Talking Through Trees

Book excerpt: A thoroughly delightful exploration of trees around St John’s College, Cambridge revealing their importance to a young undergraduate as he entwined the role of organ scholar and music student with his emerging passion to engage with the environment and its preservation. Imagine hearing a theme and improvisations which he might play on the organ - a paragraph on an aspect of a venerable tree on the Backs, a tangential leap to deal with thoughts which arise from characteristics of the nature of growth, or delights of climbing to great heights, then of swimming within dark waters at night, poems spring to mind. Angela Lemaire has followed his improvisatory ideas and made some remarkable woodcuts to enhance the book throughout. The Wordsworth Oak, the Little Lime, the Babington Yew, the Horizontal Willow - themes are stated and progress through moods of anger, rage, sadness, a need for solitude. ‘What is an acorn if not a tiny ‘wet’ computer? A seed is a collection of algorithms that manipulate matter, rather than the darkness behind a computer screen. This is the key to understanding tree morphology; a tree is the embodiment of a set of instructions for obtaining the materials necessary for propagation.’ Such are the revelations presented in a progress round the glorious trees of Cambridge.--Publisher's website.