This was such a thought provoking and meditative read. I recently bought the audiobook, which I also recommend for a gentle experience!

Sumana Roy's How I Became a Tree is her musings about nature and trees in a book that is part memoir and part nature writing. The book works best when the narrative co-opts literature (Bengali, mostly), films (a beautiful chapter on Satyajit Ray's films) and sometimes even spirituality (The Buddha and the Bodhi tree). International readers may struggle to get the context in these regional references but these chapters are nevertheless a joy to read even without. On the other hand, Roy's musings are rather simplistic in places: "Why was I so keen on becoming a tree? And was my malady exclusive to me alone?" She asks, before writing: "I gradually began to grow aware of my body's participation in this enterprise. I had never been a makeup person..." before concluding: "But I didn't know a single tree which needed to use makeup." On the whole it's an interesting take on the subject of a writer longing to be closer to nature!

Received an ARC from Yale University Press & Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The problems I had with this book are mostly with the writing style and the central conceit of the author wanting to become a tree/describing trees as humans

. I found the latter annoying, pretentious and fake deep. As for the former, How I Became a Tree is full of phrases that made me roll my eyes, e.g:

“An epiphany wrapped me like a tendril - were trees freelancers or salaried employees?”

“I did post a photo of myself with a few of my plants, but, quite naturally, the comments were either about me or about the ‘freshness’ and ‘colour’ of the flowers and so on. Not a single person said anything about this being a happy family photograph.”

“When I returned from such dreams, an old question returned to haunt me. Why had the sight of trees never aroused me sexually?”

Coming from a scientific background, I think I prefer my nature books to have a bit more scientific insight in them, and I’ve read quite a few lately that do that well. Roy doesn’t really offer much science, and while this book is supposedly all about centring trees, it feels like the only trick in her repertoire is to anthropomorphise them. I don’t think How I Became a Tree actually succeeds in presenting the world from a tree’s perspective; it just highlights how human concepts (employment, family, etc) don’t fit trees, which is still focusing on human life. Other attempts to juxtapose humans and trees fell flat, e.g:

“Was this movement in opposite directions - northwards for the sun and southwards for water - a natural bipolarity that psychologists had, after all the head-heart romanticized allegories, called bipolar disorder in humans?”

That’s not what bipolar disorder is, and I don’t this misunderstanding/misrepresentation of a serious mental illness is clever or thought provoking. It’s just irritating.

I did like the forays into the role of trees in literature, especially Bangla literature. I also felt the concept did have potential if it was taken in a more metaphorical, less literal and serious (almost deadpan) direction. But the way it was executed felt almost self-indulgent, self-consciously twee and affected, and it just didn’t work for me.

This felt like a love letter to nature.
Sadly, I think the majority of this beautiful, poetic, sculpted piece of non-fiction, nature writing of a sort, went over my head and was too experimental in concept and design for me to fully understand and appreciate.

Had I gone in knowing even a little of Sumana Roy's culture (art history, more on the gods etc), I think I would have resonated with this on a much deeper level. As it stands, I didn't connect an awful lot and could only really appreciate the beautiful way in which Roy expressed herself and this inspiring connection she had with trees.

I think I also went into this with different expectations. I sort of had in my mind that this could be the non-fiction equivalent to Han Kang's The Vegetarian, and so that left me with a certain type of feeling when it wasn't what I thought.... Or rather, it came to be what I expected but in a way that was too intense for me to handle...I can't blame this on anyone other myself though, because I should have researched more before diving excitedly into the deep end (I mean, I can't swim, so that was always going to be a bad idea...)

Nevertheless, I reckon this will have a niche audience that will really enjoy what Roy has to say. I, unfortunately, am not a part of that audience.

I can hardly rate this book because I did not identify with the execution. While I do understand where the author is coming from, I am not to keen on narratives that compare pears to bolts. I can see this being to the taste of many other people as the questions it raises are definitely important, but the way they are tackled is not really a way that convinces me personally.

I expected this book to be less of a memoir than it is, and that is on me. I really enjoyed the collected myths and stories about trees, there are amazing things buried in this book - I still think about tree time, how the file system on my computer is a tree, how plants connect to death - I just wish I didn't have to dig for these gems in pages of yearning and meditations about shadows.

Sumana Roy's "How I Became a Tree" is a book you really need to be in a mood for. Even though not challenging, it's not an easy read, as it ebbs and flows between a memoir, poetry, legend, personal stories, onirism, philosophy.

That being said, I didn't meet this book at a right time. While I was enticed by a beautiful cover, and some gems of wisdom inspired me to reflect on certain topics (i.e. a tree as an ideal sex partner), I caught myself drifting away at times. I think I reached for "How I Became a Tree" when I needed something else from a book I was reading, and Sumana Roy's work simply couldn't deliver that, hence only two stars, but I'm open to give it another chance in the future.

"It takes a child to prise open obvious etymologies of words and expose us to the sharp edges of our chairs. I had never thought of a forest as 'for rest'."

Sumana Roy's "How I Became a Tree" is an exploration of self through comparison to trees. It explores the author's adoration for plants, her inner desire to become a tree, and the steps taken in the process to liken herself to one. The book takes aspects of humanity – birth and death, love, sex, gender, communication, movement – and tries to see how they differ in trees, what similarities lie there, what effect they may have on the existence of trees. Roy also explores portrayal of trees in different artworks, from traditional art to the medium of film, and how it has varied across cultures and history.

