A review by logarithms
City of Trees: Essays on Life, Death and the Need for a Forest by Sophie Cunningham
4.0
an interesting collection of essays! the few toward the end about historic expeditions were kinda boring, but otherwise a good read! it was cool to read about melbourne and learn more about where i live (though it did reinvigorate my hatred for our politicians <3)
tabs and quotes: (spoilered for length)
"The centre is failing, and we're left to maintain traction in the chaos. Or perhaps the situation is this: we're falling off a cliff in slow motion. Me, I grab at the trees I see on the way down in an attempt to break the fall. I look at what I see around me as I tumble, for I want to remember it all - the landscapes, the animals that may not survive the impact."
ok rip my heart out on p13 thats fine
"In their plight I recognise our own. It is not just the crabs that are being left to float aimlessly in ruined seas. It is not just the dogs we live with, poison, walk with, experiment upon, that are to whine; to take the jolt."
the way she ends essays is just...v compelling
"Did it matter if those trees, more than a century old, died? They were not, after all, from that place. It's a hard question to consider when almost all of us now - flora, fauna and humans - are from somewhere else."
"- we had loved him, he had loved us. We forgot, for a while at least, all the rest."
oh. yea. uh huh. i felt that...
"It is hard to convey the intensity this particular tree emanates as it stands, like a sentinel or ancient god, looking across the land, without sounding slightly crazy." the thread of this theme of trees as spiritual/gods was so good...the way the collection ends with: "She holds a Leadbeater's possum in her hollow like an orb, she brandishes her branches as a sceptre, as a sword. I honour you, I say. I pledge my allegiance to you, to this city - to our planet - of trees."
"My nerve began to fail me. Having undertaken to bear witness to what humans are doing to this planet, to all that lives upon it, I found I was beginning to look away."
"I was struck by the similarity between trees and whales. Both have a capacity to feed an ecosystem for years and decades after they have died."
i tabbed this one cause it makes me wanna paint a diptych....or something...
tabs and quotes: (spoilered for length)
Spoiler
"The centre is failing, and we're left to maintain traction in the chaos. Or perhaps the situation is this: we're falling off a cliff in slow motion. Me, I grab at the trees I see on the way down in an attempt to break the fall. I look at what I see around me as I tumble, for I want to remember it all - the landscapes, the animals that may not survive the impact."
ok rip my heart out on p13 thats fine
"In their plight I recognise our own. It is not just the crabs that are being left to float aimlessly in ruined seas. It is not just the dogs we live with, poison, walk with, experiment upon, that are to whine; to take the jolt."
the way she ends essays is just...v compelling
"Did it matter if those trees, more than a century old, died? They were not, after all, from that place. It's a hard question to consider when almost all of us now - flora, fauna and humans - are from somewhere else."
"- we had loved him, he had loved us. We forgot, for a while at least, all the rest."
oh. yea. uh huh. i felt that...
"It is hard to convey the intensity this particular tree emanates as it stands, like a sentinel or ancient god, looking across the land, without sounding slightly crazy." the thread of this theme of trees as spiritual/gods was so good...the way the collection ends with: "She holds a Leadbeater's possum in her hollow like an orb, she brandishes her branches as a sceptre, as a sword. I honour you, I say. I pledge my allegiance to you, to this city - to our planet - of trees."
"My nerve began to fail me. Having undertaken to bear witness to what humans are doing to this planet, to all that lives upon it, I found I was beginning to look away."
"I was struck by the similarity between trees and whales. Both have a capacity to feed an ecosystem for years and decades after they have died."
i tabbed this one cause it makes me wanna paint a diptych....or something...