The Overstory

2018, a novel by Richard Powers

I don't have much time for fiction, but Powers is a very good writer. Trees and Oregon are involved. The 502 page novel intertwines many characters, some who later take pseudonyms. Very few dates. Many tree and other species. Difficult for an aging non-botanist non-novel-reader to follow, so here's names and page numbers.

SPOILERS AHEAD. You have been WARNED

005 Nicholas Hoel (Nick)

• Chestnuts and trees, Norwegian immigrant Jørgen Hoel (b1830?) near Brooklyn Navy Yards

• 006 Irish immigrant Vi Powys, marry before Christmas, US citizens by February
  • migrate to Iowa near Fort Des Moines (1843-1846?), planted six chestnuts, five sprout
• 008 many children by 1862, draft deferred. One tree survives.
• 010 Sentinel tree, area landmark

  • son John Hoel mechanizes. 1903 buys Kodak #2 Brownie camera, photographs tree every month.

• 012 1904 Asian chestnut blight kills millions of North American chestnut trees, isolated Hoel tree survives
• 013 (grandson) Frank Sr. continues photos, tells 9yo (great-grandson) Frank Jr. to continue while he fights (and dies) in France.
• 017 160 photos by John and Frank Sr., 755 by Frank Jr., gg-grandson Eric takes more
• 018 ggg-grandson Nicholas (main character), Chicago art school, 120 years after Jørgen migration
• 023 goes to Omaha art show, returns in Christmas Eve snowstorm, finds family dead from heater fumes

024 Mimi Ma

• Father Ma Sih Hsuin 1948 immigrant Chinese, becomes Winston Ma, Wheaton Il engineer, marries Charlotte from Virginia

• 033 Stranded Scholars, Displaced Persons Act, scroll and three jade rings

• 034 Luóhàn (Buddha?) - Arhat achieved Nirvana

  • many car trips west, camping, Yellowstone
• 038 Holyoke, then UC Berkeley for Ceramic Engineering, then 039 molding outfit in Portland
• 040 Salve filia Mea (Hello my daughter) Ego latinam discunt (I am learning Latin) Vita est supplicum (Life is a prayer)
• 041 In fall, father writes poem, blows brains out in back yard under failing mulberry tree
• 045 daughters divvy 3 jade rings, Mimi gets "things to come", and arhat scroll

047 Adam Appich

• 048 b 1963, 3 older siblings (trees), Leigh(elm) Jean(ash) Emmett(ironwood) Adam(maple) younger Charles(black walnut)

• 061 The Ape Inside Us

• 084 ... the greatest flaw of the species is its overwhelming tendency to mistake agreement for truth

• 089 "If you're holding a sapling in your hand when the Messiah arrives, first plant the sapling and then go out and greet the Messiah." Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai

066 Ray Brinkman & Dorothy Cazaly

• 165 St. Paul Players Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

073 Douglas Pavlicek

091 Neelay Mehta

112 Patricia Westerford

• 143 Research station manager Dennis Ward

145 Olivia Vandergriff

• 171 Des Moines to Council Bluffs IA

• 179-184 Mimi Ma
• 184-186 Doug Pavlicek learns seedlings increase allowable cut
• 186-187 Mimi Ma
• 187-190 Doug Pavlicek sleeps in park, kicked out for tree-cutting

• 191-198 Neelay Mehta creates Mastery computer game

• 198-203 Nick and Olivia bury art, drive through Donner Pass to California
• 204-208 Doug marks tree rings on park stumps, meets Mimi
• 208-211 Ray and Dorothy Brinkman christmas presents, anniversary, forget to plant anything

• 211-217 Nick and Olivia reach redwoods, Defenders of the Forest, Lost Coast

  • Mother N ... ... Humboldt Timber, Henry Hanson, the Junk Bond King ... Mill B
• 216 Nick and Olivia renamed Watchman and Maidenhair

• 217-224 Patricia Westerford 219 husband Dennis 221 giving trees

• 224-230 Neelay, journalist Chris immersed in Mastery game, chronophagic

• 230-232 coffins blocking California highway 36

• 232-238 Adam at Fortuna College, Prof Rubin Rabinowski dies offstage during lecture, bystander effect

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