Ms. Hen reviews The Overstory

Ms. Hen under a tree

The Overstory

Richard Powers

W. W. Norton & Company

2018

Ms. Hen decided to read this because her hen-sister had a copy, since she likes to buy books, but does not always read them. Ms. Hen knew this novel was about trees, but that’s all she knew. It won the Pulitzer Prize last year.

This novel starts out seemingly as a book of short stories. The reader is introduced to each character separately, and learns about that person’s life. There is a family in Iowa with a giant chestnut tree in their yard, a young half Chinese woman who grows up to be an engineer, a Vietnam vet, a married couple consisting of a patent lawyer and a court stenographer, a scientist, a video game designer, and more.

As Ms. Hen read the second section, some of the characters come together to be activists to fight for the endangered trees in California. Two of the characters stay high up in a redwood for a year to protest the lumber companies cutting down trees. A plan is made to do guerilla environmentalism; a crime is committed, covered up, and then hidden for years.

The characters in this novel are excellent, they are like real people who are full of pathos, and have passion about their chosen field. Patricia Westerford, the scientist, lives a troubled life; when she was young she wrote an article in a journal about how trees communicate with each other, and is ostracized by the scientific community. She finds a group of scientists in the forest while she is working as a ranger, and her career is reinvigorated. The other characters in the novel read her book about trees, and are moved by it. She is a beacon that the others in the novel look towards to uncover the truth about trees and their existence on the planet.

Ms. Hen liked this book, even though it was extremely long. There were times when she was reading when she lost track of the characters, because there are so many, and the narrative keeps bouncing back and forth to each one in the latter sections of the novel. It took Ms. Hen a long time to read this novel. She doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with long books, but they are time consuming. She likes to read a book a week, but with one like this, that’s not possible.

This novel contains a lot of philosophy and science together. It can be eye-opening to people who never think of trees as important. Ms. Hen likes trees, and she lives in an area where there are a lot, but she is embarrassed to admit that she does not know the names of all the trees. She doesn’t know the difference between a spruce and a Douglas fir. She decided she will try to learn the names of the trees in her area.

Ms. Hen recommends this novel, but she thinks that if someone reads this, they should have large chunks of time dedicated to reading it, and not read in short bursts like she does. Ms. Hen reads a lot on the train, and during her lunch break, so she does not have ample time. But to learn about a world where people care about trees and where the earth is headed is wonderful because we can see a different perspective, not necessarily a positive one, but a beautiful one.

Ms. Hen, enjoying nature