"I felt our hungers merge into one hunger. I agreed to go"

books:

	• The Tree-Sitter: A Novel Suzanne Matson W. W. Norton, 2006 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Authentic people, places, and events

The characterization in this story is authentic, yet soft-focused with the polite remove of gentility.

There are some beautiful, ruminative sentences in this book. For example: "..time seemed infinitely generous when you were awake at sunrise. You could see vistas, you could let intention gradually take shape" (203) and "Just because you knew something was behind you, and that you'd never get it back, didn't mean you were finished with it, or ever would be" (241).

There are also some sentences whose meaning I appreciate in spite of a confused initial reading: "After the initial vertigo of loss--I'd been so certain, and if not Preston, then no one, no father--I grew to like the sound of it: Guardian" (97).

All in all, with the exception of priviledge afforded by wealth, I can easily walk in the shoes of Julie, the narrator. I could certainly have fallen for a brilliant, intense grad student with a passion for environmental activism and followed him across the country for the good of the trees. And the rest.

* I meant to give four stars. The edit option does not allow edits to the star rating.

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"I felt our hungers merge into one hunger. I agreed to go"

When Julie Prince spies the smart and charismatic Neil across the room at a weekend University frat party, little does she know how her life will become so interlinked with him. Neil is a left of center Ph.D. student, studying the economics of deforestation on old growth forests. He's also planning to participate in some activism, and is preparing to go to Oregon during the summer to play cat and mouse with some loggers and perhaps help with a planned sit in.

From the moment Julie meets him, Neil touches something completely different within her; it's not just his powerful sexual allure that encapsulates her, but also the fact that in every word he says his conviction is like a palpable, almost physical force. Julie's lawyer mother Ginnie, however, is suspicious of this idealistic young man who is intent to put civil disobedience and the willful destruction of property above political jurisprudence.

Ginnie is also a worldly realist, blessed with a formidable intellect; she dismisses Neil and his ilk as "impressionable fanatics," and worries whether her daughter is making the right decision in hooking up with him. Her training as a lawyer has made her pragmatic, and she's all too aware that life needs to be built out of compromise, not hair brained activism.

Rebelling at her fraught relationship with her mother, "who battles around inside her head, whether she wants her there or not," and pressured by the weight of her longings for her to be this perfect person she had in mind, Julie refuses to listen to her mother's qualms. Armed with enough money from a trust fund established by her late grandfather, she embarks on this romantic, road trip adventure with Neil, convinced that they will both be able to change the world.

Upon arrival, the forests completely overwhelm Julie. Moved by the practical beauty of the woods; she feels the trees alive beneath her, part of a tapestry of forest branches, slanted, always changing light, "a feeling of being woven into the tree's purpose and place." And with Neil she begins to feel marooned, in a lovely way, everything elemental and natural, no static from anyone else's expectations. It is in Neil's presence day and night, his smell, and his smile, his voice that grows into her very consciousness, "the boundaries between them becoming indistinct and blurry."

The activist group's first confrontation with the loggers is loaded with anger and intimidation. The loggers are determined to proceed with their felling and are intent to ignore the boundaries of the "clear cut." Their attitude, and the damage that they have willingly caused, enrage Julie, and she begins to see the forest as contested ground, each tree like a child in a custody battle. When she eventually gets to tree-sit and sees the clear-cut zone, "stubbed only with stumps and discarded branches, the barrenness so authoritative and total," her commitment to the cause becomes complete.

Julie throws herself into supporting Neil's fervor, based on his arguments for preservation, which seem irrefutable and overwhelming. But as she is asked to do more, she progressively comes up against what this kind of idealism means in practical costs. As Neil finally declares his love her, she is asked to participate in the bombing of a car dealership, and she begins to realize that at bottom, she's not as committed as everyone else seems to be or as she thought she was.

Julie realizes that the level of protest and civil disobedience necessary to change the course of government or business is just too immense, with the well-placed explosion in the car dealership the final straw. Neil and his activist friends see this as shining the spotlight of truth on destructive and deceitful corporate interests; to them it's the power of shock and disruption, the genuine violent change, offered as an option available to all. But Julie sees this as nothing more than terrorism, an activity that can only lead to certain death and futile destruction.

In languid and sensual prose, author Suzanne Matson skillfully explores the moral puzzle, the line that inevitably forms between activism and terrorism. Julie begins to see the dangers of becoming implicated in a group like this, but every day involvement makes it harder for her to walk away. She's falling for Neil, but when she began the passionate relationship with him, she attempted to compartmentalize, deceiving herself that these two worlds, the worlds of love and activism, would never violate each other.

Now Julie finds herself caught up an emotional and moral dilemma of her own making. The forests of Oregon are undeniably saturated in opaque light, and her desire for having sex high atop the landscape in the branches of the redwoods is made all too real, but the sense of danger, and the commitment to a cause that she continues to harbor doubts for, is insidious and all-encompassing. Her mother tried to warn her, that indulging in such activities would be foolhardy, but Julie just couldn't help herself, she succumbs to youthful passion and idealism, and it is this mistake that ultimately changes her view of Neil and of this insular world that has so grabbed hold of her. Mike Leonard February 06.

