How I Became a Tree

by Sumana Roy, Soneela Nankani (Read by)

Overview

An exquisite, lovingly crafted meditation on plants, trees, and our place in the natural world, in the tradition of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass and Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

“I was tired of speed. I wanted to live tree time.” So writes Sumana Roy at the start of How I Became a Tree, her captivating, adventurous, and self-reflective vision of what it means to be human in the natural world.

Drawn to trees’ wisdom, their nonviolent way of being, their ability to cope with loneliness and pain, Roy movingly explores the lessons that writers, painters, photographers, scientists, and spiritual figures have gleaned through their engagement with trees—from Rabindranath Tagore to Tomas Tranströmer, Ovid to Octavio Paz, William Shakespeare to Margaret Atwood. Her stunning meditations on forests, plant life, time, self, and the exhaustion of being human evoke the spacious, relaxed rhythms of the trees themselves.

Hailed upon its original publication in India as “a love song to plants and trees” and “an ode to all that is unnoticed, ill, neglected, and yet resilient,” How I Became a Tree blends literary history, theology, philosophy, botany, and more, and ultimately prompts readers to slow down and to imagine a reenchanted world in which humans live more like trees.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798200895564
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	05/03/2022
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x (d)

About the Author

Sumana Roy is associate professor of English and creative writing at Ashoka University in Haryana, India. She is the author of Missing: A Novel, Out of Syllabus: Poems, and My Mother’s Lover and Other Stories.

Table of Contents

Part I A Tree Grew inside My Head

Tree Time 3

Women as Flowers 7

The Kindness of Plants 13

The Woman as Tree 17

The Silence of Trees 23

Part II I Paint Flowers So They Will Not Die

Drawing Trees 31

Making Leaves 44

The Literature of Trees 51

Tree Sculpture 56

Photographing Trees 61

Part III See the Long Shadow that is Cast by the Tree

Portrait of a Tree 65

A Brief History of Shadows 67

X-raying Plants 74

Feeding Light to Trees 80

Becoming a Shadow 81

Part IV Supposing I Became a Champa Flower

Rabindranath Tagore's Garden 85

Studying Nature 96

Part V I Want to Do with You What Spring Does with the Cherry Trees

Having Sex with a Tree 107

Loving Trees 111

Part VI One Tree is Equal to Ten Sons

Plants as Children 121

The Curious Botanist 124

Gardens and Adultery 138

Part VII Lost in the Forest

Lost in the Forest 151

The Religion of the Forest 160

Wild Men and Lost Girls 162

Part VIII Under the Greenwood Tree

Sitting Under a Tree 179

The Buddha and the Bodhi Tree 183

Part IX The Tree is an Eternal Corpse

The Death of Trees 201

The Rebirth of Trees 212

How I Became a Tree 220

Epilogue 223

Notes and References 225

Bibliography 235

Editorial Reviews

Soneela Nankani has the perfect soothing voice for this meditation by the author on humanity's relationship with trees. Nankani is gentle and precise while taking us through the ideas of great thinkers around the world and their views on trees. This is an ode to nature that listeners may want to experience while on an outdoor walk or an exploration of their own. Nankani captures the author's contemplative essence in softly delivered sentences. From Shakespeare to Tagore, we are treated to an international panoply of musings on trees. Through her tone, pitch, and style, Nankani embodies the ruminative and centering aim of the audiobook. For anyone wanting a break from the hectic pace of contemporary life, this will be a welcome listen. M.R. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2022 - AudioFile

With . . . tender attentiveness to the non-human, [this] narrative speaks of more compassionate and resilient modes of existence than those devised by the perennially agitated makers of history.”—Pankaj Mishra, The Guardian, “Summer Reading”

“Beautiful. . . . Throughout the collection, Roy weaves together science, nature, personal narrative, literature, sociology, and more to keep the reader turning pages—and to turn us all into tree-lovers.”—Kateri Kramer, The Rumpus

A Publishers Weekly Holiday Gift Guide 2021 selection

“Not just a meditation on trees but also an exploration of how they have functioned in literary history, theology, and this world of ours.”—Emily Temple, Literary Hub

“The takeaway from How I Became a Tree might simply be: We would all do well by ourselves and for the world if we lived more like plants. . . . [Such] insights may appear, at first, as simply philosophical or even fantasy, but this is a book for looking deeper.”—Jon M. Sweeney, Spirituality & Practice

“Roy’s book interweaves Indian spiritual, scientific, and cultural traditions with those from other worlds. . . . The intellectual tenacity of her relentless questioning of the whole system of human values is as radical as it is unassuming.”—Olga V. Solovieva, Critical Inquiry

A Spirituality & Practice Best Book of 2021

“Sumana Roy has written—grown—a radiant and wondrous book, which roots and branches in complex, provocative ways, helping us recognize trees for the ‘strange strangers’ they are, companion-citizens with which we think and remember, yes, but also alien beings that draw love, hate, indifference, and even lust from us humans.”—Robert Macfarlane, author of The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot

“This is one of the most original, delightful, inspiring books I have read in a long time. It will enchant and move the reader with its unique imaginative mindset, its humorous touches, and its defiance of convention.”—Mary Evelyn Tucker, Yale University

“A poetic, probing meditation on how trees are, to paraphrase Lévi-Strauss, ‘good to think with.’ Sumana Roy gives us a fresh and surprising look at a topic as old as the Epic of Gilgamesh, or to put it another way, almost as old as the oldest living trees.”—Robert Moor, bestselling author of On Trails: An Exploration

“A genuinely exceptional work that is as poetic as it is scholarly—quirky, enlightening and enriching.”—Chandak Sengoopta, Birbeck College, University of London

Praise for Sumana Roy:
 
“A one-of-its-kind meditation. . . . Deliciously engaging.”—Supriya Sharma, Hindustan Times
 
“Sumana Roy’s writing brims with rare originality.”—Areeb Ahmad, The Medley
 
“An ode to all that is unnoticed, ill, neglected and yet resilient. . . . Roy’s true spiritual ancestor . . . is Annie Dillard. . . . Both Roy and Dillard craft remarkable, poignant sentences. Both have the ability to make mundane situations lead up to profound, even apocalyptic consequences.”—Rini Barman, Wire India
 
“Sumana Roy’s book shimmers like silver poplar leaves.”—Sylvia Straube, Frankfurter Rundschau
 
“A book like a jungle: from the wide sky to sticky leaves and unsightly thorns, everything is included.”—Susanne Billig, Deutschlandfunk Kultur

From the Publisher