The way I see it, there is your life on Earth before reading The Overstory by Richard Powers.
And there is your life after it.
Mind a little blown.
But don’t take my word for it. Take Emma Thompson’s:
“The best book I’ve read in 10 years. It’s a remarkable piece of literature, and the moment it speaks to is climate change. So, for me, it’s a lodestone. It’s a mind-opening fiction, and it connects us all in a very positive way to the things that we have to do if we want to regain our planet.”
Or some dude called Barack:
“It’s about trees and the relationship of humans to trees. And it’s not something I would have immediately thought of, but a friend gave it to me. And I started reading it, and it changed how I thought about the Earth and our place in it.”
Ok. Right. Here we go.
Have you ever tried to read Moby Dick?
I have.
Overwhelming; frustrating; mind-blowing; insane; all of that and more, on an epic scale.
Well, The Overstory is kind of the same.
It’s to trees what Moby Dick is to whales. It isn’t exactly about trees, just like Moby Dick isn’t exactly about whales.
Both of them are about us in the end: humans; our place on Earth; our hopes and fears; our suicidal attempts to defeat nature.
Fun times, right?!
I’m not going to lie, the first hundred pages or so of The Overstory are a little bit like:
“What the actual fuck am I reading?”
That’s not an Obama quote, just to be clear.
It helps to think of this book like one of those films that starts off with a few apparently unrelated stories that gradually all connect up together while you sit there, chomping popcorn, blurting out “Aha!” or “Oh my god!” at the screen.
I’m itching to say more about this book, but seriously, if you have even the tiniest tiniest urge to better understand your own life, your position in the great scheme of things, then this is definitely the book for you.
And if you have even the slightest question about where humanity is heading, this is—of course—also the book for you.
If you’re like me, it won’t be long before you’re telling friends about the common ancestor of humans and trees, about all the genes we still share with trees even now; mad stuff like that.
Just get it already, or ask for it for Christmas!