Carl’s Reviews > The Overstory > Status Update

The Overstory challenges one of my unwritten theories as a reader: “preaching damages literature.” I felt a similar unsettling when reading The Monkey Wrench Gang, which the group of five characters has recently devolved (evolved?) into. I trust Powers; it’s not going to end cleanly. And “unsettling” is itself valuable. But I wobble.

Kate and I stopped for lunch at Salt Springs State Park, and we decided to hike the Hemlock Trail, because it advertised trees half a millennium old. Reading The Overstory makes one alert—that really is the word—to the majesty around us.

I can easily imagine that the government fiends currently hell-bent on turning national parks into drill sites would roll their beady eyes at Powers’ earnestness. Their loss.