The Tree

Fowles confounded my expectations: of the 101 pages in my edition, perhaps 12 are given over to a description of woodland and trees, and those twelve provide him with further material to ponder the relationship between people, as individuals and as societies, and nature. Starting with a meditation on the differences between his own and his father's views of nature, Fowles takes in art, science, religion, and the essential ineffability of existence.

This is a collection of some sixty photographs from Frank Horvat's series "Portraits of Trees", accompanied on the facing pages by an essay by Fowles in which he reflects on the ways he and Horvat and other creative artists engage with nature in general and trees in particular, and how impoverished we are when we only see nature in a reductive, scientific, utilitarian way. It's sometimes quite difficult to focus on his quite abstract arguments when you have Horvat's gorgeous images leaping out at you from the opposite page, but it's worth it: there's more to it than holistic seventies tree-hugging.

It is quite amusing the way Fowles insists on the complexity and interelatedness of the forest whilst Horvat is doing everything he can to show more sterilise and isolate his specimens. You sense that his ideal tree is the one standing by itself in a snowy French field where there is no clear distinction to be seen in the background between earth and sky, whereas Fowles imagines himself in the densely wooded dells of the Undercliff at Lyme Regis. Of course, that's an oversimplification, Horvat admits a few groupings of trees and Fowles also talks about his father's immaculately pruned fruit trees, but they don't seem to have a huge amount in common. show less

Had I highlighted the thought-provoking and important passages in this book as I read it, it would be almost fully colored. But in a way, that works against itself: there's too much worth remembering to remember much at all. So this will bear re-reading someday. (Fortunately, it is a slim volume.)
The other thing that makes it so hard to summon up the crystals of philosophy is Fowles prose. It weaves and writhes like a honeysuckle vine. I had to read almost every sentence multiple times, dropping out parenthetical clauses, in order to firmly connect subject to predicate to object. Whether this is a feature or a bug, I am unsure.

This book is a wonderful antidote to those who see nature as a "system" or a "machine" that is somehow apart from us. Fowles sees the natural world instead as a community that we're inextricably bound up with. Trees are companions, even friends. A profound meditation:

"The particular cost of understanding the mechanism of nature, of having so successfully itemized and pigeon-holed it, lies most of all in the ordinary person's perception of it, in his or her ability to live with and care for it--and not to see it as challenge, defiance, enemy."

This is the 30th anniversary edition of John Fowles legendary essay about trees. Or rather, what trees mean in a greater sense than just the biological. At first, I expected this to be similar to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring-both were written decades ago. However, this slim text is more of a set of questions rather than answers. In fact, despite the title, it could be said that trees are just the smallest portion of his purpose.

"Do we feel that unless we create evidence-photographs, journal entries, picked and pressed flowers, tape recordings, pocketed stones-we haven't actually been intimate with nature?"

Fowles was known for writing The French Lieutenant's Woman as well as other fiction titles. Here, in this book, he discusses via show more anecdotes the relationship between humans and nature, and the juxtaposition between nature on its own and our experience of nature. First, the introduction by Barry Lopez comfortably sets the scene, and hints that this is no simple environmental manifesto. And never does Fowles lecture about how people should view nature; rather, he talks about what nature may or may not mean in a larger sense.

For example, he talks about his childhood home where his father cultivated small garden and fruit trees. Nothing was out of place, and while it was in the city, his father managed to tame anything unruly from the garden. Clearly it was his goal to conquer the plot of land. He was the victor over it. Yet his son, Fowles, purchases property that is larger, but by no means tame. Fowles neither cultivates or cuts back, he sees no point in amending the soil, pruning the trees, and to the horror of his father, the parcel of land is wild. Is it a moral battle over who conquers the natural world? Is it nature if you've directed its every movement? Fowles doesn't presume to answer, he just asks.

In a further irony, which tells a great deal about his father, Fowles recalls how his father could walk for miles in the city, yet would only hike a few hundred meters in the countryside. The untame pastoral scene frightened him or inhibited him, likely because of its chaos. Thus, Fowles discusses chaos in nature, and how the most lovely of scenes is never the most natural. He also makes a valid point that our modern society, with three decades of hindsight added since this was written, has used film and photography to 'show' nature, making the interaction with it less urgent. How often do people seek it out? Is putting a pot of daisies on the patio nature or decor? Do we travel to faraway places to imbibe unique cocktails or are we willing to hike in a forest for no other purpose than to look? Again, he gives no condescending or judgmental answer, he just asks thought provoking questions.

Since the last few years have produced epic and beautiful DVD collections for large screen televisions, like Planet Earth, does nature seem to be something we order up on the Netflix queue or purchase at Costco? It should be noted that this is not a nature 'journal', nor a guide to trees. There are no photos or etchings to illustrate it, and that's appropriate in that Fowles doesn't feel a photograph can replicate nature satisfactorily. I enjoyed this very much, and wish that Fowles would have spent a bit more time discussing his own experiences, as well as suggested ideas for conservation and preservation. show less

This would be the third nature-based book out of the last four I've read. The Tree is a special book in that it is a 2010 reissue of a 1979 essay by the late, great novelist, John Fowles. It's a short work in which Fowles is exploring where nature fits into modern man's life, as well as its role in the inspiration of all manner and form of man's art..

His father had always kept a neat, orderly, heavily-pruned orchard and garden. John's much lighter hand on his own land made a strong impression on him. "I think I truly horrified him only once in my life, which was when, soon after coming into possession, I first took him around my present exceedingly unkempt, unmanaged and unmanageable garden."

The Tree defies summary. My attempts to pull out a meaninful passage would eventually result in transcription of the entire work. I did not expect that one of the slimmest books on my shelf would be so enlightening, or so dense. I will keep this book forever, and read it again and again. There is so much I missed, and much more that I can learn from it.