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Bewilderment
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Fiction (2021)An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.
A heartrending new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning and #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory.
The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin’s emotional control, one that involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother’s brain…
With its soaring descriptions of the natural world, its tantalizing vision of life beyond, and its account of a father and son’s ferocious love, Bewilderment marks Richard Powers’s most intimate and moving novel. At its heart lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperiled planet?
A heartrending new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning and #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory.
The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin’s emotional control, one that involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother’s brain…
With its soaring descriptions of the natural world, its tantalizing vision of life beyond, and its account of a father and son’s ferocious love, Bewilderment marks Richard Powers’s most intimate and moving novel. At its heart lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperiled planet?
278 pages, Hardcover
First published September 21, 2021
About the author
Richard Powers
345 books4,725 followersRichard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. His most recent book, The Overstory, won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. He lives in the Great Smoky Mountains.
Librarian note: There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.
Librarian note: There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 7,686 reviews
September 8, 2021
I wanted to tell the man that life itself is a spectrum disorder, where each of us vibrated at some unique frequency in the continuous rainbow.
I was not nearly as enamoured by this super-hyped book as I thought I might be, and I think I can pin it down to three main reasons.
1) A novel-length Neruda poem is not really my thing.
Don't get me wrong, I've gotten tingles like everyone else when I see a quote like:
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I have no idea what that means but I like it.
The narrator mentions and quotes Neruda in the book, and I got the impression he inspired quite a bit of the style. There are a lot of sentences that straddle the line between poetic and cringy, and maybe it's my mood, but I found them falling more often into the latter category. It's a very introspective novel that gets way too dreamy and star-gazey (add it to the dictionary for me) for my liking.
2) I read Migrations last year and liked it a LOT more.
This is a personal thing that obviously won't apply to a lot of people. I picked this book up because the mysterious synopsis and the reviews made me think this could be on the same level as the other near-future ecological novel I read last year.
In fact, there are a number of similarities. Both are set in a future that may very well be just around the corner, both deal with grief and loss, and both are rooted in nature and wildlife. But where I found Migrations taut, compelling and moving, I found this one overwritten and a bit boring, honestly. I thought the obvious stand-ins for Trump (unnamed American president who denies election results and fuels bigotry) and Greta Thunberg (Inga Alder-- teen girl on the autism spectrum who stands up to world leaders about climate issues) were a bit silly, and the parroting of rudimentary philosophy from Robin was uninteresting.
Also, Migrations never felt preachy; this one did.
3) I really disliked the uncriticised anti-medicine, anti-diagnosis and, frankly, anti-science approach this book seems to take.
The narrator-- and, seemingly, the book itself --seems to push Big Pharma conspiracy theories. Theo repeatedly ignores the medical advice of doctors regarding his son, is horrified at the notion of "psychoactive drugs" which he sneers at in the same sanctimonious way that some parents gasp Give my child vaccines with mercury in them? , and makes the following statement:
"No doctor can diagnose my son better than I can."
Oh, boy. I don't have a sigh big enough.
Now, look. I know that a character saying or doing something is not necessarily the author condoning it, and I would love to be wrong about this, but I really felt the whole book was selling these ideas. And it's... well, a bit concerning.
And on the subject of diagnosis and drugs, I personally think the former is extremely important and the latter sometimes necessary. It's not an easy decision to start psychoactive drugs, especially when the recipient is a young child, but I know from experience that they can be the difference between getting up and sleeping your life away, the difference between being able to look after yourself and sitting in your own filth, and, sometimes, the difference between keeping going and giving up on life. It's not always the right answer, for sure, but sometimes it is, and the way the narrator sneers at drugs and doctors irritated me. And as someone who went a long time without a diagnosis, I know that getting one can be a wonderful key to understanding yourself and others.
If anyone thinks I interpreted this wrong, then I would genuinely like to hear from you in the comments. I feel quite blindsided that a book about science, space and nature would contain this narrative, so I'd be very happy to be wrong.
