Literary Fiction by People of Color discussion
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The Island of Missing Trees
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Discussion: THE ISLAND OF MISSING TREES
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ColumbusReads
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Jun 17, 2022 06:08PM
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Excited this is July Pick. I just finished this book and will enjoy seeing comments about it.
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Reading schedule for TIOMT.
Prologue/Part 1 - thru 7/4
Part 2/3 - thru 7/9
Part 4/5 - thru 7/14
Entire book open 7/17
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Have you read other books by her?
Have you picked up this one yet?
Just picked this up and have only gotten 30 pages or so, so far. Mostly, I picked it up as it was a club selection and I lived in Turkey and Greece in the past, but not Cyprus. so it was of interest and I thought I'd give it a try. Not much buzz on this I see so far though.
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George, do you recall reading any fiction titles set in Cyprus? I have read books with Turkey & Greece settings but nothing in Cyprus. Well, not with the main setting in this island country.
Columbus, no not really. Certainly not as the main setting.
While I like the book so far after 100 pages or so, I'm not quite ready yet to profess my love for it. It took me a while to get used to the fig tree being a major character. Plus I can't recall an entire restaurant menu appearing in any books I've read of late, as fond as I am of many of these dishes. I came to the book primarily interested in the relationship between the Greek boy and the Turkish girl and that has been slow to build up so far, although it looks like we're on the verge of really getting into that. So, we'll see but so far I'm not quite hooked.
As far as the menu goes, I got a kick out of the "cosmopolitan coffee." Greeks and Turks drink the same coffee but whatever you do, don't ask Greeks for Turkish coffee or Turks for Greek coffee.
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ColumbusReads wrote: "Since it doesn’t appear this book is sparking much interest discussion-wise. Let’s open it up now. What was your yhoughts on the book? Did you enjoy it?"I just finished part four. I'm unfamiliar with the history of Cyprus but I like the way the author weaves it into the story.
There's so much in the book: war, trauma, love, identity...
So far I've noticed the contrast between Kostas protecting the fig tree and protecting Ada. He nurtures the roots of the fig tree but doesn't tell Ada much about her heritage (making her feel disconnected from her roots).
Hoping to finish this by the weekend!
I finished it yesterday. I loved this book very much, especially the stories and reflections of the fig tree. I too didn’t know about the crisis of Cyprus but similar crisis have occurred around the globe, so could very well relate with it. I liked the way The Fig Tree tells about our endangered ecosystem.
I finished the book a few days ago, and didn’t love it. If you’re interested, here is my review. In a nutshell, I had two big problems. One is a bit nebulous—I just felt like Defne was really underdeveloped as a character, and she needed to be more fully drawn.But my larger issue is with the narration by the tree. I’m fine with the non-human narrator as an idea, but I think it’s often a bypass for the author to shovel in a lot of information/ideas that they’d never try to with a traditional human narrator. Certainly that felt like the case here. And the voice of the tree is really just not well done. Some ham-fisted exposition, some unearned philosophical rambling, and just some really out-of-character moments.
So I didn’t love it. I didn’t hate it either, though. I’m glad I read it, and I’m not averse to reading more from the same author at some point. But this book? Meh.
I'm late to this thread because I read the book this month, but I absolutely loved it. It took a while to get into mostly because of the tree narrator. My biggest issues were with the tree POV, but in the end, I think the tree's POV worked, but it still had some strange moments. The story was heart-breaking and messy. It definitely was not tied up in a bow, but I thought that was part of the book's charm. I loved the relationship that developed between Ada and her aunt. I loved reading about culture on Cyprus. The atrocities of war were hard to read, but it was written in a way that was very powerful and emotional. I loved the book.
