The Tree [Paperback]

John Fowles (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 2010

John Fowles (1926–2005) is widely regarded as one of the preeminent English novelists of the twentieth century—his books have sold millions of copies worldwide, been turned into beloved films, and been popularly voted among the 100 greatest novels of the century.

To a smaller yet no less passionate audience, Fowles is also known for having written The Tree, one of his few works of nonfiction. First published a generation ago, it is a provocative meditation on the connection between the natural world and human creativity, and a powerful argument against taming the wild. In it, Fowles recounts his own childhood in England and describes how he rebelled against his Edwardian father’s obsession with the “quantifiable yield” of well-pruned fruit trees and came to prize instead the messy, purposeless beauty of nature left to its wildest.

The Tree is an inspiring, even life-changing book, like Lewis Hyde’s The Gift, one that reaffirms our connection to nature and reminds us of the pleasure of getting lost, the merits of having no plan, and the wisdom of following one’s nose wherever it may lead—in life as much as in art.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The Tree is part memoir, part explanation and part warning, one of the most beautiful, succinct and prescient pieces of writing we have.” (Los Angeles Times Book Review )

“Please read this book. It says the most important thing, and with a lovely succinctness. Step off the narrow path, so cleverly engineered for you, into the deep cathedral of the woods-where there are no engineers and the true self abides.” (Lydia Millet, author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist LOVE IN INFANT MONKEYS )

“THE TREE defies easy definition and even genre. Whatever else it happens to be-memoir, philosophy, natural history-the book is a kind of forest, and Fowles a masterful field guide. He shows us the hidden place where the woods and literature converge.” (Brad Kessler, author of GOAT SONG )

“THE TREE is the fullest and finest exploration I’ve ever read of how the useless delights to be discovered in nature can ripen into the practice of art.” (Lewis Hyde, author of THE GIFT )

“The Tree is a powerful, absorbing and beautifully written meditation on the connection between man and nature. . . . [A] magnificent and perfectly poised argument for a form of conservation that is even more pertinent now than when it was first published.” (Financial Times )

“[A] great book. . . . [T]he perfect little thing to roll up in your pocket and take with you for a lunch in the park. It’s like having a laid-back, wide-ranging conversation with one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century.” (The Stranger )

“A revelation.” (The Paris Review "Daily" )

“[A] beautifully honed plea for us to “be” in the natural world, to seek human creativity through the wild. . . . Beyond the tree and beyond the woods, Fowles challenges us to embrace the unpredictable, the untamable, the unquantifiable.” (Women's Voices for Change )

“Beautiful. . . . A cross between Thoreau’s “Walden” and John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing,” with a dash of “The Gift,” Lewis Hyde’s cult-classic manifesto on creativity. (New York Times, Paper Cuts )

“The most original argument for wilderness preservation I have encountered.” (Washington Post )

“[John Fowles] is a master of style, evident in the ease with which he transforms the abstract into the highly tangible, without sacrificing any of the subtleties.” (Christian Science Monitor )

“Delightful... The real subject of this arboreal excursion is not trees at all, but the importance in art of the unpredictable, the unaccountable, the intuitive, the not discernibly useful.” (Atlantic Monthly )

“[B]elongs alongside the finest wilderness-rambling narratives.” (The New Yorker "Book Bench" )

“A gentle plea for wilderness [and] an argument for art and the imagination.” (Chicago Tribune, Editor's Choice )

From the Inside Flap

In this series of moving recollections involving both his childhood and his work as a mature artist, John Fowles explains the impact of nature on his life and the dangers inherent in our traditional urge to categorize, to tame and ultimately to possess the landscape. This acquisitive drive leads to alienation and an antagonism to the apparent disorder and randomness of the natural world. For John Fowles the tree is the best analogue of prose fiction, symbolizing the wild side or our psyche, and he stresses the importance in art of the unpredictable, the unaccountable and the intuitive. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Ecco (September 28, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061997773
• ISBN-13: 978-0061997778
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #161,017 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #89 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Plants > Trees

