Book Review and Highlights:
The Overstory, by Richard Powers
Introduction
In “The Overstory,” Richard Powers takes a small idea—writing about trees—and grows and twists and branches it out, using a series of inter-connected short stories and characters to create a novel as complex and rich as any forest.
You will never look at, or think about, trees the same way again. Masterful.
Context and overview
Powers is an established author with a dozen books focused around science and technology. Using heavy doses of poetic prose, The Overstory discusses and describes dozens of tree species. It spans numerous decades as it dives into family legacies, technological progress, tragedy, love, ecology, man’s place in this world, and more.
While covering a lot of ground, The Overstory gathered a lot of awards, winning a Pulitzer Prize and spending nearly a year on the New York Times Best Seller List.
At first, the book seems like a collection of short stories, related only in theme: trees. But as the book progresses, we begin to see hidden connection between the characters. This storytelling style is a vehicle for one of Powers’s main themes: trees are also interconnected in ways we can’t see, through the air and underground. This relationship means that culling one tree has a ripple effect we don’t understand. And in our ignorance, man has done more damage—possibly irreparably—than we will ever realize.
Key Themes
Interconnectedness of Life: At first, the book seems like a collection of short stories, related only in theme: trees. But as the book progresses, we begin to see hidden connection between the characters. This storytelling style is a vehicle for one of Powers’s main themes: trees are also interconnected in ways we can’t see, through the air and underground.
Unknown effects: Because trees, rather than being independent organisms, are connected in ways we can’t quite understand, we (mankind) don’t understand the impact felling a single tree has on the collective organism. It highlights the severe impact of human actions on the environment and advocates for greater awareness and preservation efforts.
Personal Reflection
It’s not a perfect book. A couple of character arcs left me perplexed, their stories not working out as they had envisioned or been promised. But maybe that supports Powers’s clear stance that nature, and the universe, needs something from each of us, and that delivering on that need doesn’t guarantee a happy ending for all. In the end, Powers proves that small is big. That a small idea—the ecology of trees—told through a series of small but ever-more-entwined stories—can build into grand ecosystem of themes and characters that leave us wonder, and wanting more.
Conclusion
Overall Impression: "The Overstory" is a profound and thought-provoking novel that challenges readers to reconsider their relationship with nature. It’s a testament to the power of storytelling in advocating for ecological awareness.Recommendation: I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in environmental issues, literary fiction, or simply a beautifully crafted narrative. It’s a compelling read that stays with you long after you’ve turned the last page.
At first, the book seems like a collection of short stories, related only in theme: trees. But as the book progresses, we begin to see hidden connection between the characters. This storytelling style is a vehicle for one of Powers’s main themes: trees are also interconnected in ways we can’t see, through the air and underground. This relationship means that culling one tree has a ripple effect we don’t understand. And in our ignorance, man has done more damage—possibly irreparably—than we will ever realize.
The book takes a strong stand on ecology and climate change, but never seems to get preachy. While we shout at each other with conflicting data and facts about climate change, Powers uses a time-tested strategy: the best way to make a convincing argument is with a good story. He lets the history, passion, and knowledge of his characters make the case for climate change and forest preservation for him.
Because of Powers’ incredible writing style and the interweaving of the characters and trees throughout time, The Overstory is one of my favorite fiction books of all time.
Quick quotes
Passages I loved:
Your kind never sees us whole. You miss the half of it, and more. There’s always as much belowground as above.
Extinction sneaks up on the Hoel farm—on all the family farms in western Iowa. The tractors grow too monstrous, the railroad cars full of nitrogen fertilizer too expensive, the competition too large and efficient, the margins too marginal, and the soil too worn by repeated row-cropping to make a profit.
A woodpecker ducks in and out of a hole it made while grub-fishing the year before. It’s a stunning secret that no one in his family will ever know: there are more lives up here, in his one single maple, than there are people in all of Belleville.
The judges award him no medal—not even a bronze. They say it’s because he has no bibliography. A bibliography is a required part of the formal report. Adam knows the real reason. They think he stole. They can’t believe a kid worked for months on an original idea, for no reason at all except the pleasure of looking until you see something.
There are girls, but they baffle him. They pretend to be stupid, by way of protective coloration. Passive, still, and cryptic. They say the opposite of what they mean, to test if you can see through them. Which they want. Then resent when you do.
A seed that lands upside down in the ground will wheel—root and stem—in great U-turns until it rights itself. But a human child can know it’s pointed wrong and still consider the direction well worth a try.
The trees under attack pump out insecticides to save their lives. That much is uncontroversial. But something else in the data makes her flesh pucker: trees a little way off, untouched by the invading swarms, ramp up their own defenses when their neighbor is attacked. Something alerts them.
person has only to look, to see that dead logs are far more alive than living ones. But the senses never have much chance, against the power of doctrine.
Her trees are far more social than even Patricia suspected. There are no individuals. There aren’t even separate species. Everything in the forest is the forest. Competition is not separable from endless flavors of cooperation. Trees fight no more than do the leaves on a single tree.
There are seeds that need fire. Seeds that need freezing. Seeds that need to be swallowed, etched in digestive acid, expelled as waste. Seeds that must be smashed open before they’ll germinate. A thing can travel everywhere, just by holding still.