The Overstory

Chapters 1-5

Reading Check

1. chestnut tree seeds

2. carbon monoxide poisoning

3. His father wants to ensure that at least one branch of the family escapes the Communist Revolution.

4. three jade rings (each depicting a different and symbolically significant tree) and a Buddhist scroll

5. The Ape Inside Us

6. Dorothy is a stenographer at a company that contracts with the legal firm where Ray works.

7. intellectual property rights

Quiz

1. D. The prologue depicts trees “speaking” to an unnamed woman, telling her that humans are conscious of only a fraction of what goes on around them (and of its significance). This evokes the figurative meaning of “overstory”—a superficial sequence of events that conceals deeper meanings and connections.

2. C. John Hoel (the son of Jørgen Hoel) buys a camera and begins photographing the tree each month; his son (Frank) and grandson (Frank Jr.) carry on the tradition with varying degrees of willingness.

3. A. Winston speaks to the bear in Chinese, distracting it until he can toss some pistachios for it to eat. It is one of the only times (if not the only time) Mimi hears her father speak Chinese.

4. B. Winston’s prized mulberry begins dying around the same time his wife Charlotte begins slipping deeper into dementia—two factors that contribute to his suicide.

5. B. As a young boy, Adam believes that each of the Appich siblings’ trees either reflect or influence the appearance/personality of their corresponding human.

6. C. Adam struggles to relate to or understand other people, but he easily grasps systems, data, and patterns.

7. (short answer) Macbeth: Dorothy plays Lady Macbeth, and Ray plays Macduff.

Chapters 6-9

Reading Check

1. the Stanford Prison Experiment

2. His parachute becomes tangled in a tree after his plane is shot down, breaking his fall.

3. his father

4. Stanford

5. hearing impairment from a deformed inner ear (which also causes her some difficulties speaking)

6. Her research of trees as social organisms is widely ridiculed (though later vindicated).

7. the finalization of her divorce

8. She is electrocuted when she tries to turn off a switch with damp hands.

Quiz

1. B. Towards the end of the experiment, the guards offer to free a prisoner they’re punishing if another prisoner gives up his blanket. Like everyone else, Douglas chooses not to do so, and the memory of this complicity stays with him.

2. D. The companies doing the clear-cutting leave a line of trees between the road and the area where they’re working. This prevents passers-by from realizing what’s happening and figuratively reflects humanity’s unwillingness to reflect too deeply on our environmental impact.

3. A. Neelay’s teacher catches him coding at school and confiscates his notebook. Worried about what she’ll tell his parents, Neelay climbs a tree to buy himself time to think; on his way down, he slips and falls.

4. D. Paricia's father gives her a copy of Ovid, and the stories of people transforming into different elements of the natural world—especially trees—resonates strongly with her.

5. C. Patricia’s research centers on trees’ ability to communicate with one another and, more broadly, the connections between individual trees. This in turn reflects the interconnectedness of all life, humanity included.

6. C. Olivia is studying actuarial science—essentially, calculating and pricing risk. The subject reflects her cynical attitude towards life, which her near-death experience shakes her out of.

7. (short answer) Neelay gives his programs away for free. Most of the programmers Neelay knows did this originally, but as time goes on, more and more copyright their creations.

Chapter 10

Reading Check

1. She sees his sign reading “FREE TREE ART” while driving cross-country and pulls over at his farm.

2. Mastery

3. reading

4. his graduate thesis advisor, Professor Van Dijk

5. Mimas

6. The judge orders an injunction halting the company’s logging.

7. Video of her and Douglas protesting at a logging company headquarters leaks to the press.

8. a seed vault

9. Maple

10. Adam and Douglas mistime their tasks, and Olivia sustains fatal injuries when the bomb detonates too early.

Quiz

1. A. Olivia wakes up with the sense that a mysterious force was asking for her help; she later connects this with a television report on logging and becomes convinced that her purpose in life is to help protect nature from human depredations.

2. B. Mimi's office overlooks a stand of pines, and she often spends her lunch beneath the trees. When the trees are cut down before a town hall meeting can even take place, she is enraged; she eventually meets Douglas, who had been arrested trying to protect the same trees, at the site where the pines once stood.

3. C. As Neelay’s health deteriorates, he lives more of his life in the virtual worlds he has built. He tells Chris that as technology improves, others will do the same, rendering physical reality increasingly irrelevant.

4. D. Patricia’s book focuses to a significant extent on trees that, by dying, in one way or another facilitate the life of other organisms. This reflects the novel’s broader interest in self-sacrifice.

5. C. As Ray lies in bed after learning Dorothy plans to leave him, an aneurysm ruptures and he begins bleeding into his brain.

6. B. Adam interviews Nick and Olivia as part of his graduate research. The conversation, as well as his subsequent experiences with them (which include arrest), fundamentally changes his attitude toward environmental activism.

7. A. In their frustration, Olivia and the rest of the group begin setting off bombs to destroy buildings and equipment owned by various logging companies.

8. A. Nick’s graffiti, which includes phrases like, “No to the suicide economy, yes to real growth” (344), contrasts the limitless economic expansion uon which capitalism is premised with sustainable growth in tandem with the limits and rhythms of nature.

9. (short answer) Douglas grows disillusioned with his reforestation efforts when he learns that the logging companies use his efforts to justify expanded cutting.

10. (short answer) The protestors name their fortified camp the “Free Bioregion of Cascadia.”

Chapters 11-12

Reading Check

1. the redwood forest in which they had protested

2. She sells the arhat scroll she inherited from her father.

3. Douglas

4. the Brazilian rainforest

5. They reject the idea.

6. an American chestnut

7. Douglas gives Adam's name to the police (and helps them collect evidence by wearing a wire) in exchange for a reduced sentence.

8. “What is the single best thing a person can do for tomorrow’s world?”

9. "Still"

Quiz

1. C. Douglas, Adam, Nick, and Mimi part ways in the aftermath of Olivia’s death, and the chapter follows the different directions their lives take. It also suggests that an individual person’s life can branch into different timelines (e.g. at the moment Patricia is about to commit suicide, Powers presents two possibilities: one in which she goes through with it, and one in which she doesn’t).

2. A. After Mimi tells him to start a new life, Douglas drives to the site of the botched arson and then continues into Montana, where he finds and settles in an abandoned town.

3. B. A player tells Neelay that Mastery is ultimately unsatisfying because its only goals are endless acquisition or destruction.

4. C. Mimi begins practicing an unusual form of therapy involving lengthy, silent periods of eye contact with her clients.

5. D. Adam was always a bit of an outsider in the activist group, and when Olivia died, he was one of the most concerned with avoiding responsibility (in fact, he was reluctant to seek help when she was injured). After his arrest, he realizes that Olivia’s worldview was correct, and in an act of self-sacrifice, he chooses not to betray the other activists by cutting a deal.

6. A. Tachigali versicolor is also known as the “suicide tree” because it dies shortly after flowering, creating a hole in the canopy that its offspring can benefit from.

7. B. Nick uses downed trees and other debris to spell out the word “still”—as in, “still here.” The word itself embodies the persistence of life; new plants (and the biomes they support) will eventually grow from the decaying material Nick has used.

8. (short answer) Ovid’s Metamorphoses

9. (short answer) Ray uses his knowledge of property law to compile a case in defense of their decision.