The Overstory - Richard Powers

 Pulitzer Award 2019; Man Booker (Short List) 2018

“To be human is to confuse a satisfying story with a meaningful one, and to mistake life for something huge with two legs. No: life is mobilized on a vastly larger scale, and the world is failing precisely because no novel can make the contest for the world seem as compelling as the struggles between a few lost people.”

   The above quote is the central one, the inside joke of the book, as well as the nudge as it were, to all readers why this book was written, (in my opinion.) A nudge to remind the reader that we are, but the understory of the world. The term understory appears in this book  nine times. It usually refers to the undergrowth, as well as life  that happens below the gigantic trees. And, we, human, are part of the undergrowth ! The term Overstory appears zero times - but this book is about the Overstory, which our author wants us to believe, or rather wants us convinced, is the one that really matters. The following is a quote from the fictitious book which appears within the novel, written by one of the main characters of the understory, Patricia Westerford:

“When the world was ending the first time, Noah took all the animals, two by two, and loaded them aboard his escape craft for evacuation. But it’s a funny thing: He left the plants to die. He failed to take the one thing he needed to rebuild life on land, and concentrated on saving the freeloaders!”

"Remember? People aren't the apex species they think they are. Other creatures—bigger, smaller, slower, faster, older, younger, more powerful—call the shots, make the air, and eat sunlight. Without them, nothing."

How Patricia sees her own species is one with compassion, and a little empathy too. But she fails till last to convince them, (other than a few,) of the more important one - the Overstory.

“She loves her own species, too—sneaky and self-serving, trapped in blinkered bodies, blind to intelligence all around it—yet chosen by creation to know.”

Terminilaia Arjuna

One of the takeaways from the book is that there is a real life sequel to Patricia Westerfield - the ecologist, Suzanne Simard. ( And there's a real life companion to the fictitious "The Secret Forest" - its called "Finding the Mother Tree"!)

 In essence this is the Overstory:

“This is not our world with trees in it. It’s a world of trees, where humans have just arrived."

Bauhinia racemosa

 The author, using a novel, since humans are more aligned towards understanding a story over the best of arguments, for:

“The best arguments in the world won't change a person's mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.”

  I do not know how far the world has developed in the legality of broaching trees as persons. After all it took like forever to include the colored, differently-abled, and the non-heterosexuals. It took near extinction, or imminent extinction,  for some certain legal actions to be applicable for the protection of certain animals. There is an idea, the source of which am unsure,  that it is  the author who shows the direction for the future society to follow. In the understory, we see the idea of the rights of trees being broached.

“Children, women, slaves, aboriginals, the ill, insane, and disabled: all changed, unthinkably, over the centuries, into persons by the law. So why shouldn’t trees and eagles and rivers and living mountains be able to sue humans for theft and endless damages?”

Diospyros ebenum

It is most likely that this idea, if not already law in some parts of the world, it is at least being seriously contemplated - which is a good thing. This is what I like about modernity - for all its flaws, it attempts to admit its faults, and make amends however difficult it is. The humility to admit that one can err, to me is a great thing.

This is a challenging read. There is so much detail when referring to the Overstory, that laymen from the Understory ( like me) will miss half of them. But the general idea in these endless details and discoveries are clear. The book, I cannot deny comes near to being didactic (maybe it is not didactic - for the motive is not ulterior; it is clear as day), as dangerously close for  a book that I enjoy. In essence, it is not a flawless book, but a necessary book, an awe inspiring one - both for the subject matter as well as the approach that the author has taken. The book, at times borders on the impossible when the Understory is narrated ( see Olivia's second life ), but Powers tells us it is the story which keep folks from the understory with him, and not the meaningful narration of the overstory, With some luck, some of that stuff will trickle down to us will stay - changing us forever in how we consider trees. For me personally, it made me really happy that I have planted a Ceylon  ebony (Diospyros ebenum), a Maila ( Sinhala vernacular name ) (Bauhinia racemosa) and a kumbuk plant ( Terminilaia Arjuna), all grown trees now. And, less guilty since I read this on my kindle.

Rating: ****1/2
( written 25/06/2021)