Book by Richard Powers, W.W. published in 2018 by Norton & Company, 502 pages, reviewed December 2023 by Richard Zell Donovan

This Pulitzer Prize-winning 2018 novel is perplexing to review. It received many incredibly positive reviews by luminaries around the world….making my own independent reflections on it a bit daunting. But here goes….

Through the various stories told in the book, trees are put at the center of a conversation about forests, individual trees, the earth and human civilization. Conceptually one of its main messages is that trees interact physically, chemically and ecologically, in ways that we are still learning a lot about and humans have ignored for too long. That trees aren’t just about the wood or wood products humans need, but that other values – ecological, spiritual, etc. – matter too, and that perhaps humans can learn a lot from trees and forest ecosystems. .

For this reader it took at least the first 70 pages for me to get fully engaged. The book seemed to flow better after that, though it was never what I would call an easy read.

The book starts with a story around dynamics in the Eastern and Central USA for the American chestnut tree. In the 1800’s and early 1900’s the American chestnut represented as much as one quarter of the commercial timber harvest volume in the east. Why? Because it was a stable, not-too-hard, workable hardwood prized by furniture makers and other woodworkers. But significantly, it is also a tree that produces not just wood, but chestnuts as food for animals of all kinds, impressive shade, and a graceful shape in both urban and rural settings. After a long period as an influential tree in American society, particularly in the eastern USA, a blight arrives and decimates chestnut populations, making the existence of particular chestnut trees in the story that much more significant or symbolic. A specific tree becomes a parable for one family in particular.

The American chestnut story was just the beginning, as the author provides more stories (kind of vignettes) that focus on other trees – temperate, tropical and boreal. This includes interesting observations on tree and forest dynamics (in the forest, between trees themselves) that I was unfamiliar with before.

Another long running part of the book is the story of people – younger men and women who become forest activists in the western USA. The dialogue reflects on their lives and thinking as experience the activist life, include weeks living in the canopy of iconic old growth, blocking commercial timber harvests, and ultimately engaging in acts of ecoterrorism. Those involved ulltimately question their actions, reflect on a life lost in the name of protecting trees and forests, and the impacts of their actions on themselves as people.

Negative dynamics around the large scale industrial clearcutting are also used to demonstrate the monomaniacal focus on wood volume that the commercial forestry community has been guilty of focusing on for many years. Though one might think this might be changing, in the forestry community and society writ large, skepticism about positive change seems appropriate. The book also reflects at times on our society’s current emphasis on technology, and the kind of human interaction that technology seems to limit us to all too often (texts, emails, non-verbal interaction). The cautionary tale presented that both technology and our relationship to natural ecosystems are out of whack. That something in our civilization has run amok and that it will be very difficult to put the brakes on what we are doing to ourselves and the earth.

There is also a parallel story on a woman professor who researches and documents how trees interact in ways that humans have rarely understood. The novel reflects on her challenging journey as an academic and a storyteller who is trying to communicate her theories to the world, at the same time that she undergoing personal, internal questioning or inquiry throughout.

Ultimately this is an intriguing and fact-filled book, but for this reader also long and frustratingly hard-to-stay-with. I learned from it. As said accurately in Michael Pollan’s review comment on the back cover, the book “decenters the human as the source of all meaning and value”. In a way suggesting that we should take a step back, and look at society or civilization from the point of view of trees or forests, how they interact, and consideration of broader values that aren’t just important to humans, but to nature. It is a novel with multiple long-running stories or dialogues revolving around trees. For those with a passion for trees and forests, or perhaps searching for answers around the role of trees and forests at this interesting moment in history, it can be instructive. For those looking to see in the book some clear instruction on how we can tend forests in a way that will enhance or restore them in a practical fashion, the book probably will be frustrating. Glad I read it, though probably sure I missed some things and maybe a re-read at some point is necessary…