The Taking Tree: A Selfish Parody Book

At present my reading has slowed down ever so slightly as i foolishly began to watch the box set of 'The Wire' and am fast becoming addicted. However i am trying to restrain myself and just watch a couple of episodes at a time. I find I am using the remote a good deal as I pause and rewind to try to fathom what on Gods own earth half of the characters are saying.

If this tree had a role in the series she would, as I note americans like to say, kick ass; whether on the side of the cops or the drug dealers I would not like to say or at least certainly not without a good deal of promised and assured protection. If i was seeking to be literary and pretentious I would say ' This tree probably led the charge on Dunsinane', if I was being me I would say 'This tree really made me laugh and expunged from my mind for a brief moment of joy the horror that is 'The Giving Tree'.

This seems like payback for every ecological disaster, every cloud of Napalm, every man-made desert encroach, each and every act of deforestation....well that might be putting a little too much responsibility upon this jokey spoof but after the gross doormat status of the giving tree where she gave her all, literally, without any thought for herself and the brute that was the boy takes and takes without giving or thankng or acknowledging this is not so much a breath of fresh air but a being forced to stand in a wind tunnel when they turn the generators on full and the little tyke is swept clean off his self centred little feet.

Suffice it to say, even though the Tree stil gets abused and violated by the ever ageing brat, the Tree gets the last word and that word is sort of Timber-ouch-squish.

I loved it. A really funny and clever parody.

PS. I love the note at the end of the book which points out from whence comes the paper on which the book is printed. It reminded me of the cards which spoof the ' This card is made from wood drawn from sustainable forests' where they say ' No tree was destroyed to make this card but two small bushes were brutally beaten to death to make the envelope'