Once again, Boyle has set us up with a great read and a thoughtful look at the reality that is upon us. . His cheerful ability to embrace our doom, and his threads of 'we shoulda known better' lace this book with anger, with humor, with a surreal light that I find refreshing. I'm grateful for TC Boyle's unflinching look at the danger we are to ourselves.

I haven't been this intrigued by a fiction writer since I read Daniel Quinn's Ishmael like 10 years ago, maybe even since I first discovered Alan Moore's graphic novels back when I was still reading comics. This is the first T.C. Boyle book that I've read and I'm now planning to read 5 or 6 of his others back to back. Some of his stuff sounds like combinations of real history and fabricated stories, which I'm really not interested in at all (feels like you're at risk of just making yourself dumber by reading that stuff) but these totally fictional works all sound like worthwhile reads, even when they're sort of based on real groups and events. In this book he uses an environmental group called Earth Forever, which is a very obvious reference to the real Earth First, as well as made up corporations that could be fill-ins for anything in the real world. As long as the names are changed and the fictional bits are obviously fictional, and the interesting factoids about science and history are obviously intended to represent reality, then it works in my opinion.

Since this was written 20 years ago there are some goofy predictions about the not-too-distant future, like a wet California where people have to produce sake instead of wine and where they use "Dick Tracy" wristwatch phones, but most of his other ideas were actually way ahead of their time. He really does have a deep understanding of our environmental problems. There were times when I wondered how much he really agreed with his protagonist though. Did he just spend a few months listening to the dialogue of eco-radicals so he could parrot their rhetoric to make his writing more authentic or does he actually want to promote these ideas? Is environmentalism just a provocative topic to him or is he genuinely concerned about it? It kind of reminded me of Fight Club in that regard, where the characters are clearly flawed human beings but you find yourself wondering how far off they really are. While Boyle does seem to be frustrated with certain qualities of modern environmentalism, I think he has to agree with much of the anarcho-primitivist/rewilding philosophy. And I imagine that most people who read this will find themselves a little more open-minded to these ideas than they're comfortable admitting, which is great!

Typical Boyle, which, for me, is a positive. This entertaining romp through the hijinks of environmental activism posits the theory that the efforts of the activists will, at the end of the day, accomplish exactly nothing. Boyle contrasts ideologically pure eco-warriors, for whom "progress" is the enemy, and others whose ostensible commitment to the cause ultimately serves as little more than a means to achieve the material comforts of a conventional lifestyle. (i.e. True believers end up jailed, or worse, while those who don't stick their necks out too far end up working for Greenpeace-like organizations as paid board members.) The novel jumps back and forth between the late-Twentieth Century, when environmental activism was ongoing and en vogue, and the year 2025, by which time California has suffered a relatively severe ecological and meteorological turn-for-the-worse. This is, presumably, intended to illustrate the author's belief in the legitimacy of the activists' alarm over the environmental frailty of the earth. However, the unfolding environmental changes that occur during the quarter-century gap that separates the novel's time frames, and their underlying causes, remain unexplained. This detracts from the book. All in all, though, Boyle's use of language, the protagonist's Everyman perspective, and the novel's relative good humor, make this an enjoyable read.

I loved T.C. Boyle's "The Terranauts" so I was sure I'd like a book that was even more "about" climate change than that one, but this left me a little cold. It feels like he read "The End of Nature" and maybe a couple of updates in the late 90's and (correctly) acknowledged how we were headed towards a dystopia by 2025. Then he basically ranted about what that dystopia would be like through an extremely unlikeable privileged New York suburban straight white male. Tierwater is just a pain in the ass to spend any time with and the monkeywrenching he does to interrupt the global economic machine and prevent climate change are transparently egoistic.
Boyle is smart and empathetic enough to design a more likable character for his message while not sainting the character. He did it over and over again in "Terranauts."

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/a-friend-of-the-earth-by-t-c-boyle/

A novel from 2000, this is another environmental crisis dystopia, set in two timelines; 1989 through to the mid 1990s, when it all goes wrong, and 2025-26, when our protagonist starts to pick up the emotional pieces again (though the world is still catastrophically damaged). I found it very well done – the protagonist’s ex-wife comes back to him in the first 2025 section, and the history of their relationship, and the fate of his daughter from a previous marriage, all play out against the damage being done to the natural world by humanity, both directly through logging and indirectly through climate change. A lot of my 2025 novels have been very depressing, and this is too, but I Iike it the most of any of them.