September 28, 2021
Shortlisted for 2021 Booker prize.
3.5* rounded up.
First of all, I should mention that Bewilderment is the 1st novel I’ve read by Richard Powers. As a result, my opinion was not biased by reading his so called masterpiece, the Overstory. I had a conflicted opinion about this book which is understandable taking in consideration its subject. There are a few aspects that I appreciated about this novel but others left me a bit disappointed.
Let’s start with the plot. Theo is the single parent of a 9 years old boy with behavioural problems, Robin. Theo works as an astrobiologist and creates models of planets where life can exist. After repeated bursts of violence the school gives Theo an ultimatum to start Robin on psychoactive drugs or be expelled from school. Instead, the father decides to enrol his son in an experimental neurofeedback treatment. While Theo is passionate by finding life on other planets, Robin is deeply preoccupied by saving his own.
The aspect that I liked most about the novel was that it made me ask questions about my behaviour towards the environment. Who am I kidding? It scared the shit out of me. I was moderately preoccupied by the subject mainly because I have enough reason to be anxious, I had no need for a new one. Thinking that there might not be a liveable place for pour kids in the near future does not make sleep easy. Secondly, I really, really like meat and have no intention to become a vegetarian. Somewhere in my brain being preoccupied by the environment equals vegetarianism or worse, veganism. Bewilderment was the first book that has environment protection as a main theme and it opened my eyes to some aspects. Subjecting young children to the horrors of human destruction is another story and, in my opinion, one major parenting mistake Theo makes. I do not rate parenting skills but I do appreciate that the book made me care enough about the characters to argue with them in my head.
Another aspect I like was how the author wrote the characters and their relationship. I thought most of the dialogue between the two main characters was well written and thought provoking. Again, I disagreed with most of Theo’s parenting choices but I welcomed the intellectual and emotional torment it raised in me.
Finally, and this might be a spoiler for some, I enjoyed how the novel is a n approximate retelling of Flowers for Algernon since the novel is a favourite of mine. The father and son discuss the book in the beginning and it made me realise early on the direction the plot will take. I found it a smart artifice and enjoyed the ride even though I knew how the novel will finish.
Now, to the parts I did not appreciate as much as I wanted. The writing was nothing special to me. I do not like flowery and complicated prose but I was expecting a bit less flatness. Except for the dialogue which was pretty good, I found the prose a bit uneven. The parts about astrobiology and invented planets were very boring and interrupted the flow of the story. Another aspect which made me cringe a bit was the author’s decision to write about people and companies that exist in real life (Trump, Greta Thunberg, Ted talks) but under invented names. I don’t really know why but it did not work well.
I believe this novel has chances to win the Booker prize due to its relevant themes but I am not sure it really deserves the prize. I haven’t read all the other nominees but I enjoyed A Passage North more.
Many thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
3.5* rounded up.
First of all, I should mention that Bewilderment is the 1st novel I’ve read by Richard Powers. As a result, my opinion was not biased by reading his so called masterpiece, the Overstory. I had a conflicted opinion about this book which is understandable taking in consideration its subject. There are a few aspects that I appreciated about this novel but others left me a bit disappointed.
Let’s start with the plot. Theo is the single parent of a 9 years old boy with behavioural problems, Robin. Theo works as an astrobiologist and creates models of planets where life can exist. After repeated bursts of violence the school gives Theo an ultimatum to start Robin on psychoactive drugs or be expelled from school. Instead, the father decides to enrol his son in an experimental neurofeedback treatment. While Theo is passionate by finding life on other planets, Robin is deeply preoccupied by saving his own.
The aspect that I liked most about the novel was that it made me ask questions about my behaviour towards the environment. Who am I kidding? It scared the shit out of me. I was moderately preoccupied by the subject mainly because I have enough reason to be anxious, I had no need for a new one. Thinking that there might not be a liveable place for pour kids in the near future does not make sleep easy. Secondly, I really, really like meat and have no intention to become a vegetarian. Somewhere in my brain being preoccupied by the environment equals vegetarianism or worse, veganism. Bewilderment was the first book that has environment protection as a main theme and it opened my eyes to some aspects. Subjecting young children to the horrors of human destruction is another story and, in my opinion, one major parenting mistake Theo makes. I do not rate parenting skills but I do appreciate that the book made me care enough about the characters to argue with them in my head.
