John Fowles was born in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, England, and won international recognition with his first novel, The Collector, in 1963. His many other bestselling novels include The Magus (1966), Daniel Martin (1977), and The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969), which was turned into an acclaimed film starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons. John Fowles died in 2005.
The Tree
by John Fowles
Paperback
$13.99
- ISBN-13: 9780061997778
- Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
- Publication date: 09/28/2010
- Pages: 91
- Sales rank: 270,613
- Product dimensions: 5.20(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.40(d)
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“For years I have carried this book...with me on travels to reread, ponder, envy. In prose of classic gravity, precision, and delicacy, Fowles addresses matters of final importance.”
—Los Angeles Times Book Review
“The Tree is the fullest and finest exploration I’ve ever read of how the useless delights to be discovered in nature can ripen into the practice of art.”
—Lewis Hyde, author of The Gift
“The most original argument for wilderness preservation I have encountered.”
—Washington Post
Finally back in print, here is the 30th anniversary edition of The Tree—the renowned English novelist John Fowles’s (The Magus, The French Lieutenant’s Woman) moving meditation on the connection between the natural world and human creativity. An inspiring modern ecological classic, The Tree is both a powerful argument against taming the wild and a major author’s inspiring and beautifully written defense of “the joys of getting lost,” and of spontaneity in life and art.
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New York Times
Beautiful. . . . A cross between Thoreau’s “Walden” and John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing,” with a dash of “The Gift,” Lewis Hyde’s cult-classic manifesto on creativity.Washington Post
The most original argument for wilderness preservation I have encountered.Atlantic Monthly
Delightful... The real subject of this arboreal excursion is not trees at all, but the importance in art of the unpredictable, the unaccountable, the intuitive, the not discernibly useful.Christian Science Monitor
[John Fowles] is a master of style, evident in the ease with which he transforms the abstract into the highly tangible, without sacrificing any of the subtleties.Los Angeles Times Book Review
The Tree is part memoir, part explanation and part warning, one of the most beautiful, succinct and prescient pieces of writing we have.The New Yorker
"[B]elongs alongside the finest wilderness-rambling narratives."The Paris Review
"A revelation."The Stranger
[A] great book. . . . [T]he perfect little thing to roll up in your pocket and take with you for a lunch in the park. It’s like having a laid-back, wide-ranging conversation with one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century.Women's Voices for Change
[A] beautifully honed plea for us to “be” in the natural world, to seek human creativity through the wild. . . . Beyond the tree and beyond the woods, Fowles challenges us to embrace the unpredictable, the untamable, the unquantifiable.Financial Times
The Tree is a powerful, absorbing and beautifully written meditation on the connection between man and nature. . . . [A] magnificent and perfectly poised argument for a form of conservation that is even more pertinent now than when it was first published.Chicago Tribune
A gentle plea for wilderness [and] an argument for art and the imagination.Lewis Hyde
THE TREE is the fullest and finest exploration I’ve ever read of how the useless delights to be discovered in nature can ripen into the practice of art.Lydia Millet
Please read this book. It says the most important thing, and with a lovely succinctness. Step off the narrow path, so cleverly engineered for you, into the deep cathedral of the woods-where there are no engineers and the true self abides.Brad Kessler
THE TREE defies easy definition and even genre. Whatever else it happens to be-memoir, philosophy, natural history-the book is a kind of forest, and Fowles a masterful field guide. He shows us the hidden place where the woods and literature converge.The New Yorker "Book Bench"
[B]elongs alongside the finest wilderness-rambling narratives.The Paris Review "Daily"
A revelation.E. S. Turner
This is a very short book which delights as it piques and puzzles. And how very right that The Tree should be "made from wood from sustainable forests."—Times Literary Supplement
From the Publisher
"The most original argument for wilderness preservation I have encountered." - Washington Post"A text of unusual beauty and perception." - Publishers Weekly