The Overstory is the second novel of Richard Powers’ that I have read, the first being Bewilderment. The Overstory is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel that was Powers’ last novel before he published Bewilderment, and both novels have a common theme of human destruction of the natural environment. The Overstory is a dense novel that even I found to be a bit much, I think because it presents a lot of hard truths about how unappreciative humanity is of this amazing, beautiful world that we live in, and how our main character energy has resulted in the mass destruction of other lives that share this planet with us.

The Overstory is quite simply about trees, about how these magnificent beings that have been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years have feelings, communicate with each other, keep each other safe from sickness, support each other as well as vast ecosystems of other plants, mammals, insects and countless other lives, and about how we humans have no respect for them as we chop down vast swaths of forest just so we can build another McMansion or Ikea product, except for the human characters in this novel, who are each on the path of learning how to appreciate trees and doing what they can to protect that natural world before we destroy it irrevocably.

Several of the characters in the novel come together to become environmental activists, or “eco-terrorists” as the law calls them, staging sit-ins to halt logging operations or, as a drastic last resort, committing arson. These characters are considered villains by a society that favours corporations and profits over the rights of living beings. At one point in the novel, two of these activists spend months living in a giant redwood in California called Mimas to protect it from logging, and when Mimas is inevitably cut down, I felt this profound sense of sadness as I thought, how can people have such little appreciation for these awe inspiring beings that stretch hundreds of feet into the sky and have lived for centuries? How can we, insignificant and transient beings, have such little foresight to prefer the fleeting pleasures of our lives instead of doing what we can to preserve the world for future generations? Why do people keep popping out babies if they are not going to do anything to give them a safe world to grow up in?

Powers ends The Overstory on an optimistic note in that trees are going to continue to outlive humans, but with the way things are going in the world right now, I am feeling more nihilistic. I can see future generations of people preferring to live their lives out in a virtual world much like the game designed by one of the characters in this novel when there is no natural beauty left in the real world to enjoy. Like Bewilderment, I think The Overstory is a novel that everyone should read, but it is a bit too daunting to get much enjoyment out of it.