Another aspect I like was how the author wrote the characters and their relationship. I thought most of the dialogue between the two main characters was well written and thought provoking. Again, I disagreed with most of Theo’s parenting choices but I welcomed the intellectual and emotional torment it raised in me.
Finally, and this might be a spoiler for some, I enjoyed how the novel is a n approximate retelling of Flowers for Algernon since the novel is a favourite of mine. The father and son discuss the book in the beginning and it made me realise early on the direction the plot will take. I found it a smart artifice and enjoyed the ride even though I knew how the novel will finish.
Now, to the parts I did not appreciate as much as I wanted. The writing was nothing special to me. I do not like flowery and complicated prose but I was expecting a bit less flatness. Except for the dialogue which was pretty good, I found the prose a bit uneven. The parts about astrobiology and invented planets were very boring and interrupted the flow of the story. Another aspect which made me cringe a bit was the author’s decision to write about people and companies that exist in real life (Trump, Greta Thunberg, Ted talks) but under invented names. I don’t really know why but it did not work well.
I believe this novel has chances to win the Booker prize due to its relevant themes but I am not sure it really deserves the prize. I haven’t read all the other nominees but I enjoyed A Passage North more.
Many thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
September 21, 2021
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2021
Longlisted for the National Book Awards 2021
…the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light…
—Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
"But where is everybody?"
—Enrico Fermi
Bewilderment fits into a very specific niche genre that just happens to be my catnip: smart literary fiction, with some crunchy yet accessible philosophy, lifted out of the every day by speculative or fabulist elements. Stories still tethered to reality but floating just high enough above it to alter the view. Even better if it’s both intellectually and emotionally engaging.
Theo is a recently widowed astrobiologist raising a young son, Robin. The boy has multiple diagnoses for behavioural issues for which Theo refuses to medicate him, opting instead for an experimental neurofeedback treatment, with unexpected results.
Interspersed throughout the novel are invented alien worlds that Theo describes to Robin, possible solutions to the Fermi Paradox—if the universe is really big and really old, surely intelligent life would have evolved more than once, so where is everybody? These worlds range from sweet and sunny to darkly disturbing. Robin, meanwhile, develops a deep empathic connection to the natural world, with a child’s curiosity and dismay at growing up in a time of climate change.
These twin concerns—the ‘where is everybody?’ puzzle over intelligent extra terrestrial life, and the small matter of our own species’ impending potential self-destruction—expose the ugly, hubristic anthropocentrism that holds us back from addressing them. But this novel doesn’t bend too far into cynicism; it is a moving, intimate, father-son drama (if anything, some readers might find it a bit too sentimental, but I thought the balance was mostly just right).
Powers tips his hat to many works of sci-fi here, like Flowers for Algernon which is the template for Robin’s story, and the little homages of the various alien worlds (I saw nods to Katherine MacLean, Ted Chiang, Liu Cixin, among others). He avoids the sententious tone that I found really off-putting in his previous novel, The Overstory, in favour of a simple, direct first-person voice that conveys filial love above all. A deeply satisfying read.
Longlisted for the National Book Awards 2021
…the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light…
—Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
"But where is everybody?"
—Enrico Fermi
Bewilderment fits into a very specific niche genre that just happens to be my catnip: smart literary fiction, with some crunchy yet accessible philosophy, lifted out of the every day by speculative or fabulist elements. Stories still tethered to reality but floating just high enough above it to alter the view. Even better if it’s both intellectually and emotionally engaging.
Theo is a recently widowed astrobiologist raising a young son, Robin. The boy has multiple diagnoses for behavioural issues for which Theo refuses to medicate him, opting instead for an experimental neurofeedback treatment, with unexpected results.
