Overstory

[Becky Lindroos]

Ahhhh…… just downloaded both the Kindle and the Audible versions because … I like good books that way. 

:-)


 Becky
https://beckylindroos.wordpress.com

> On May 30, 2018, at 12:39 PM, Becky Lindroos <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> 
> Getting ready to read it very soon - probably next.   :-) 
> 
> 
> Becky
> https://beckylindroos.wordpress.com
> 
>> On May 30, 2018, at 9:03 AM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Sounds like a must read. Thanks.
>> 
>> Www.innergroovemusic.com
>> 
>>> On May 30, 2018, at 11:18 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Just finished Richard Powers ‘Overstory’. Deeply moving and resonant ,  though I have to admit the ideas are much aligned with my own sense of trees and other life forms as part of a matrix of consciouness and communication in which we have isolated ourselves from friendly participation, casting ourselves as the “studiers”, owners and rulers of life forms we neither created nor understand, and on which we are utterly dependent. What, one wonders is the use of science and technology if it provides us with the power to burn down the world and fails to give us the common sense to address our destructive mistakes and change our habits. The picture of forests that is increasingly clear in current research and which is poetically amplified through the course of Powers's story is of a multilayered resilient network of interdependent relations moderated by active communication and response. Instead of treating the intelligence of nature and her communication with humans as a poetic device which is really about good old "me" and how important human ethical choices are, he treats such communication as real, complex and effective in speaking to many different people. The trees care enough and are wise enough to speak to us. Many hear the intelligent messages of nature( see Intelligence in Nature, by Jeremy Narby, but our entire economic and social model is predicated on an idea of nature as raw materials for  competivive human greed and exploitation.
>>> 
>>> Powers uses richly detailed human stories in which plants and particularly old growth forests come to center stage in each person’s reckoning with life. As in  his last novel, Orfeo, he crosses the boundary between science research and human centered storytelling to grapple with the dangers of power imbalance, of law and politics which fears science and which fails to extend respect to citizens, let alone to other living beings. These people are inspired by parents, by experience, by ancient texts like the Bible, Ovid, the Vedas, by science research, by each other and most f all by the the forests themselves as they try to stop ancient forests from being clearcut.
>>> 
>>> Overstory takes a deep look at the question of tactics for those who wish to save the living forests, who have come to recognize that humans and many other life forms are existentially threatened by current practices. He describes the kind of violence and legal abuse that allow greedy corporate enterprises  to wipe out the last remaining outposts of old growth forest and asks how can this be stopped when peaceful protests and legal actions are met with violence.  Is destruction of machinery warranted? Why are all the technologies of destruction only “legitimized” for governments  of open bribery and endless war to seize and control ? 
>>> 
>>> I struggle with this question as I watch the failure of dedicated activists to awaken the political will to confront the dangers to our shared living planet. I hate war and especially the twisted language that legitimizes invasions and colonialist domination, but I understand and cannot argue with those who defend their homes and communities from theft and destruction.  Some things are worth fighting for, some things are more precious than an individual life.
>>> 
>>> Any other readers on the p-list? Thoughts?
>>> 
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