The Overstory by Richard Powers
What about a tree’s life? Will it continue to provide free food and shelter for its own species and other species while singing its epochal ballad in a vibratory, electrifying manner? Or will it be cut short by a race of highly developed living forms that will stop at nothing to produce a quarterly profit because they are slaves to ravenous capitalism? This is one of the questions posed by Richard Power’s most recent book, The Overstory, a sprawling chestnut tree of a story that explores the lives of nine distinct individuals who appear to discover a commonality by the end of the book. Powers plants these characters in his work and nurtures them consistently until they finally blossom into a cohesive composition with tendrils firmly planted and crowns reaching upward.
The Overstory by Richard Powers
146 used from $2.35
Free shipping
Amazon.com
In The Overstory, which won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, nine characters have their tales intertwined because of trees, all while dealing with the effects of deforestation. It’s an entertaining novel that follows the life cycle of a tree and features some really intriguing and clever characters, despite the fact that it may also be confusing at times.
One of the nine, Olivia Vandergriff, a recent dropout from an unnamed northern college who has already died by electrocution and been revived—in a sense, reborn—begins to take shape when she is suddenly visited by “presences” that lead her in an ambiguously southwesterly direction to another of Powers’ nine; and to her fate. Nick Hoel, the artist, is descended from a long line of American Chestnut tree photographers who were actually Iowa farmers who moved to Brooklyn, New York. He has continued a multi-generational effort that began over 70 years ago, shooting the lone remaining family Chestnut from the same spot each month. It turns into a kind of flip book glimpse into the slow-moving history of natural existence. The author’s motif begins to slowly burn as the two get together.
What exactly is that motif, too? It’s about looking at, really looking at, the natural world instead of just focusing on ourselves and other people. According to Powers, “the affordance of the brain has a natural propensity to be blind to things that don’t look like us, but that’s the marvel of consciousness and… of human intellect.” However, the main theme of this book is discovering a higher meaning in life and realizing the big picture through observing the small details. How a tree’s simple existence can teach us life lessons.
