the overstory

The Overstory by Richard Powers is organized unlike any other book I can recall. Its like a series of short stories, that kind of grow together, around and among the trees. Its a series of related fables? Ovid's Metamorphoses is mentioned in here somewhere, and its at least part of the inspiration for this story, as much as global warming and deforestation is the implied warning or moral.

I don't recall reading anything by Richard Powers before, so I took a quick look, and this book apparently won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, so go figure. I enjoyed this book, but I'm not going to put it in my 'read this book'* category only because it was a little slow and disjointed for me. Its my guess that this won the Pulitzer because it is so different from other things I've read, and the structure of this book's story arc is like nothing else I've read. For me personally, being different as not the same as being entertaining, and that's why I read fiction. 

Lets be clear, was entertained, and I did enjoy this book, I'm just not weeping because I finished it, rapt with longing for more, and kicking down doors to find the next book by this author. Now, also to be clear, I don't feel that way about every book that makes it to the 'read this...' group, that's a high bar indeed, I just reserve that for books I'm recommending without reservation.

Powers writes fiction about science and technology, and it seems as though he is pretty well known for it. I'll keep my eye out and if I run into another that looks good I'll probably pick it up.

 

* The link to my 'read this book' tagged books can be found anytime by clicking on the appropriate tag on the tag cloud on the right-hand column on this page. Its under the heading: 'what i'm talking about'. You can use any of the other tags in the same way. They also show up at the bottom of every post, so if you're looking for something similar, I may have labeled it that way