Finding the Mother Tree

Suzanne's prose is a lyrical tribute to Nature as she intertwines the stories behind her incredible discoveries with her own life. Just beautiful.

This was a tough one. On one hand, the science Suzanne Simard uncovered, that trees cooperate, communicate and share through networks of fungi across species is breathtaking. Her tenacity and drive is inspiring, and the challenges she faced from the toxic masculine arrogant boys clubs in forestry, government and academia deeply enraging.
But that every piece of her biography leading to an insight was accompanied by long winding narratives, that it often is accompanied into naive half-spirituality and scientifically bizarre pieces (like extremely overblown fear of radioactivity) is excruciating to slog through. I nearly called it quits less than a third in. I'm glad I stayed, but I'm also glad it's finally over.

For me, this wasn't a fast-moving book, but I did enjoy it. I felt that the extensive details of Simard’s experiments in various forest plots were more technical than I cared for, but I am sure it would appeal to others. Her personal story, interwoven with her scientific work, made for a good reading. Simard's discoveries of the communication process with trees and plant species were fascinating. My main problem with the book was our library loan policies. Since there was a long waitlist for the book, it could be checked out for only two weeks, and if you wanted to renew it, you had to get back on the waitlist (generally six weeks plus). I had to go through several cycles.

I'm not in love with the analogy, but this was really good. I found it frustrating that she could present data, and it seemed like policy could ignore it as not good enough but weren't under any obligation to defend their own policies.

Suzanne Simard is one of the most important figures in 21st Century forest science. She has presented a way of observing and understanding forests that has gradually shifted western thought on the relationship between trees, fungi, and other organisms.

This book is presented as an autobiography, traversing Simard's life. The stories, particularly those of adversity where she struggled to have her radical ideas accepted in forestry and scientific communities, are brilliantly told and very compelling. Some of the writing feels over-coached and as a result doesn't come across as genuine as Simard usually is. Still, the experiments and discoveries are thrilling and brilliantly told as a complete story that makes for a fantastic book.

Much more difficult reading than I had expected. This book demands a lot from the reader, and rewards well.

Difficulties... Technically: there's a lot of science, often tightly condensed. Stylistically: the book is a tapestry—okay, okay, I’ll say it: a mycorrhizal network—of memoir, ecology, research, policy, education, inspiration, frustration, hope, and more; context-switching was often jarring, as was remembering all the personae and arborae. Emotionally: ugh; so much bullying from whitemale knowbetter pieceoshits, plus the other difficulties in her life, plus all the omnipresent destruction of trees and forests and ecosystems.

Difficult, finally, on a personal level: I’m deeply hardwired as both a cooperator and a skeptic. Even though I know how her research ends, it’s different when reading about the experiments themselves: I found myself painfully conflicted between rooting for her and finding nits to pick in her experimental design, because intellectual honesty demands stricter rigor when I want something to be true. (See Feynman’s First Principle.) Satisfyingly, most of the times I had a question, she addressed it within a few pages. Other questions, time and research will tell. Also satisfyingly, and this is not much of a spoiler, cooperation wins out at the end. Fuck yeah.