The dead frog on the cover was rather disturbing to see every time I opened the book on Kindle though.

Eine erfrischende Dystopie.

Although there's a lot of really nice description in this book, and the characters are solid, there's no real story here. I mean - things happen and there's a timeline, but there's no plot arc really. It's mainly just about the pointlessness of the small man trying to combat big business. It's also about an ecological crisis that could happen at any point. Neither of those make for a compelling story though.

I don’t know. A book about global warming and it’s devastating conclusion in 2025. A book written in 2000 apparently with a bit of prescience. By an author that I have experienced frequently but never quite managed to love and understand in spite of that familiarity.

This is a story that ratchets between the late 1980s and the early 2020s when life was quite different in spite of the relative few years. I suppose that is to show how quickly things can go south so to speak.

We have the main character being a man who is a devoted ecoterrorist. He goes to jail a few times until he can finally keep his determination under control once he has lost the battle. Or I guess I really should say once we have lost the battle.

This book all happens on the West Coast between California and Oregon. It has the obligatory girl who is a tree sitter and the daughter of the main character. She is obviously a dedicated environmentalist until she falls out of the tree after sitting in it for several years and setting records. The book was written just after Julia butterfly Hill sat in her own Redwood named Luna from 1997 through 1999. So the author was just a copycat.

In some ways this book is a horror story about the possible future of the earth in a very short space of time. So it is a cautionary tale on a large scale. And it is also some thing of a tale about throwing caution to the wind in the type of action taken to prevent the degradation of the world. And definitely leans in the anti-lumbering direction! But the story of the individuals involved was not especially captivating.

Simply dreadful.

Is this an indictment of humanity or just the Boomers with their hypocrisy, hedonism, self-indulgence, and sense of entitlement and ultimately their sociopathy? The natural world as we know or knew it is collapsing. Septuagenarian Ty Tierwater self-styled eco-warrior and monkeywrencher embodies the limitations, contradictions, orneriness, delusions, and ultimate futility of Ed Abbey’s Seldom Seen Smith. The story and even the title is a rift on the Earth First Movement. He rails against development while living off the proceeds of his developer father’s decaying mall. He decries electric companies and powerlines while enjoying the benefit of electricity, he drives a polluting automobile, he recognizes the negative impact of eating meat but loves his fine beef and vintage wines. The perceived coopting of his wife, Andrea, as she peruses the environmental cause as a director of the fictional Friends of the Earth movement results in their estrangementt
In the end the end the environmental calamity brought on by humankind, especially in the industrial and post-industrial age is real. The cause of environmentalism was worthy, but the tactics impotent. Was it because the only really effective solution required fundamental change on the individual scale which required a commitment to introspection, self-awareness, discipline, self-denial, and a willingness to experience the perceived and real deprivations real action and change would bring?
But wait, is there a glimmer of hope like the emerging aspen bud as the Boomers age into the ennui of old age?

Written in 2000 this novel,set before and after the full effects of climate change, is even more of the moment. It is a book for the Extinction Rebellion age.
It’s pretty down beat and dark, however, as the focus is on individual action with no mention of any national or international attempts to halt environmental catastrophe. Nature is not tame and will not do what we want it to, even if we are trying to make things right.

The book “A Friend Of The Earth” was written by T.C. Boyle and was published in the year 2000. It’s originally written in English.

The book is set in a near-future world dealing with environmental issues, particularly the consequences of climate change. The book follows the life of Ty Tierwater who’s the main character and an environmental activist.
He navigates personal and global challenges, reflecting on the complexities of human relationships and the impact of human activities on the planet.

Even though the book draws attention to an important topic, I couldn’t enjoy reading it. It was really hard for me to get through the book because I couldn’t relate nor sympathise with Ty Tierwater. I disliked him and was annoyed by him and the way he talked about his ex-wife, because he sexualised her and only talked about her body which was really disgusting to me.
Another reason why I dislike this book is that the book is written in two different times and randomly jumps from one to another, which makes it hard to understand the book and its content.

In conclusion: I wouldn’t recommend the book.