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pinenoodle 's review for:
The Overstory
by Richard Powers
Probably the hallmark of this book is when the author uses a character who has recently suffered a stroke and will now be bed ridden to denigrate non-serious literature (but it get's better [from the author's point of view] because, while the character remains bed-ridden for the rest of his life, he does get back to taking in educational reading again).
Aside from being awful in and of it's own, it really points at the problem of the book. As the author repeatedly hints, the point of writing this book is that stories have the ability to convince people in ways that data does not. That might have worked better if the author were trying to write a story instead of LITERATURE. (You can tell because the book starts as a series of short stories introducing the major characters, and then in later sections, their journeys become intertwined. Among too many other reasons.)
There's also a huge missed opportunity. One of the characters discusses that he studies the psychology of those who hold that all is well as they are destroying the environment, and also the psychology of those who buck society and fight for the environment. If the book had cared to explore both those psychologies it could have been more interesting and even useful. I have a feeling that the author may have thought he was exploring the latter (though he gladly discarded the former, only showing us lumberjacks and the like being assholes), but he didn't. Really, we only see characters who become eco-radicals, or otherwise want to forward the cause of the environment against society's expectations. They don't have trouble getting that way, and usually the journey is short. There is no question, for instance, why one character becomes a radical after the trees that were outside her window are chopped down, while others in her office aren't so affected. At most the difference is that she chanced to meet someone who wanted to take her to a protest right after that happened--but even that comes because she was mourning the loss of those trees already and met that other character because of those feelings.
This is also an author who (my opening may have hinted) employs stereotypes and isms in building his characters. The character does still create highly dimensional characters--but that only helps so far when one of them is, say, an Indian American programmer.
Aside from being awful in and of it's own, it really points at the problem of the book. As the author repeatedly hints, the point of writing this book is that stories have the ability to convince people in ways that data does not. That might have worked better if the author were trying to write a story instead of LITERATURE. (You can tell because the book starts as a series of short stories introducing the major characters, and then in later sections, their journeys become intertwined. Among too many other reasons.)
There's also a huge missed opportunity. One of the characters discusses that he studies the psychology of those who hold that all is well as they are destroying the environment, and also the psychology of those who buck society and fight for the environment. If the book had cared to explore both those psychologies it could have been more interesting and even useful. I have a feeling that the author may have thought he was exploring the latter (though he gladly discarded the former, only showing us lumberjacks and the like being assholes), but he didn't. Really, we only see characters who become eco-radicals, or otherwise want to forward the cause of the environment against society's expectations. They don't have trouble getting that way, and usually the journey is short. There is no question, for instance, why one character becomes a radical after the trees that were outside her window are chopped down, while others in her office aren't so affected. At most the difference is that she chanced to meet someone who wanted to take her to a protest right after that happened--but even that comes because she was mourning the loss of those trees already and met that other character because of those feelings.
This is also an author who (my opening may have hinted) employs stereotypes and isms in building his characters. The character does still create highly dimensional characters--but that only helps so far when one of them is, say, an Indian American programmer.