Guiding Forces in ‘The Overstory’
Part two: What’s crazier?
Olivia’s haze of bewilderment continues into winter break. She calls her parents and tells them about her transcendent experience. They are terrified — this sounds like the stuff of insanity — and beg her to come home.
She manages to soothe them with her newfound sense of equanimity.
Days later she is driving across the country having received the further guidance she’s been waiting for.
Drawn to the Hoel Chestnut in Iowa, she meets Nick, one person who might share her vision.
Even he is skeptical at first. They verbally spar about what it all means, and he dares to suggest that the whole thing is kind of crazy.
Olivia is indignant, and challenges him:
“What’s crazier? Believing there might be nearby presences we don’t know about? Or cutting down the last few ancient redwoods on Earth for decking and shingles?”