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How easy it can be to lose yourself in activism and love

Julie leads a privileged life. She grew up an only child, her mother a successful Boston lawyer, her father an unknown sperm donor. She is finishing up her junior year at Wellesley, a prestigious private college, and has a healthy trust fund waiting for her. One night at a frat party, she meets Neil, who is writing his dissertation on the economics of deforestation. They start dating, so when Neil decides he's had enough of words and statistics and academia in general, Julie agrees to go with him to Oregon, the site of much of the deforestation Neil has been researching.

So Julie drives west with Neil and they become part of "the movement." For the first two weeks, they are in the forest, the site of secret camps and living platforms rigged high in old-growth trees to prevent them from being cut down. Julie enjoys herself at first. But it quickly becomes clear that Neil is so obsessed with the cause that he can't see beyond it. He's exceedingly cynical, reminding Julie that that if you try to tell an American about ozone depletion, global warming, and species and habitat destruction, you will get laughed at or categorized as a kook. So he has chosen action, and if people accidentally get hurt as a result of that action, then so be it.

Julie's love for Neil causes her to lose herself. She acquiesces to Neil's wishes and desires, whereas he does not do the same for her. She does and says things (or more often DOESN'T do or say things) based solely on how Neil will think and react. At one point, Julie is thinking about Cathy and Mole, two other members of the movement who are somewhat romantically involved. "I wondered how much her involvement with the movement was simply to please him." What is ironic about this observation is that Julie hasn't yet realized that much of her own involvement with the movement is simply to please Neil.

This story - narrated in the first person by Julie - is a tale of self-exploration and self-discovery, and a great deal of that has to do with Juile's mother. Throughout the summer, Julie is constantly reflecting on her relationship with her mother. Whenever she has a spare moment for idle thought, she is thinking about something related to her mother. "Running away" with Neil to Oregon for the summer was a rebellious act against her mother, and the consequence seems to be that Julie can't stop thinking about her.

Oregonians and other Northewesterners will enjoy the familiar descriptions of this scenic corner of the country, as well some of the local references in this book. My favorite was when Julie is being given a tour of the university town of Eugene, and her guide explains the abundance of coffee shops: "Northwest coffee is a necessary drug to cope with the unrelenting gray and rain."

I enjoyed this book a lot. Matson's prose is lovely to read, and the story she tells here is both interesting and informative, without being preachy. Though Julie's story, Matson shows the reader how easy it is to get caught up in ideals and rhetoric, and love too, and how hard it can be to find your way back out again.

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Hedonism in the trees

In The Tree-Sitter, Wellesley student Julie Prince continues her growth as an individual apart from her liberal yet hovering mother and finds love and a cause, yet the cause is linked to the love, and not the love to the cause. Activist Neil has failed his PhD defense in forest economics and policy at MIT and decides to take his soft flannel shirts to Oregon to sit high in the Douglas firs, protecting old growth from the chainsaws and bulldozers. Infatuated Julie follows, tags along, hitches her horse to the logging cause... and does what she is told. Even by the end of a summer of camping with the activists, Julie demonstrates no learning or growth. Rescue was always a phone call away. Her selfishness, her hedonism, continues. She had no cause but pleasure, f****ing in the trees. What has she learned? For Neil, the end justified the means. For Julie, I see a lifetime of immaturity.

Author Suzanne Matson has written an interesting book that had me begging for more information on her characters' evolution, the forestry debate, the influence of Wellesley on the minds of young women, and environmental activists. Her style jarred me at times with crudeness; I saw this as Matson's attempt to recreate the mind of youth, less prudish than adults, and more willing to investigate the world around.

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Tree-Sitter left me uneasy

Tree-Sitter was really well written and left me feeling uneasy for those with an extreme calling. I have always admired Eco-Warriors for their accomplishments. The difficult choices they need to make every day to protect our land. I do not agree with Eco-Terrorism. Violence will not help the cause.

I can't wait to read more from Suzanne Matson!

reviews: page 1, 2

A passionate and tensely pitched tale of first love and idealism set in the Oregon forests.

Julie Prince is a college student at the top of her class and seems destined for conventional success. But then she falls in love with Neil, a radical graduate student. At his urging she abandons her privileged East Coast life to tree-sit in the forests of Oregon. Julie at first regards the journey as a romantic field trip; soon, though, she finds herself increasingly moved by the lush magnificence of the endangered forest, and, like Neil, invested in its protection. As Neil veers toward militant acts of sabotage, Julie is forced to reassess her loyalties and beliefs: How much damage is done by doing nothing? When is it wrong to do good too zealously? How can she choose between the person she loves and her own sense of righteousness? Exploring this edge, The Tree-Sitter is a riveting and beautifully executed novel about the price of love and idealism.

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