THE OVERSTORY by RICHARD POWERS (2018)

This novel changed the way I look at the world.

That's a big deal. A very few of the many, many books I have read have opened my eyes to something completely new to me, or have changed my way of interacting with my environment. This one did. I hope that it has a similar effect on other readers, because it is important to our survival as a species that we change our ways of dealing with the other life forms on our planet.

This is a story about trees, and in extension about all of the non-human world. Because the human readers naturally react more strongly to stories about people, Powers introduces a cast of characters who interact with trees in various ways, but their plots are secondary to the introduction of a wealth of scientific information (previously unknown to me and, I would assume, to most non-scientists) about how trees interact with each other, send messages to each other, protect themselves, protect their young, and in a myriad of other ways perform all the same tasks as human beings. Who knew? Certainly not me.

I have long been fascinated with trees, having grown up in the Panhandle of Texas, where a tree of over ten feet is an anomaly and no such thing as a woods or a forest exists. I immediately loved Central Texas when I moved here, because of the trees. I am immediately calmed when I now sit on my deck surrounded by oaks and cedars. Thus, I was probably predisposed to appreciate The Overstory perhaps more than some. I have never experienced an actual forest or seen a redwood or other giant of the species. I can only imagine what my reaction might be to their magnificence.

Strictly viewed as a novel, The Overstory is somewhat lacking. The human stories are sketchy and sometimes illogical. The first 150 pages or so read like summaries of the early lives of the nine central characters, having in common only their tangential relationship with trees or a tree. The characters all come together in the end, but they never seem quite real. I would compare this novel to 1984. Like this one, 1984 is not the most well written, and the specific characters are not actually that important. The important thing is the message, the warning. Somebody, somewhere references 1984 daily about the current world, I hope that this book also enters the general consciousness.

The message here is LEAVE THEM ALONE. Don't cut the trees down. Don't curate the forest. Let nature take care of itself, and it will take care of us.

How did this book influence my actual life? I decided it was wrong to try to make my surroundings in the woods look like a lawn in the city. I decided to leave the native grass and weeds and wild flowers. I will vote for political candidates who vow to protect the environment. If I were younger or richer, I would do more. I have come to believe that environmental issues should be the focus of political thought. All other issues will have no relevance if the earth is not habitable.

Richard Powers won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction this year for this novel. I don't believe it to be the most well written book of the year, but I do believe it to be the most important.