A Review of The Overstory by Richard Powers
James E. Lassiter
Richard Powers
2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Buy and read this book. Within you will
find yourself as you presently are. That is, your understanding of Life and
humankind’s place within it. From reading it you might also find and become a better
person.
Who are you now? Here are two reviews of The Overstory that reveal some of you,
standing above and separate from nature:
The Atlantic called
the novel "darkly optimistic" for taking the long view that humanity
was doomed while trees are not.
The Guardian was
mixed on the novel, claiming that Powers mostly succeeded in conjuring
"narrative momentum out of thin air, again and again." (Wikipedia)
Others of you stand here, within, a part
of nature:
Library Journal* called the book "a deep
meditation on the irreparable psychic damage that manifests in our unmitigated
separation from nature.”
Ron
Charles of The Washington Post offered up
effusive praise, writing that this "ambitious novel soars up through the
canopy of American literature and remakes the landscape of environmental
fiction." (Wikipedia)
Other Reviews (Amazon.com)
“Should be mandatory reading the world over.” - Emilia
Clarke
“The
best book I’ve read in 10 years. It’s a remarkable piece of literature, and the
moment it speaks to is climate change. So, for me, it’s a lodestone. It’s a
mind-opening fiction, and it connects us all in a very positive way to the
things that we have to do if we want to regain our planet.” - Emma
Thompson
