The Overstory in Crazy Challenge Connection

May 15, 2020 Book Concierge rated it liked it

Shelves: library, concierge, strong-women, audio, book-club, environment, nature, pulitzer, literary-fiction

Audible audiobook performed by Suzanne Toren

From the book jacket: An Air Force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one ano Audible audiobook performed by Suzanne Toren

From the book jacket: An Air Force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another. These four, and five other strangers – each summoned in different ways by trees – are brought together in a last and violent stand to save the continent’s few remaining acres of virgin forest.

My reactions
I am having a very hard time pinpointing what it was about this book that I found so fascinating. Because I WAS interested, despite my overall rating. I tend to gravitate towards character-driven works, and this is certainly that. Nine “main” characters is a daunting task, and Powers does a pretty good job of keeping the story moving while giving each of them their due. They are complex people and even those that I did not particularly like I still found interesting. Reminds me a bit of a Richard Altman film.

Melding nine different points of view into a cohesive story arc is challenging enough, but Powers also uses an extraordinarily long timeline, taking the reader from antebellum New York to 20th century Pacific Northwest. And while that time frame includes many generations of people, for some trees “born” at the beginning of that time, they would be mere adolescents at the end.

There is the underlying message of environmental stewardship, which humans seem to be doing a very bad job of. But Powers' use of so many different stories to convey this message seemed to detract from the impact. I’m very glad that I read Hope Jahren’s memoir Lab Girl earlier this year, because that really helped me understand the underlying science in this work of fiction. And yet, I can certainly see why some readers have classified this as “magical realism” for certain sections (particularly when Powers writes about how the trees communicate with one another) – sections that Jahren’s scientific work seems to support.

I admit I have waited too long after finishing this book to write this review. I had hoped my F2F book club discussion would help clarify my thoughts on the book. And then COVID19 cancelled our meeting … So, my apologies to fellow readers and to the author for my delay and resulting vagueness.

The audiobook is masterfully performed by Suzanne Toren. She has a lot of characters to portray and manages to give them unique voices so that I was rarely confused. (At least not after I understood the multiple narrators.) Still, I think I may want to re-read this in text format before my F2F book club finally gets to it in October. ...more

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Aug 16, 2021 Bucket rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: identity, life-and-death, reviewed, communication, literary, american-dream, experimental, science, many-perspectives, adventure

I really, really liked this. It's an ambitious undertaking. The first half is 8 character-focused short stories -- and they're good stories too. Complete in and of themselves and they don't feel like stubs or laundry lists giving us someone's past. The second half weaves these characters' lives together, in ways big and small.

The intro stories are 5 stars to me. They are fascinating, well-done and the cast of characters is wonderful. The second half I definitely enjoyed, but not quite in the sam ...more

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Aug 21, 2021 Rusty rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-nonfiction

This was a difficult book for me to read because i found myself pondering and thinking over so many portions as I read. Sometimes it was a few paragraphs and sometimes it was pages. Nevertheless, there is so much here to internalize that when I finished I realized how much this read meant to me. I really enjoyed it.

All our lives we have planted and nourished trees. One year we planted 1200 and have watched them grow to maturity. Another time we planted 400 which now tower over our heads as we wa ...more

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