The overstory sparknotes5/19/2023 ![]() Her surname might suggest a Harry Potter character, but Powers depicts this bored college student, who finds herself fascinated by ecology after nearly dying due to a drug-induced misadventure, with remarkable empathy and interest. We meet, among others, a plant biologist named Patricia “Plant-Patty” Westerford, whose research into the world of trees is controversial and groundbreakingly bold the Hoel family, a set of Norwegian immigrants whose dedication to a great chestnut tree comes to represent the passing of time and, most memorably, Olivia Vandergriff. Powers marshals a diverse central cast of nine characters, dealing with the history of migration to America. Early comparisons to Moby-Dick are unfairly lofty, but this fine book can stand on its own. This is a mighty, at times even monolithic, work that combines the multi-narrative approach of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas with a paean to the grandeur and wonder of trees that elegantly sidesteps pretension and overambition. On the evidence of The Overstory, he is continuing a remarkable run that began when he came to prominence in 2006 with the National Book award-winning The Echo Maker. N o less a writer than Margaret Atwood has said of Richard Powers that “it’s not possible for him to write an uninteresting book”. ![]()
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