstory, a sprawling chestnut tree of a tale which delves into the lives of nine unique souls who seem to find a commonality by story's end. Powers seeds his work with these characters, feeding and watering them steadily until they finally sprout into a coherent composition with tendrils rooted squarely in place and crowns reaching up into the ether.The trunk of the novel takes shape when one of the nine, Olivia Vandergriff, a fresh dropout from some unnamed northern college, who has already died by electrocution, been revived- reborn so to speak- is visited suddenly by "presences" which lead her in a vaguely southwestern direction to another of Powers' nine; and to her destiny. The artist, Nick Hoel, comes from a long line of American Chestnut tree photographers, Iowa farmers really, Brooklyn, New York transplants. He has carried through on a multi-generational project: photographing the sole surviving family Chestnut from the same position every month for over seventy years. It becomes a sort of flip book peek into natural history through the dilatory filter of persistent life. When the two meet it ignites the slow burn of the author's motif.And just what is that motif? It's about seeing, really observing, the natural world beyond the blinkered focus on our fellow human beings. Powers' has said "there is a natural predisposition, I think, in the affordance of the brain to be blind to things that don't look like us, but that's the miracle of awareness and... of human intelligence." But mostly this book is about finding a larger purpose in our lives, about recognizing the big picture by (ironically enough) seeing the trees in the forest. How the simplicity of a tree's life can teach us how to live.When, during a nocturnal attempt to destroy a forest-clearing building site, a group of eco-terrorists lose one of their own to an infernal accident, they plot their escape and their future. "Say nothing, no matter what. Time is with us." says one. Then we are treated to a short treatise on the nature of time and it's as if the surrounding trees themselves are speaking, warning them: "But people have no idea what time is. They think it’s a line, spinning out from three seconds behind them, then vanishing just as fast into the three seconds of fog just ahead. They can’t see that time is one spreading ring wrapped around another, outward and outward until the thinnest skin of Now depends for its being on the enormous mass of everything that has already died."In The Overstory, Powers' correlation of his characters with the arboreal is constant. We are all connected, he seems to be saying, through this collective system of roots which proliferate across the earth. We sustain and support each other with protection and innate caring or we destroy each other through viral hate and greed. But regardless we are all one. This is a big, big tale. It pans from the microscopic out to the satellite view of our world. By the end we are left with the inevitable; nothing and everything. We read this, as one is left to ponder the future: "He stares off into the north woods, where the next project beckons. Branches, combing the sun, laughing at gravity, still unfolding. Something moves at the base of the motionless trunks. Nothing. Now everything. This, a voice whispers, from very nearby. This. What we have been given. What we must earn. This will never end."It's with that profound sense of eternity that Powers leaves us. Ineluctably, life goes on whether our frail attempt at righteous change is successful or not. We evolve regardless of our petty endeavors for wealth and pleasure. If we care enough to survive as a sentient species, we must reap the gift, we must accept it.As one of the nine comes to realize at the twilight of her life, "The best arguments in the world won’t change a person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story". And that is exactly what Richard Powers has told.

The secret life of trees bear witness as silent participants to the human experience. No wonder this is a Best seller.

This book is not an easy/fast read. Remember the people in the stories, you'll see them again. I'm glad we stuck with it! ( I drive and my husband reads.)

Interesante, fácil de leer y muy entretenido

Every line is poetry, yes, as one person noted, one often has to reread a line or a paragraph because of its beauty. I have not finished it yet. I cannot put it down. It is about everything not just trees, but I love trees. It is often about the cruelty and ignorance of humanity. The stories are so touching and unexpected. Thank you for writing this stunning book.

Purtroppo non è ancora stato tradotto in italiano. Avevo letto la recensione su The Guardian e mi sono fidata. Ho fatto bene! Un romanzo, ma con una base ecologica, soprattutto sull'ecologia della foresta, accurata e avvincente. Per parlare di ecologia senza annoiare o essere pomposi. Non tutti i personaggi umani sono ben riusciti, ma la botanica è meravigliosa!

