Trees, the Tree of Life, and the Pulitzer

 

Last November I wrote about being deeply affected by the novel The Overstory by Richard Powers. I was able to read this rich and complex work of fiction, a love letter to trees, while vacationing in a secluded spot on the south shore of Nova Scotia. There are nine brilliantly interwoven stories of humans but the giants of the novel are trees, in their great variety and majesty. As Barbara Kingsolver, another fine novelist, puts it in a New York Times review "These characters who have held us rapt for 150 pages turn out to be the shrubby understory, for which we couldn’t yet see the forest. Standing overhead with outstretched limbs are the real protagonists. Trees will bring these small lives together into large acts of war, love, loyalty and betrayal..."

In an interview with Amy Brady for the Chicago Review of Books a year ago Powers speaks of how trees and a particular tree changed the trajectory of his life while out for a walk when teaching at Stanford:

 ... one day, I came across a single tree that had, for whatever reason, escaped the loggers. It was the width of a house, the length of a football field, and as old as Jesus or Caesar. Compared to the trees that had so impressed me, it was like Jupiter is to the Earth.
I began to imagine what they must have looked like, those forests that would not return for centuries, if ever. It seemed to me that we had been at war for a long time, trees and people, and I wondered if it might be possible for things ever to go any other way. Within a few months, I quit my job at Stanford and devoted myself full time to writing The Overstory.

 At that time I blogged about The Overstory it was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, which it did not win, but yesterday it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Hurray!
When I offered my thoughts last Fall I made reference to the "Tree of Life" imagery in scripture" in a number of places. Since then I have been part of a group of United Church clergy who will offer services in Algonquin Park this summer with a "cathedral of the trees" theme through the weeks, a reference to the pines which are everywhere in the park.

Here is the link to my November 3, 2018 Groundling blog, for what it's worth. 

https://groundlingearthyheavenly.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-tree-of-life-overstory.html