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 )