Em THE OVERSTORY, atualmente um dos livros da longlist do Booker Prize/2018, Richard Powers não mira em minimalismos. Desde o tamanho do romance com suas mais de 500 páginas até o escopo de personagens e situações, tudo grita Épico! E isso é, possivelmente, sua grande qualidade e sua limitação. Nem sempre uma história protagonizada por árvores consegue lidar com a grandiosidade, há momentos em que o intimismo é necessário.Geralmente, romances com temáticas ambientalistas – especialmente aqueles que querem falar sobre a degradação do ambiente – se ternam facilmente distopias. Aqui, o tom é totalmente realista com uma urgência do presente. O romance fala pelas árvores por meio de seus 9 protagonistas, cujas tramas eventualmente se cruzam ou não. Com tanto personagem é impossível manter o mesmo nível, e alguns deles e suas histórias são mais bem resolvidos do que outros.O romance começa com uma família de imigrantes noruegueses que se mudam para os Estados Unidos, no século XIX, e levam consigo sementes de castanheiro. Uma delas vinga e se transforma numa grande árvore que é fotografada por um membro da família todo ano num mesmo dia do mês de março. A tradição passa para seus descendentes, mesmo que sua fazenda sofra com a modernização, e deixe de ser o que era.A evolução humana – social, cultural, econômica, política... – é pensada aqui por meio de árvores, pela forma como elas se transformam. E também pelas mudanças e avanços tecnológicos – o que, como se sabe, nem sempre terá um caráter positivo. Os personagens, de uma maneira ou outra, sempre se relacionarão com árvores. Formalmente, Powers se interessa como um romance pode ser narrado a partir do ponto de vista não-animal. Como focalizar a narrativa pela percepção das árvores?O primeiro capítulo, no qual, em poucas páginas acompanhamos a evolução de uma família por meio de diversas gerações, em sua fazenda no Iowa, é exemplar. Isso, paralelamente, às fotografias anuais acompanhando a evolução do castanheiro. Mas o narrador não deixa de perceber que “tudo o que um ser humano chamaria de *história* [story] acontece fora da moldura da foto.” The Overstory está interessado naquilo que acontece, porém, dentro do quadro da foto, assim humanos e suas emoções, sentimentos e afins são secundários. É original e corajoso o que o autor faz, mas nem todos os segmentos funcionam muito bem. O retrato dos ecoativistas, por exemplo, não escapa muito dos clichês – mas, nesse caso, talvez não seja exatamente culpa de Powers.Se a relação entre tecnologia e humanos é questão nos romances do autor, aqui, ele traz uma nova variável à equação: árvores. O resultado pode ser desigual, mas sua ambição é bem vinda e memorável, na maioria das vezes.

あまりにも壮大な物語。紙の本でで502ページ。4つの章で構成されているが、第1の章では、7人と１組のカップルが個々に描かれていて、独立した8篇の短編を読んでいるかのようだ。南北戦争の前から庭に植えた一本の栗の木の成長を撮り続けた4世代の末裔で画家の Nicholas 、中国系移民の娘で技術者 Mimi Ma、心理学者をめざす若者 Adam 、確執をくりかえす弁護士と速記者のカップル Ray and Dorothy、元空軍兵士の Douglas、少年のころ木から落ちて車椅子生活となったプログラマー Neelay、少女時代から木々に興味をもち、樹木学者となった Patricia、奔放な学生生活を送っていて感電死したあと蘇ったとされる 女子学生 Olivia。第1章 Roots(根）で描かれる彼らの個々の物語は、それだけで、出自や生い立ち、家族や社会との関係、それぞれが抱く夢や希望など、心を打つ物語性がある。唯一すべてに通底しているのが、深くも浅くもなんらかの形で木々との関わりがあることだ。第2章 Trunk(幹）第3章 Crown(樹冠）第4章 Seeds(種子）では、上記の人物たちが直接あるいは間接に交錯して驚くべき展開となる。1990年代のアメリカ、カリフォルニア地方の森林地帯の破壊に抗して、様々な運動が起きる。集団的な抗議行動が極端なエコ・テロリズムに転じることも。LDF(生物防衛隊）、森林戦争、レッドウッドサマーの状況など、本書で初めて知った。樹上占拠をやったり、木を伐採して、富を求め建設しようとするリゾート施設に放火したり･･･。　Olivia、Nicholas、Mimi、Douglas、Adam の5人が様々な経路を辿って集結することになり、それぞれ衝撃的な末路へ向かう～。一方で、Patricia は森の中にひっそりと暮らし（Walden,or,Life in the Woods を彷彿させる。Dennis という良き理解者を得て愛も育む）、樹木の研究を重ね、曲折を経て、世界に認められ尊敬される樹木学者となり、果てしない種の探索を続けつつ、講演をしたり本を書いたりしている。彼女の最初の本'The Secret Forest' は、本書のあちこちの場面に登場し人々に啓発を与える。老境にさしかかった彼女がある専門家たちの集まりに請われて行なった講演は意味深い。"Now we know that plants communicate and remember. They taste, smell, touch, and even hear and see. We, the species that figured this out, have learned so much about who we share the world with. We've begun to understand the profound ties between trees and people. But our separation has grown faster than our connection."また特異な才能で開発を続けるプログラマーの Neelay がついに向かおうとするところ、Ray と Dolothy の苦悩と愛の行方なども描かれる。Overstory とは辞書によれば　林業の用語で「上層木」「林冠層」などとある。このタイトルの意味するところは本書の内容、構成を象徴している。また、樹木に関する未知の用語が頻出していて、あるいはPCプログラムに関する内容なども私には難解だった。英文自体も判読が難しい部分もかなりあった。しかし当時のアメリカの状況の一端を知ることができ、樹木の神秘にもふれ、人類が迫られている環境保護問題についての考察を訴えられる。また、それぞれの登場人物の人生には胸を打たれる奥深いものがあり、とりわけ、5人の共謀者たちのその後、20年以上も経ってからの友情と裏切りには哀切なものがあった。2019年ピュリッツァー賞受賞作。