Well, I’m caught in between on this one. Was The Overstory good enough to give it it’s own piece of writing? Right on the edge, really. Some things about it were quite good. The overall story eventually meshed, and it was told in a unique and engaging way.
But it also kind of fizzled at the end. Regardless, it fared well on my list, coming in at number 6 for now — right after Faulkner’s The Rievers and just before Buck’s The Good Earth. It really was a good book, with a decent message on stewardship of the earth’s resources, but from a worldview with which I cannot agree. The assumptions of the rise of life on the planet were almost laughable (although a majority of people would agree with them). He spent one page telling a funny little “just so” story to run it down — if the planet was born at midnight and ran for one day, we humans would only account for the last few seconds of that day. Along the way, he talked about how single cell organisms appeared; how plants and animals diverged at some time; the rise of jellyfish and worms, etc.; but never once could say how any of it came to be. You might think “well, it’s only a page, and things are much more complicated than that,” but it only being a page actually made it even more clear because, page or no page, there is absolutely no evidence in the universe of life spontaneously appearing anywhere (much less getting to the point where that life becomes self-aware). Powers just assumes this, much like every other believer in that line does. Every person who rejects God has to come up with their own supernatural explanations. To them, there is no God, but there is life, so they have to get creative with their explanations of where it came from and how it got where it is now (this line of thinking is where we get nonsense like the “multiverse”).
The thing is, though, Powers didn’t have to believe all of that for his story to still make sense. I loved the book in how it spoke to the absolute miracle of nature — the interconnectedness of trees and plants and their deep importance to the planet. Spot on. But again, to me, all of it didn’t just “appear” out of nowhere, but rather, spoke to the glory of God. It was only in Powers interjecting his speculation on how things came to be that I was put off. Still, I recommend the book, and it ranks high among my favorites.
I learned something new yesterday (Sunday). Osan Air Base library is closed on Sundays now. How ridiculous. I’m sure they had their reasons (not enough people use the library on Sundays being prime, I’m sure), but I needed a new book, and they weren’t there for me when I needed them. How disappointing. And how disappointing in the population of the base, who can’t even support the library enough to keep it open all week. Kids these days…
So where to next? Well, the library being closed helped me out, actually. I was leaning toward an easy book I knew I’d like because I’d read it already — Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels. A fantastic book that was right up my lane about the battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. It was the book upon which the movie Gettysburg was based, and I loved both the book and the movie.
But I must admit — reading a book I’ve already read is a bit of a cheat. So the extra day helped me see the error of my ways, and as a result, I checked out Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer (won the Pulitzer in 2016), and having read the first few pages, I’m happy with my choice. One of the biggest wins for me this year has been reading quality books I may have missed otherwise. I’d recommend a Pulitzer run for anyone because of this.
With only twenty days left in the year, The Sympathizer could be the one on which I end the run. But that doesn’t mean I’m out of the Pulitzer business. I’m particularly interested in Updike’s Rabbit is Rich (1982) and Rabbit at Rest (1991). Unfortunately, they are books 3 and 4 in a four-book series that I didn’t want to read out of order, and since 1 and 2 didn’t win the Pulitzer, I couldn’t read them…yet.
I’ve got plans for next year’s reading, and I think it’s going to start with The Lord of the Rings. We’ll see what comes after that…