Reviewed by:

• How I Became a Tree by Sumana Roy
• Xan Chacko (bio), Sushmita Chatterjee (bio), Laura Foster (bio), Brian Sabel (bio), sam smiley (bio), and Banu Subramaniam (bio)

This is an unusual book. As you begin reading, you realize it is unlike most academic books. Overall, a deeply pensive collection of pieces—memories of childhood, meditations on various books, movies, and poetry—it is an absorption in all things botanical, and a celebration of childhood, family, culture, and history. Its tone is meditative, snippets of quiet reflections on the botanical. There is no linear flow to this collection. Each piece is a fragment, yet whole on its own, and fascinating in its own right. The author, Sumana Roy, coins the unique methodology as "tree time." She writes, "I began writing this to tree time, recording thoughts as they arrived, events as they occurred, and fighting insomnia and its derivative poetry like a good tree" (6). Thus, fittingly, there is no introduction to the book, and the author does not name or outline any framing, process, or scaffolding holding the book together. There are scant notes and citations, and only a slim bibliography, although we hasten to add that the reflections are indeed theoretically grounded (can they ever possibly not be?); it is up to the reader to sleuth and uncover these assumptions.

This book review is also fittingly unusual: it is a multiauthored review. We are an interdisciplinary reading group (not all academics). We meet each month to explore the recent "vegetal turn" and the literature in critical plant studies. While we enjoyed the book very much, part of the joy of this group is listening to each other's reflections from many different vantage points. It is unfair to criticize an author for what they never intended to do. But our conversations about the book took us to concepts and places far from it, and revealed its generative properties. The author may not have intended our deep ruminations on particular topics, but the richness of the prose is evocative and took us to unexpected places. We offer some of our own meditations in the spirit of the richness of the book.

Each of these fragmentary pieces is interesting – some amusing, curious, delightful, frustrating, lyrical, and all in all insightful on the botany of everyday life. Desire [End Page 96] and longing are ubiquitous in the book, but not quite in the way we usually encounter desire. While much has been written about our desire and longing for people, happiness, fame and fortune, new cars, shoes, or any number of consumer goods, it is rare to encounter desire and longing to become a tree. This was new territory for us. The book is a long meditation on the desire of the author to become a tree. It isn't that she becomes one or thinks she can become one, but the pages are filled with her meditations on what it would mean if she could. What would desire look like? What would her family say? Where would she live? How would she know if her love was reciprocated? Roy uses an interesting literary device: the epigram. Is this use of epigrams an invitation for the reader to explore additional perspectives on their own, or are the epigrams meant to provide guides to Roy's own thinking? The epigrams are an eclectic cross-cultural collection about being in relation with trees. She uses epigrams from Czeslaw Milosz, Rabindranath Tagore, Pablo Neruda, William Shakespeare, and Srijato Marjonashopan.

The book is organized into nine parts of varying length. Some have five pieces, and some only two. They vary in content and substance. As the author meditates on her identity as woman, her reflections coalesce into a significant theme throughout the book that likens the woman to the tree – "the woman as tree," "Woman as flowers," "having sex with a tree," "plants as children," "gardens and adultery." There are several essays that explore the artistic process—drawing trees, painting leaves, X-raying plants to reveal their architecture. There are snippets of the author's engagement with various authors such as...

审核人：

• 我如何成为一棵树作者：Sumana Roy
• Xan Chacko（生物）、Sushmita Chatterjee（生物）、Laura Foster（生物）、Brian Sabel（生物）、sam smiley（生物）和 Banu Subramaniam（生物）

这是一本不同寻常的书。当您开始阅读时，您会意识到它不同于大多数学术书籍。总的来说，这是一部深沉沉思的作品集——童年的回忆，对各种书籍、电影和诗歌的沉思——是对植物学万物的专注，是对童年、家庭、文化和历史的庆祝。它的基调是沉思的，是对植物的安静反思的片段。此集合没有线性流。每件作品都是一个片段，但又是一个整体，并以其自身的魅力引人入胜。作者 Sumana Roy 将这种独特的方法称为“树木时间”。她写道，“我开始将此写给树木时间，记录它们到达时的想法，记录它们发生时的事件，并像一棵好树一样与失眠及其衍生诗歌作斗争” (6)。因此，恰如其分地，这本书没有介绍，并且作者没有命名或概述将本书组合在一起的任何框架、过程或脚手架。注释和引文很少，只有一本薄薄的参考书目，尽管我们赶紧补充说，这些反思确实是有理论根据的（它们有可能没有吗？）；侦查和揭示这些假设取决于读者。

这篇书评也很不寻常：这是一篇多位作者的评论。我们是一个跨学科的阅读小组（并非所有学者）。我们每个月都会开会探讨最近的“植物转变”和重要植物研究的文献。虽然我们非常喜欢这本书，但这个小组的部分乐趣在于从许多不同的有利位置倾听彼此的想法。批评作者从未打算做的事情是不公平的。但是我们关于这本书的谈话把我们带到了远离它的概念和地方，并揭示了它的生成特性。作者可能无意让我们对特定主题进行深入思考，但散文的丰富性令人回味，将我们带到了意想不到的地方。本着本书内容丰富的精神，我们提供了一些我们自己的冥想。

这些零碎的片段中的每一个都很有趣——有些有趣、好奇、令人愉快、令人沮丧、抒情，总之对日常生活的植物学有深刻的见解。欲望【第96页完】和渴望在书中无处不在，但与我们通常遇到欲望的方式不同。虽然已经写了很多关于我们对人、幸福、名利、新车、鞋子或任何数量的消费品的渴望和渴望，但很少遇到成为一棵树的渴望和渴望。这对我们来说是新的领域。这本书是对作者成为一棵树的愿望的长期沉思。这并不是说她成为了一个人或认为她可以成为一个人，而是书页上充满了她对如果她能成为一个人意味着什么的沉思。欲望会是什么样子？她的家人会怎么说？她会住在哪里？她怎么知道她的爱是否得到回报？罗伊使用了一种有趣的文学手段：警句。这种警句的使用是否邀请读者自己探索其他观点，还是这些警句旨在为罗伊自己的思想提供指导？这些警句是关于与树木的关系的折衷的跨文化集合。她使用了 Czeslaw Milosz、Rabindranath Tagore、Pablo Neruda、William Shakespeare 和 Srijato Marjonashopan 的警句。

本书分为长度不一的九个部分。有的有五块，有的只有两块。它们的内容和实质各不相同。当作者沉思她作为女人的身份时，她的思考融合成贯穿全书的一个重要主题，将女人比作树——“女人是树”、“女人是花”、“与树做爱”，“作为孩子的植物”，“花园和通奸”。有几篇文章探讨了艺术过程——画树、画树叶、用 X 光照射植物来揭示它们的结构。有作者与各种作者互动的片段，例如...