I enjoyed this book far more at the start than at the end. It's a very insightful read, and Roy presents some interesting ideas about similarities between the life of a human and that of a tree, but towards the second half the sheer amount of references started to overwhelm, and it was harder to find her own thoughts among the citations. However, it provided a fascinating glimpse into Indian and Bengali arts, culture, and religions. I knew very little about Buddhism and Hinduism, and Roy's book was quite informative in how different religions perceive the relationship between man and nature.

This is a very quotable book. I'm not big on annotations but if I owned a physical copy, I think it'd be all tabbed and highlighted by now — my e-book is certainly full of bookmarks. "How I Became a Tree" is a book best described as calm. It may help you learn something new about yourself and how you see nature surrounding you. At the very least, it may teach you about how different cultures portray plants in their arts and media. I just sadly couldn't quite fall in love with it.

Sumana Roy’s How I Became a Tree explores botany, philosophy, spirituality, and gender roles as she trips the narrative realm fantastic to deliver mediations on “living tree time” in a world often relegated to environmental degradation and sensory deprivation. Previously published in India, where Roy is an associate professor of English and creative writing, she reflects on her artistic interactions (photography, drawing, leaf collecting—oh my!), recording leafy soundscapes, and pondering her plants' membership in her family. A growing appreciation for slowing down the pace of daily living, like Dominique Browning’s Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put on My Pajamas, and Found Happiness (2010) and the slow food and art movements, How I Became a Tree identifies a tree as Roy’s pas-de-deux partner and her creative license throughout wrestles with the remainder of contemporary society, expectations, and current environmental strife and climate change.

This is an odd little book. It is like an ode to trees. It's part memoir, as the author recounts tales from her past that explain her obsession. It's partially philosophy which I cannot exactly explain other than by comparing it to Thoreau (who was also drawn to nature). It is also a reflection on trees as they appear in culture (art, religion, literature, etc.). It is beautifully written and the length is probably just right, though it did feel like it was too long at times, despite only being 200+ pages. If the description speaks to you, definitely give it a go.

This is definitely not the sort of book that I can read all in one hit. I took me several weeks, in fact, of dipping in and out. But that's ok, because this is in no sense a narrative, or a memoir, or something that particularly requires you to remember pertinent details from one moment to the next. Instead, this is a wide-ranging book on the idea of how people relate to trees (and plants in general), how humans are like and unlike trees, what we can learn from them, how various humans have written about or otherwise interpreted trees, and what it might mean for a human to be more like a tree.

Like the editor at Yale who decided to pick this up for their press - it had already been published in India - I too was captivated by the first line: "At first it was the underwear. I wanted to become a tree because trees did not wear bras."

PREACH.

Reading it in 2021 as I did, perhaps the idea that most (I'm sorry) took root (really, I am sorry) was the idea of tree time. That tight schedules and being rushed and hurried / harried and always needing to be places and do stuff at speed is just... not fun. (Especially when the pandemic makes all of that also feel like running in place.) Tree time, though? Trees, in Roy's words, show "disobedience to human time".

I don't agree with everything that Roy talks about here - I don't even agree that all of the questions she asks are relevant or useful. But I appreciate her asking them nonetheless, and therefore forcing me to consider them whether I want to or not.

Chapters range across a meditation on why flowers are seen to be attractive but not trees, in art and how children are taught to draw or paint; the ideas of x-raying plants, what the way nature is studied says about humans, what it might mean to have sex with a tree, what death means for trees and how religions connect to and reflect on trees and forests. And a lot more. Roy writes in the first person - this is an intensely personal book for all it's not a memoir; Roy examines her own memories, and reactions, and hopes and intentions and fears, throughout the book. After all, it's her musing on becoming a tree that instigates the whole thing; she reflects on her childhood experiences of trees, and how that relationship changes as she gets older; commenting on what it means to be childless and to be ageing, to be in a relationship and part of a family, and how those things are like and unlike the world of trees.

Aside from the meandering consideration of trees and how humans can be / are not like them, one thing that was particularly interesting for this Anglo Australian was the lack of cultural touchstones that I am familiar with. There were a few - a reference to Shakespeare here, Brecht there, DH Lawrence and Ovid. But much of the literature and art and philosophy referenced was foreign to me, which is only right since Roy is writing in India, and comes (I think) from a Bengali background. There are Hindi and Buddhist texts, Indian philosophers and authors... and a bunch of western authors, too, whom I'd never heard of because I don't go in for philosophy or botany in any great way.

This was an intriguing, insightful, challenging and wide-ranging consideration of plants and humanity. Well worth reading if you're feeling like humans need to, or could, learn how to be different.

I tried to like this, I really did. In part I think the fault is mine; I wasn't aware that the book would be quite so spiritual, which is not a genre I enjoy. I think if you are someone who has a holistic, spiritual view on life you may enjoy this more than I. However, this book really wasn't for me. The writing was at parts mediatory and engaging, at others purple and far-fetched. Certain chapters I found myself enjoying, but for the most part I was bored. This is a book that delivers exactly what it says it does - 'How I Became a Tree' is not just some intriguing title, it's what actually happens in the book. You get what you're promised. In my case it didn't fulfil, but if you find the blurb interesting I encourage you to try it out

Read a couple of chapters and couldn't get into the writing style. I thought I was reading a book about trees and it seemed to be more about the author growing up and dealing with civilization.

Tired of the modern world with its pressures, woes and cruelties, Roy decides to try to do what writers, artists and visionaries have done for centuries- – connect to the natural world. This is a beautiful book about the ability of nature to heal, rejuvenate and inspire.