Interspersed throughout the novel are invented alien worlds that Theo describes to Robin, possible solutions to the Fermi Paradox—if the universe is really big and really old, surely intelligent life would have evolved more than once, so where is everybody? These worlds range from sweet and sunny to darkly disturbing. Robin, meanwhile, develops a deep empathic connection to the natural world, with a child’s curiosity and dismay at growing up in a time of climate change.
These twin concerns—the ‘where is everybody?’ puzzle over intelligent extra terrestrial life, and the small matter of our own species’ impending potential self-destruction—expose the ugly, hubristic anthropocentrism that holds us back from addressing them. But this novel doesn’t bend too far into cynicism; it is a moving, intimate, father-son drama (if anything, some readers might find it a bit too sentimental, but I thought the balance was mostly just right).
Powers tips his hat to many works of sci-fi here, like Flowers for Algernon which is the template for Robin’s story, and the little homages of the various alien worlds (I saw nods to Katherine MacLean, Ted Chiang, Liu Cixin, among others). He avoids the sententious tone that I found really off-putting in his previous novel, The Overstory, in favour of a simple, direct first-person voice that conveys filial love above all. A deeply satisfying read.
November 1, 2021
Bewilderment should have been the book for me based on the topics (I for instance actually like astronomy) but it didn't. I found it overly on the nose and sentimental.
Maybe humanity was a nine-year-old, not yet grown up, not a little kid anymore. Seemingly in control, but always on the verge of rage.
Bewilderment tells the story of neurodivergent Robin Byrne, 9, and his astrobiologist father, who is recently widowed. Aly, the activist wife, is seriously revered in the novel: Your mother was her own religion Theo says at one point, and in the flashbacks to her there she is just unambiguously good. And that in a sense is my main problem with the entire novel.
For instance Robbie his anger tantrums are equated by his father to be a reflection of the natural world dying. And they might be, the world is troubling, but it’s also a very classical example of people finding their own child unique. What it means to have Greta Thunberg (but then less articulate) as a child is roughly the topic of the first hundred pages of the book.
Theo is desperate to keep his son off medication, to see if being in nature offers a solution (We’re fine together, in the woods. But I’m afraid to take him home) but not much moves for the rest. However touching and realistic the frustration and tenderness between father and son is depicted, I hardly felt engaged nor driven to read on. Part of it is, I think, that this is a very solemn book. There is some humor: The previous two times she called me in, she’d tried empathy and posture-mirroring. This time she was considerably more Excel spreadsheet is said about a visit to the principal.
But there are also sentences like: Every belief will be outgrown, in time or What’s grief? The world stripped of something you admire which just feel kind of quasi-deep. In general Theo is rather pitying himself for an university educated man in the US, without seemingly being spurred to a positive action, I mean this is quite a statement: In the face of the world’s basic brokenness, more empathy meant deeper suffering if one is the 10% of the world in terms of income.
Also there are passages on visits to alien worlds, with as purpose to sooth Robin, that feel one on one copied of Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon. He gets a shoutout near the end of the book, but still this felt rather derivative for me.
An experimental path (I mean antidepressants are totally against Theo his convictions but an experimental therapy is fine apparently ) leads Robbie to another trajectory, more engaged with the near future world he lives in.
He takes some traits of his saintly mother and dabbles a bit in aphorisms, being dubbed a buddha even by someone in the book:
Trouble is what creates intelligence?
I said yes. Crisis and change and upheaval.
His voice turned sad and wondrous. Then we’ll never find anyone smarter than us.
or
Remember how Pawpaw just kept getting sicker and sicker and wouldn’t go to the doctor, and then he died,
I remember.
That’s what everybody’s doing.
There are clear links to our world, full of influencers and volatile presidents; why not call Greta Thunberg or Trump by the name? Or Marie Kondo and TED?
Polarisation, with very clear good and bad sides, and the reach of social media comes back a bit, with some to be expected confrontations.