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Sums it Up, September 28, 2010

By 

A Very Merry Shakespeare "Amy E. Lignor" (NY, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Tree (Paperback)

When I received this fantastic book I was absolutely blown away by the life-changing words. This is the thirtieth anniversary of this wonderful nonfiction look at how the natural, "wild" world affects our human lives. Mr. Fowles passed away in 2006, but his legacy of classic stories including The Gift and, my favorite, The French Lieutenant's Woman, will remain part of our culture for the rest of time. But this small yet, intricate, look at how this fantastic author "saw" life, and the relationships that made up his own existence, should truly be a permanent fixture on every human's bookshelf.

Talk about taking me home to my upbringing in the "hills" of Connecticut; this author first speaks about the trees. Throughout history, trees have provided many different things to different people; they've been the sanctuary for some, as well as the hiding place for the "justly and unjustly persecuted and hunted." This is a powerful statement. Whether living in a city or wild country, if the trees could speak, we can only imagine what stories they could tell.

Mr. Fowles grew up in London - the huge city where activity was a constant. His father was a man who had a small garden in the back of their flat, and worked very hard at keeping his bushes, flowers, and trees alive. Here was the place where John's father would go and be one with nature. John, unlike his father, wanted the "openness" of the countryside. He wanted to go on "woodland walks" where a path would lead him into the unknown. He even goes into a garden in the old Swedish university town of Uppsala, where a beautiful garden resides that is equaled only by the one spoken of in the Book of Genesis. But the one "chord" that kept driving home with me was his father. His father had a deep love of philosophy, and the trees that he cultivated by his own hand were what made him truly happy.

When the war came, the family had to move to the countryside which made John extremely happy for the unknown, wide open spaces, but made his father completely miserable. Gone were the "fruits" that he, himself, had brought to life so the countryside for him was not a joy, but a hindrance. I am very much like the author's father. I lived a great deal in the open expanse of the woodland hills, but I longed for the faster-pace of city living, where a small tree languishing in the cement outside of an apartment building was the only "green" nature to be seen for miles. As I grow older and, certainly after reading the poignant words of this wonderful author, I have moved to small dwellings and gone back to the beauty and wonder that nature brings. In fact, when we're all gone, the trees will still be here; they will still be whispering stories and fantasies, and clinging to the lives that have left the Earth. That is a powerful thing to think about.

Now that this wonderful author is gone, I can only imagine what the wind whistling through those mighty trees that he discovered have to say about him. I'm very sure that, like all the humans who read this man's wonderful words, the trees miss him and his truly beautiful soul.

Amy Lignor, [...] Reviewer

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Talk to the trees, October 22, 2010

By 

wogan "the book reader" - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Tree (Paperback)

John Folwles is widely known as a novelist, but many revere his work `The Tree". There is an introduction by Barry Lopez who says he had to get up and walk away from the book several times because its thought was so stimulating. For a lot of people this is a wonderful meditation. But for many others the thoughts will be esoteric and much too philosophical.

Fowles does tell of the differences between him and his father, especially in the fact that his father tightly pruned and forced his fruit trees to his will, while Fowles is content to let everything revert to a natural state. The thoughts are rambling and the style is not easy.

An example of his style is: "Nowhere are the two great contemporary modes of reproducing reality, the word and the camera, more at a loss; less able to capture the sound (or soundlessness) and the scents, the temperatures and moods, the all-roundness, the different levels of being in the vertical ascent from ground to tree-top, in the range of different forms of life and the subtlety of their inter-relationships." For many , most of the reading will require a double read to understand. The thoughts are all superior and interesting just not the easiest to comprehend at a quick glance.
This book is indeed for the philosophers among us.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How do we relate to Nature, if at all?, October 16, 2010

By 

Amy Henry (Nipomo, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Tree (Paperback)

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 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.

I rec'd this copy from the publisher at no charge; however, this had no relation to the contents of my review.