Tree

Object Lessons

by Matthew Battles

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

Tree explores the forms, uses, and alliances of this living object's entanglement with humanity, from antiquity to the present. Trees tower over us and yet fade into background. Their lifespan outstrips ours, and yet their wisdom remains inscrutable, treasured up in the heartwood. They serve us in many ways-as keel, lodgepole, and execution site-and yet to become human, we had to come down from their limbs. In this book Matthew Battles follows the tree's branches across art, poetry, and landscape, marking the edges of imagination with wildness and shadow.

Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in the The Atlantic.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literature

120 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 28, 2016

About the author

Matthew Battles is a Curatorial Fellow with metaLAB, a project of Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. He lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Christina Dongowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

This long essay about trees, especially the ailanthus, reads as if it has been written by a sort of contemporary Fangorn, and I mean this as high praise. Battles is trying to get as close to “thinking like a tree” as a human and a city dweller at that, may get. He shakes up our notion of what a tree and a forest might be and have been - and of the borders between nature & culture. He not only successfully argues that the distinction is sort of pointless (at least from the standpoint of a tree ;) , but develops a style of thinking and writing about the entanglement that are trees that really performs this mode of being in the world.

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

Obscure, dreamlike, stream of consciousness reminiscent of Kerouac without the funky beatnik appeal. Clearly the author glorifies nature down to genus and species, but the literary tour through the Harvard arboretum and streets of Boston may better warrant a collection of poems than a book devoted to the Tree.

[Denni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loads of good stuff in this little book (the series looks well worth exploring) with all kinds of different ways of thinking about trees and about how we humans relate to them. It's a book of ideas and exploration so not for anyone who's looking for a few facts. Me, I want to make a note of some of those thoughts to explore in my own time.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

How does a feral tree differ from a wild one? Why is ailanthus called the tree of heaven even as it is widely disdained? What are medlars, and why do they blet? To find out, read Tree by Matthew Battles and join an arboreal journey dedicated to those who have felt like ruderal species themselves and to those whose natural habitat is one of bewilderment.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've now read a couple of books in this series. Although it was enjoyable- it was a bit hard going to get my head around. Not sure if that's the fault of the book or the reader, but it was interesting none the less.

[Sydney Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

i love trees!!!!!!!!! and these little bite sized books are great to learn, to fall in love, to experience all the joy of trees (or whatever object) in all its forms. poetry, information, stories. so lovely

[Laura Hoffman Brauman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the concepts explored in the book, but Battles never used a 6 letter word if he could use a 12 letter word instead and it became distracting and didn't add anything to the reading experience.

[Cerebralcortext · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was rather bored to death by it. A congeries of titillating trivia, truly a dappled approach à la Nancy Cartwright, but all adding up to much ado about nothing.