Scan barcode
A review by lory_enterenchanted
The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
4.0
Beautiful and moving, but terribly sad. I had no idea about this civil war on Cyprus, yet another story of the cyclical trauma humans cause each other and the natural world, with just a glimmer of hope at the end. It's hard not to feel weighed down by all the tragedy, as the characters themselves struggle to come through it: those who experienced the war, those who left, and those who were born after.
The parts narrated by the fig tree gave a touch of whimsy that lightened up the human story, but also stretched credibility. I was okay with the tree that had a remarkable grasp of human relationships and history, but the butterfly that could read and the mosquito that knew the name of the human it was biting were starting to be too much -- until the twist at the end that made sense of all this. Also far-fetched, some may say, but I found it a perfect way to end the story in a hopeful way, that also fully acknowledged the pain, and brought it all back within the healing rhythms of nature. If only we could bring this to more of our stories.
To learn from the tree's wisdom was welcome and fascinating. I would love to read more books written by trees, and wonder how people could become more like trees.
"Pain, there was so much pain everywhere and in everyone. The only difference was between those who managed to hide it and those who no longer could."
"Human-time is linear, a neat continuum from a past that is supposed to be over and done with towards a future deemed to be untouched, untarnished. Every day has to be a brand-new day, filled with fresh events, every love utterly different from the previous one. The human species' appetite for novelty is insatiable and I'm not sure it does them much good.
Arboreal-time is cyclical, recurrent, perennial; the past and the future breathe within this moment, and the present does not necessarily flow in one direction; instead it draws circles within circles, like the rings you find when you cut us down.
Arboreal-time is equivalent to story-time -- and, like a story, a tree does not grow in perfectly straight lines, flawless curves or exact right angles, but bends and twists and bifurcates into fantastical shapes, throwing out branches of wonder and arcs of invention.
They are incompatible, human-time and tree-time."
"Once it's inside your head, whether it's your own memory or your parents', or your grandparents', this fucking pain becomes part of your flesh. It stays with you and marks you permanently. It messes up your psychology and shapes how you think of yourself and others." [Note: the point of the book, I think is that the pain is already in the flesh of one's children. It needs to be gotten out through knowledge, not covered up in secrecy -- but how to do this without traumatic effect?]
"When they subjected survivors' seedlings to high-intensity fires in lab conditions, they discovered that trees whose ancestors had experienced hardship reacted more swiftly and produced extra proteins, which they then used to protect and regenerate their cells."
"The tree's roots were encircling the base of its trunk, choking off the flow of water and nutrients. Nobody had realized it because it was invisible, below the soil surface...It's called girdling. There can be many reasons behind it. In this case, the chestnut was grown in a circular container before being planted out as a sapling. My point is, the tree was being strangled by its own roots. Because it was happening under the earth, it was undetectable. If the encircling roots are not found in time, they start putting pressure on the tree and it just becomes too much to bear."
The parts narrated by the fig tree gave a touch of whimsy that lightened up the human story, but also stretched credibility. I was okay with the tree that had a remarkable grasp of human relationships and history, but the butterfly that could read and the mosquito that knew the name of the human it was biting were starting to be too much -- until the twist at the end that made sense of all this. Also far-fetched, some may say, but I found it a perfect way to end the story in a hopeful way, that also fully acknowledged the pain, and brought it all back within the healing rhythms of nature. If only we could bring this to more of our stories.
To learn from the tree's wisdom was welcome and fascinating. I would love to read more books written by trees, and wonder how people could become more like trees.
"Pain, there was so much pain everywhere and in everyone. The only difference was between those who managed to hide it and those who no longer could."
"Human-time is linear, a neat continuum from a past that is supposed to be over and done with towards a future deemed to be untouched, untarnished. Every day has to be a brand-new day, filled with fresh events, every love utterly different from the previous one. The human species' appetite for novelty is insatiable and I'm not sure it does them much good.
Arboreal-time is cyclical, recurrent, perennial; the past and the future breathe within this moment, and the present does not necessarily flow in one direction; instead it draws circles within circles, like the rings you find when you cut us down.
Arboreal-time is equivalent to story-time -- and, like a story, a tree does not grow in perfectly straight lines, flawless curves or exact right angles, but bends and twists and bifurcates into fantastical shapes, throwing out branches of wonder and arcs of invention.
They are incompatible, human-time and tree-time."
"Once it's inside your head, whether it's your own memory or your parents', or your grandparents', this fucking pain becomes part of your flesh. It stays with you and marks you permanently. It messes up your psychology and shapes how you think of yourself and others." [Note: the point of the book, I think is that the pain is already in the flesh of one's children. It needs to be gotten out through knowledge, not covered up in secrecy -- but how to do this without traumatic effect?]
"When they subjected survivors' seedlings to high-intensity fires in lab conditions, they discovered that trees whose ancestors had experienced hardship reacted more swiftly and produced extra proteins, which they then used to protect and regenerate their cells."
"The tree's roots were encircling the base of its trunk, choking off the flow of water and nutrients. Nobody had realized it because it was invisible, below the soil surface...It's called girdling. There can be many reasons behind it. In this case, the chestnut was grown in a circular container before being planted out as a sapling. My point is, the tree was being strangled by its own roots. Because it was happening under the earth, it was undetectable. If the encircling roots are not found in time, they start putting pressure on the tree and it just becomes too much to bear."