A Man and His Oaks: James Canton’s The Oak Papers
What is your relationship with the natural world, especially trees? Is it close or distant? And what would a closer relationship look like in the meantime?
James Canton’s book The Oak Papers is a memoir that details his relationships with the natural world in depth–specifically, oak trees. It consists of journal entries, transcriptions of conversations, plus divergences into literature and history. The point of this book is to explain how he, and by extension others, can self-actualize through nature by breaking free from the modern world’s tendency to inspire a long term sense of boredom and dissatisfaction. For the most part, the book realizes this core message.
How does Canton achieve this focus? By focusing on description of both the internal and external world with minute detail. Canton seems to find that when he tunes into his love of the outdoors, his mindset changes. Reflecting on oaks brings up a heightened sense of self-awareness where he can observe his emotions as transient and ever-shifting.
Under a traditional Western viewpoint, the experiences of the mind are almost sacrosanct, completely different from the experiences of the body and the world around us. This is most obvious in Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am.” But Canton avoids that. Instead, he sees what we’d imagine as quotidian experiences–the wind on one’s arm or the sound of sparrows in the background–and describes the moment. He not only describes what he sees, but what he thinks and feels in relation to th.
That sense of focus does not carry through the entire book. Because this book is a mix of journal entries, records of history and literature plus transcriptions of conversation some meandering may be expected. Unfortunately, this meandering takes time away from the core message of the memoir. For example, conversations that demonstrate the strength of a friendship more than core themes may go on for eight pages or more. At least four conversations like this are included in a book less than 300 pages long.
Another instance of tangents is quoting poems and pieces of literature simply because they mention oaks, and without analysis. While the literary and historical oak mentions are significantly briefer than the conversations, both serve to derail the narrative and make the purpose of their inclusion unclear.
Thus, this book is as human and imperfect as its author–which is both a positive and negative. I would recommend this book to see an author at work shaping who he is and wants to be in the company of trees. Expect a unique story about becoming a better version of oneself, with all the messiness expected.