Emmasaries of Creation
This book threatened at times to be one of the very best I've ever read, overall it just falls short of that pointless title, though it is a beautifully written, marvelously structured and wonderfully original work.
The first section is a collection of some of the finest short stories I have ever read, a set of disparate characters, all the stories different in style, all with a link to trees. The ability to make me so invested, so quickly, in so many ways blew me away. This section alone would be worthy of literary prizes.
During these stories, especially the later ones, we have hints dropped here and there, what could almost be throw-away lines, but then no, here it is again, followed by a relavatory section, religious in intensity. Something larger is happening. As part 2 begins the pace accelarates and the dozens of pages per character become just a few pages each, with several of the stories becoming deeply interwined.
It is pulsating, exciting, constantly surprising.
Absloutley first rate up to this part. Later we skip forward, and I feel we lose some of the urgency, there is less plot and more politics. It gets a bit meta and a bit on the nose - with the need for a book to make people realize the essential, urgent and invaluable interaction of trees, humans and the planet. Well, yes it's this one.
"The best argumens in the world won't change a person's mind, the only thing that can do that is a good story"
I thought the ending brought it back on track, not easy or providing all the answers but in keeping with the sadness, complexity and overaching long term hope of the whole book.
The (accurate) scientific information about trees peppered throughout the book is astonishing. Wow. Yes people do need to know more. Essential. Though, there is a real focus on the trees, rather than the wider biosphere, trees themselves, while ancient compared to us, are younger than sharks. The urgency is both wider than forests, and maybe (hopefully) not as acute as the writer makes out.
The literary aspects are first rate, it stopped me in my tracks to ponder sentences time and time again
"life has a way if talking to the future, it's called memory"
One of the quotes on the cover of my copy claims "it makes you see the world differently" I sure do, a remarkable feat.
There is a final twist to a popular quote from earlier in the book, the writer add a few words and it changes the original meaning significantly (minor spoiler alert) "the most wondrous products of 4 billion years of life need help" later adding "not them; us."
Amen, as Watchman might say.