The Overstory is a novel by Richard Powers published in 2018 by W. W. Norton …
People of the Trees
4 stars
Expansive and deeply thought provoking. Packed with ideas. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time.
My only quibble: in its mission to elucidate the eco-activist viewpoint, the book can occasionally teeter into inhabiting that viewpoint in a way that lacks nuance.
It's a book about characters who can get preachy and who see the world as divided into an awakened few and an inscrutable majority perpetuating a dangerous status quo. This all makes sense. The project of the book is helping us know these people.
However, the line between being about preachy people and being preachy is a thin one. I'd say Powers almost entirely succeeds in keeping on the right side of that line, but it's delicate work and I found myself occasionally squinting.
But then I wonder, maybe that journey of being in turns swept up in the movement and disillusioned is part of the …
Expansive and deeply thought provoking. Packed with ideas. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time.
My only quibble: in its mission to elucidate the eco-activist viewpoint, the book can occasionally teeter into inhabiting that viewpoint in a way that lacks nuance.
It's a book about characters who can get preachy and who see the world as divided into an awakened few and an inscrutable majority perpetuating a dangerous status quo. This all makes sense. The project of the book is helping us know these people.
However, the line between being about preachy people and being preachy is a thin one. I'd say Powers almost entirely succeeds in keeping on the right side of that line, but it's delicate work and I found myself occasionally squinting.
But then I wonder, maybe that journey of being in turns swept up in the movement and disillusioned is part of the point of the whole thing. I'm not sure! But this is what's going into my waffle between 4 and 5 stars.