70 pages • 2 hours read
Greenwood
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Background
Authorial Context: Michael Christie
Canadian author Michael Christie was born to a working-class family and grew up in Thunder Bay, Ontario, which is best known for its extractive industries, particularly forestry. Christie spent much of his childhood playing in the forests around his neighborhood, informing his affinity for the environment in Greenwood. Central to this affinity is the tension between preservation and livelihood, allowing him to navigate the nuances of logging as a necessary industry tempered by preservationist ideals. Christie himself became a carpenter at one point, building the Galiano Island home that he would inhabit with his family.
Christie attended the MFA in Creative Writing program at the University of British Columbia, where he wrote his first book, a 2011 linked collection of stories entitled The Beggar’s Garden. The linked quality of this book hints at one of the defining marks of his long-form fiction work, namely his penchant for ensemble casts that provide the reader with a wide lens for looking at the world. Christie formalized this in his 2015 debut novel, If I Fall, If I Die, setting a wide focus on a cast of characters that include skateboarders, an agoraphobic artist, a bootlegger, and a pack of wolves.
When he approached the endeavor of writing his second novel, Christie similarly began with a loose cast of characters in mind. However, his decision to structure this project in a way that mimicked the ring layers of trees did not come until he found himself inspecting a tree stump during a construction project on Galiano Island. Christie then conducted extensive research to ensure he could capture the voice and detail of the five time periods in which the novel takes place. This resulted in Greenwood, which was published in 2020.
Cultural Context: Environmentalism
Greenwood captures the tension between the philosophies that underpin environmentalism. As the contemporary world becomes increasingly aware of environmental issues such as climate change, deforestation, and sustainability, the novel questions how humanity can continue to depend on the resources that natural systems offer without causing irreparable damage to those same systems.
There are at least two distinct premises for environmentalism. The first premise views the environment through the lens of its benefit to humanity as it offers resources that address civilization’s material needs as well as advantages to the general quality of life. This premise, called anthropocentrism, centers humankind in its dynamic with nature and views nature as valuable because it is capable of fulfilling human needs. Under the demands of anthropocentric environmentalism, human societies are called to sustain the environment out of responsibility to one another. This not only implies caring for the generation that currently benefits from the environment but also for future generations, who will benefit less in the event of environmental degradation.
The second premise, called biocentrism, flips the dynamic around and views the environment as valuable for its own sake. Since plant species are generally considered living beings, biocentric environmentalists view plants as having the same existential value as animal species. Under this viewpoint, to consider the environment exclusively as a resource to serve humans is a form of degradation. Humanity thus has a moral obligation to protect the environment in the same way it endeavors to protect animal life.
These opposing approaches to environmentalism have led to the emergence of many other related movements throughout the 20th century, including survivalist environmentalism, ecofeminism, and deep ecology.
Though Greenwood is not explicitly about the tension between these approaches, relevant ideas emerge in the relationships its characters have with the environment. Willow Greenwood, for instance, is inspired to become an environmentalist after she reads an early survivalist critique entitled Our Plundered Planet, published in 1948 by the American conservationist Fairfield Osborn. She responds to the degradation of the earth through direct action, sabotaging logging devices that threaten Canada’s forests. Willow’s son, Liam, leans more anthropocentric when he subscribes to the philosophy of American woodworker George Nakashima. The two characters reconcile their differing beliefs about nature when Willow acknowledges the respect Liam gives to the trees when he transforms them into things that are beautiful and useful. Greenwood can thus be read as an attempt to reconcile anthropocentrism and biocentrism into a more nuanced approach to environmentalism.
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