The Tree
Fowles sets his father tidy orchard against tangled woodland, and argues that classifying nature is how we avoid experiencing it.
Fowles argues that our compulsion to name, classify and use nature is precisely what prevents us from experiencing it, and traces the argument through his own father neatly ordered orchard and his own preference for tangled woodland. A short arboreal memoir that doubles as a defence of everything unmanaged.
Recommended by 1 Person
Maria Popova
English novelist John Fowles (March 31, 1926–November 5, 2005) makes an impassioned case for the unjarring of life in his altogether wonderful 1979 arboreal memoir The Tree (public library).
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