The Overstory: A Novel
The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of―and paean to―the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours―vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.
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Community Reviews
I read about 200 pages of this award winning book and just couldn’t continue. The writing is pretentious and the plot was boring. I really don’t understand the rave reviews.
A gigantic thank you to Sarah Matousek for hosting a beautiful evening under the stars last week for our discussion of The Overstory. The setting was perfect the snacks were delicious, and this book was a great source of conversation! There was this one paragraph early the book, during the Nicholas Hoel section, that is talking about the photographs he took. It says “everything a human being might call the story happens outside his photo’s frame. Inside the frame, through hundreds of revolving seasons, there is only that solo tree, its fissured bark spiraling upward into early middle age, growing at the speed of wood.” I think this sets the stage well for the book as a whole. An effort to look away from the “busy-ness” of the normal human story to look at the lives being led by floral and the contribution that those make to each of our lives, even if we are not quite looking at it. The writing, so many times, was lyrical and evocative with these amazing combinations of alliteration and sonic repetition that were breathtaking. One of the strong themes of the book seemed to be about connection and interdependence, yet we all noticed that many of the characters were isolated or lonely. If also felt like Powers was commenting that the loneliness is perhaps a product or a symptom of our separation from our more natural selves. Upon rereading the beginning after finishing (which made a lot more sense than the first time I read it), we discovered this paragraph speaking to that idea of meaning and purpose and connectedness …. “That’s the trouble with people, their root problem. Life runs alongside them, unseen. Right here, right next. Creating the soil. Cycling water. Trading in nutrients. Making weather. Building atmosphere. Feeding and curing and sheltering more kinds of creatures than people know how to count. A chorus of living wood sings to the woman: If your mind were only a slightly greener thing, we’d drown you in meaning.” The book lost steam for some in the later parts, and some let dissatisfied by the ending, but all agreed that it created an amazing, complex, enlightening environment that will forever make us look at trees a little bit differently.
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What’s it about?
This book is comprised of a series of interwoven stories. Nine different characters appear throughout the book. All of the stories center around the relationship between the character and the environment they live in. The central role of trees in our lives is highlighted.
What did it make me think about?
Wow! Who knew? Trees?
“In this way, acorn animism turns bit by bit into its offspring, botany. She becomes her father’s star and only pupil for the simple reason that she alone, of all the family, sees what he knows: plants are willful and crafty and after something, just like people. He tells her, on their drives, about all the oblique miracles that green can devise. People have no corner on curious behavior. Other creatures- bigger, slower, older, more durable- call the shots, make the weather, feed creation, and create the very air. “
Should I read it?
This book has sat on the top of my pile for a couple of years now. All my reader friends keep encouraging me to get to it. I am happy to say I finally read it! After a month of reading purely entertaining stories this book was such a change. These stories both informed me and moved me. While I may not be chaining myself to a tree in the forest anytime soon- I certainly have an appreciation for trees than I did not before. I learned so much by reading this book. Richard Powers obviously wants to change our perspective- and with his talent as a writer he is persuasive. Isn’t that what a great story can do? Change our point of view?
SO- pick this one up! It is not just a story about trees. It is a story of people and how we relate to each other and the environment. It is a story of what the human brain is wired to see- “ you can’t see what you don’t understand. But what you think you already understand, you’ll fail to notice.” It is a story about relationships. It truly is one of the best books I have read in years. Don’t be put off that it is a 500 page book that is mainly about trees! That is a mistake you do not want to make.
Quote-
“ The best arguments in the world won’t change a persons mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.”
What’s it about?
This book is comprised of a series of interwoven stories. Nine different characters appear throughout the book. All of the stories center around the relationship between the character and the environment they live in. The central role of trees in our lives is highlighted.
What did it make me think about?
Wow! Who knew? Trees?
“In this way, acorn animism turns bit by bit into its offspring, botany. She becomes her father’s star and only pupil for the simple reason that she alone, of all the family, sees what he knows: plants are willful and crafty and after something, just like people. He tells her, on their drives, about all the oblique miracles that green can devise. People have no corner on curious behavior. Other creatures- bigger, slower, older, more durable- call the shots, make the weather, feed creation, and create the very air. “
Should I read it?
This book has sat on the top of my pile for a couple of years now. All my reader friends keep encouraging me to get to it. I am happy to say I finally read it! After a month of reading purely entertaining stories this book was such a change. These stories both informed me and moved me. While I may not be chaining myself to a tree in the forest anytime soon- I certainly have an appreciation for trees than I did not before. I learned so much by reading this book. Richard Powers obviously wants to change our perspective- and with his talent as a writer he is persuasive. Isn’t that what a great story can do? Change our point of view?
SO- pick this one up! It is not just a story about trees. It is a story of people and how we relate to each other and the environment. It is a story of what the human brain is wired to see- “ you can’t see what you don’t understand. But what you think you already understand, you’ll fail to notice.” It is a story about relationships. It truly is one of the best books I have read in years. Don’t be put off that it is a 500 page book that is mainly about trees! That is a mistake you do not want to make.
Quote-
“ The best arguments in the world won’t change a persons mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.”
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