Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

Birnam Wood
by Eleanor Catton

A very modern and timely story of political eco-fiction illustrating the clash between idealism and wealth. Of gullibility and cunning. Betrayal, on so many levels. Deeply flawed characters with loud inner voices, pounding political righteousness, ungrounded illusions, and petty lusts that drive them to pursue dreams and take actions beyond the scope of good sense.

Birnam Wood is a guerrilla collective New Zealand’s South Island that fights capitalism and ecological devastation by farming on unplanted land they don't own without asking anyone. Happenstance connects them to an breathtakingly vile Elon Muskish billionaire with a greedy heart and a charmingly deceptive presence as he is set on despoiling the environment to line his pockets.  The gap in power couldn't be more palatable as it all goes so wrong.

Nicely written, here's an excerpt:

…  A defeated, airless, ugly feeling, rose in her whenever she heard a person of her parents’ generation, talking brightly about home ownership, or foreign holidays, or financial serendipity, or education, for its own sake, or second chances in a crowded field; she felt this way, sometimes simply if someone spoke about the future – even the very near future – in optimistic terms. But she was not unaware that there was a certain satisfaction to be found in hopelessness, a certain piety, a touch of martyrdom, and feeling oneself and one’s entire generation to have been wronged by those in power, and deceived, and discouraged from civic participation, and robbed, and made fun of, and maligned.    …

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