Is The Overstory by Richard Powers Overrated? 

Thank you for making a video about this. For an author who produces such detailed prose, the author made some stereotypical choices around the Chinese father Winston. Powers even went out of his way to create a whole conversation between Winston and his father to showcase him talking in broken English because it was to “practice for the upcoming trip to America” - for what literary purpose? When Winston went through customs and showed the customs officer his mooncakes and thousand year eggs the customs officer shouted in disgust at the smell, once again for what literary purpose? Thousand year eggs and moon cakes don’t really smell like anything at all unless he peeled all of them which makes no sense. Powers went out of his way to specify that Winston is from the hui minority in northwestern China. They have their own rich culture with ties to the central plains towards Kazakhstan and other central Asian regions and follow Islam. I assume Powers made this choice to paint Winston’s family as rich traders who profited off the silk trade, but aside from that doesn’t seem to write the character with any nuance that fully respects the unique background and intersectionality of a Hui Chinese. Then Powers uses this kind of character background to reference Confucian values and Buddhist philosophy? What is going on here? Why not profile a wealthy immigrant from a family of port-side traders based out of Hong Kong or Guangdong who follow Buddhist traditions more closely? Why not detail one of the many poor immigrants that arrived in droves to San Francisco or New York City where Chinatown served as a beacon for many immigrant stories in the early part of the century? I’m going to give Powers the benefit of the doubt and assume he cross-referenced his Chinese characters with strong Chinese writers but for a white man with so much to say and share, he should really stick to what he knows and leave the “walk a thousand steps in someone else’s shoes exercise” to a different project. Also, why pick Asian immigrant stories to caricaturize when there are so many indigenous, black, and brown stories that go untold especially in the realm of conservancy?

I'm so excited to have found your review! You're the only reviewer I've seen who's talking about this! Your insight is invaluable 💗. It's disturbing that he didn't research the cultural aspects more, as it's clear he is capable of intense research, considering he isn't a botanist or ecologist. I think he studied literature and physics at university. I wish he'd attended as carefully to the cultural aspects as he did to the science. He also could've utilized sensitivity readers, which I feel would've pointed out his racism to him. I don’t think I’m going to finish this and will read braiding sweetgrass instead 🙃.

Ok I gotta watch this later but I real quick have to say OMG, YOUR HAIR! It's sooo awesome, I love it!!

I came to chapter 2, Mimi Ma, and I had to put it down to Google the title+’racist’. I was so baffled, because everywhere I read on the Internet about the book was 5/5 stars. I DNFed it right then and there lol. You made a great point that the POCs were very much viewed from the POV of a white man. I am Vietnamese and I feel very strongly about East Asian portrayal (I feel connected to China, because we share so much culture), and so I couldn’t get over how this book got so much praise. Written in 2018, the Pulitzer Prize!

I recently finished this book, and was also left with very mixed feelings about it. That resulted in searching for some reviews on RU-vid to see if anyone had provided a critical review, where I found your video. Before I give too much of my opinion, I'll say that I'm a white American, so I probably have many of the same blind-spots as the author. However, even with that admission, the storylines around Mimi and Neelay absolutely felt caricatured and artificial from my perspective as well. In particular the portion's with Mimi's father and the grammatical errors in his dialogue, and how those were adopted by Mimi and even Douglas to a degree in later portions of the book. I very much appreciate hearing your personal perspective on Neelay's storyline and how that relates (or poorly relates) to Indian culture. Also, regarding a couple things you mentioned: First, you said that there were two characters with immigrant stories, Mimi and Neelay. But in fact, the book begins with the immigrant story of Nicholas Hoel's family. However, it is very noticeable how the European immigrant story didn't result in such caricatured storylines as the Chinese and Indian immigrant stories. I think that is very emblematic of the underlying issues you have pointed out. Second, there was a brief scene with indigenous characters, involving an older man and his sons who helped Nicholas with the placement of logs towards the end of the book. But you are absolutely correct that the indigenous perspective was excluded. They only appeared as very minor characters in a story that predominantly took place on their ancestral land, and with a clear connection between the broader theme and their ancestral beliefs. What attracted me to The Overstory was that I previously read another Richard Powers book, Bewilderment. To be honest, Bewilderment is a far greater book in my opinion, but reflecting on my experience with The Overstory and hearing your perspective, I'm not sure it didn't have some of the same problems with respect to things like cultural accuracy and sensitivity. For the first half of Bewilderment I imagined the main characters, a father and son, as white Americans like myself. However, eventually a couple details are provided which indicate that they are African American. At that point I started to notice certain areas where their personal experience was intended to reflect the personal experience of POC in the US, but they also felt contrived and inauthentic.

Thank you for this! Like you - and others in the comments - say, it is weird that so much praise for the book seems unshaken by its many questionable aspects. Once you start paying attention, it is oddly, glaringly white. On the topic of Indigenous people's presence - as far as I can tell, they do feature, but only as a laughable afterthought. I think in the last few passages of Nick, the artist, at the very end of the novel, when he is assembling his artwork in the woods, he is assisted by some people who turn up and seem to be coded as Native American (singing songs in a language 'way older than anything else he knows' seems one of the ways it's hinted). This, I think, makes the omission all the more egregious - as if Indigenous people turn up late to a cause they have been involved in for so much longer than any of the book's characters... Or I don't know, Power does have them sort of 'laugh' at Nick in the 'we knew this all along' way, but it just ends up being beyond puzzling, then, why this point - about Indigenous people's relationship to the themes of the book - arrives so late and in such a perfunctory way (literally a couple of paragraphs). Where is the discussion of that (in reviews etc)??! Anyway, thanks for this video!

Can you suggest some cli- fi by Indian authors? Except Amitav Ghosh

I think your analysis is great. I haven't read the book. I read an interview and cringed, so your take is unsurprising and your descriptions of the issues is very complete. I'm unsurprised he "forgot" Indigenous folks, but since you explained what he did to other cultures...maybe that's for the best lol? His white saviour narrative would have been ruined by including my people. And why did the Brown folks need to be immigrants, many have been here as long as white folks. What you describe is almost like he's telling Brown folks "by the way your culture says you should protect the Earth." I always find it offensive when white folks blame environmental crisis on everyone when it's mostly the fault of white folks. Thanks so much for your review, I think you're right about why it was praised....all of them. ❤ Maybe we need to stop rewarding the creators of environmental crisis for talking about it. These rewards need to go to the many many ignored Black, Brown, Indigenous authors on these subjects.

I really appreciate your objective thorough review that is unique but very true. I felt the same "exclusory" and even a sense of mockery about Chinese and Indian characters. I just wished that the writer himself could have replied to your review just to say that this was not personally meant or any other explanation that shows he genuinely cares. So thank you again and I shall definitely follow you.