A Review: The Overstory

Title of Work: The Overstory
Author: Richard Powers
Format:
Published: 2018
Started:
Finished: 2024-04-28\

Posted: Goodreads
Rating: 5/5

---

It’s good in a sort of East of Eden way but with an entirely different flavor profile. A splash of Grapes of Wrath too, empathy for the downtrodden and exploited–maybe more like us than we thought. Very eco-centric. The slow and rich lives of trees and what they may teach us if we slow down and give them time time to share what they’ve learned in their hundreds of millions of years of experimentation. Neural networks of interconnected roots and fungi exchanging chemical messages beneath the forest floor. Silent and ancient giants, witnesses to our stuck-on-fast-forward human dramas. Love, and greed, and understanding, and tragedy, and growth, and decay. Every life a unique story but wrapped in unending spiral layers, wound up with the next and the next and the next.