Nov 27, 2020

Dean's Tree Huggers Unite (via Zoom)

Last Sunday was time for another Zoom distanced meeting of the Man Book Club.  And while it would have been appropriate to have each of us Zoom-in while embracing or seated in our favorite tree, given this month’s book – The Overstory by Richard Powers, we eschewed the outdoors for the comfort of our manmade arbors of dens, dining rooms, and back bedrooms.

Reading the entire 500+ page book was, like trying to hack through the book’s redwood trees, a daunting task for several of our members.  But even those who had completed only the first half of the book agreed that The Overstory was well written and compelling - especially the Chestnut story, which intertwined the Hoel family immigrant saga and gave new meaning to a “family photo album”.  Indeed, the Chestnut story was MBC’s favorite of the several disparate stories with which Powers begins the book.  The outlier (and there always is one) was Terry, who also liked Mimi Ma’s, daughter of Chinese immigrants, story.

In general MBC found the last part of the book wanting (or per Doug, it needed an editor) – reflecting Powers’ not completely successful (in our opinion) attempt to weave the disparate stories and nine main characters from the book’s first half into a cohesive west coast redwood forest climax and then, as an epilogue, short chapters intended to tie up a few loose story arcs  Even with those shortcomings, Powers’ ability to create a richly detailed and diverse narrative about trees struck a sentient and anthropomorphic chord among the MBC, confirming The Overstory’s 2019 Pulitzer Prize award.

The book inspired MBC members to reminisce about their time spent in forests -- The Great Smokey Mountains (Stan), Plumas National Forest (Andrew).  Others paused to reflect on logging as an extractive industry that places little value on the health of the overall ecosystem (Tom and Dean) and how several characters were obviously based on the real life experiences of people like Julia Butterfly, who was willing to live in the real redwood trees to protect them from loggers (Paul) or Professor Suzanne Simard, whose research tenacity led to radical insights into tree and forest ecosystems (Larry).

Otherwise, the members of MBC continued their dogged determination to get through 2020.  Even as 2021 is on the horizon, we already can see events like MBC ski weekend being cancelled (and with it the annual slip and slide car contest down Andrew’s iced driveway).  But we are grateful that COVID has not impacted any of us or our families.  We look with bated breath (behind masks of course) to a time in 2021 when MBC can again meet in person.

Next month’s book continues the forest theme but with a decidedly more predatory bent – The Tiger, by John Vaillant, a non-fiction lesson teaching us that humans (and even bears) are not always at the top of the food chain.  Roy hosts in January.  Bring your pith helmets.

--Larry

2 comments:

  1. I mostly liked the book. In a way it felt like a Shakespeare play -- starting slow and developing ("how the heck is this all going to fit together?!?"), then evolving to a peak of drama and interest in the middle, and then declining at the end where the way the author concludes feels a bit too contrived. Reading some of the more egregious examples of violence by authorities against protesters I assumed it ws a flight of fancy until I researched and found that they were in fact real incidents then adapted to the fictional characters. An interesting read.

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  2. Loved the book. Over the years I have responded to clear cut plans in Lassen National Forest, but to no avail. If you look at the current Dixie Fire Map and use the satellite view you can see the patchwork out of site of the roadways. As a novel I thought it all came together well.

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