But there are also reversals, fatigue kind of with these clear cut sides, and in these parts I feel I appreciated the book the most, almost touched by Richard Powers his writing: I don’t want to go back to being me or I felt so weary. I wanted to set life down and leave it by the side of the water.
In the end I feel the theme of climate change is much better captured in The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, which also came out this year. Here Richard Flanagan makes the characters complicit in the burning of the world, while Theo and Robin can firmly blame others for the mass extinctions while flying to Washington to defend a $12 billion investment in a space telescope. Also I sorely missed some of the wit and humor of for instance a Margaret Atwood in her more prescient and ambitious MaddAddam trilogy.
All in all 2.5 stars rounded down and a disappointment versus my expectations based on the blurb and early reviews of the novel.
Maybe humanity was a nine-year-old, not yet grown up, not a little kid anymore. Seemingly in control, but always on the verge of rage.
Bewilderment tells the story of neurodivergent Robin Byrne, 9, and his astrobiologist father, who is recently widowed. Aly, the activist wife, is seriously revered in the novel: Your mother was her own religion Theo says at one point, and in the flashbacks to her there she is just unambiguously good. And that in a sense is my main problem with the entire novel.
For instance Robbie his anger tantrums are equated by his father to be a reflection of the natural world dying. And they might be, the world is troubling, but it’s also a very classical example of people finding their own child unique. What it means to have Greta Thunberg (but then less articulate) as a child is roughly the topic of the first hundred pages of the book.
Theo is desperate to keep his son off medication, to see if being in nature offers a solution (We’re fine together, in the woods. But I’m afraid to take him home) but not much moves for the rest. However touching and realistic the frustration and tenderness between father and son is depicted, I hardly felt engaged nor driven to read on. Part of it is, I think, that this is a very solemn book. There is some humor: The previous two times she called me in, she’d tried empathy and posture-mirroring. This time she was considerably more Excel spreadsheet is said about a visit to the principal.
But there are also sentences like: Every belief will be outgrown, in time or What’s grief? The world stripped of something you admire which just feel kind of quasi-deep. In general Theo is rather pitying himself for an university educated man in the US, without seemingly being spurred to a positive action, I mean this is quite a statement: In the face of the world’s basic brokenness, more empathy meant deeper suffering if one is the 10% of the world in terms of income.
Also there are passages on visits to alien worlds, with as purpose to sooth Robin, that feel one on one copied of Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon. He gets a shoutout near the end of the book, but still this felt rather derivative for me.
An experimental path (I mean antidepressants are totally against Theo his convictions but an experimental therapy is fine apparently ) leads Robbie to another trajectory, more engaged with the near future world he lives in.
He takes some traits of his saintly mother and dabbles a bit in aphorisms, being dubbed a buddha even by someone in the book:
Trouble is what creates intelligence?
I said yes. Crisis and change and upheaval.
His voice turned sad and wondrous. Then we’ll never find anyone smarter than us.
or
Remember how Pawpaw just kept getting sicker and sicker and wouldn’t go to the doctor, and then he died,
I remember.
That’s what everybody’s doing.
There are clear links to our world, full of influencers and volatile presidents; why not call Greta Thunberg or Trump by the name? Or Marie Kondo and TED?
Polarisation, with very clear good and bad sides, and the reach of social media comes back a bit, with some to be expected confrontations.
But there are also reversals, fatigue kind of with these clear cut sides, and in these parts I feel I appreciated the book the most, almost touched by Richard Powers his writing: I don’t want to go back to being me or I felt so weary. I wanted to set life down and leave it by the side of the water.
In the end I feel the theme of climate change is much better captured in The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, which also came out this year. Here Richard Flanagan makes the characters complicit in the burning of the world, while Theo and Robin can firmly blame others for the mass extinctions while flying to Washington to defend a $12 billion investment in a space telescope. Also I sorely missed some of the wit and humor of for instance a Margaret Atwood in her more prescient and ambitious MaddAddam trilogy.
All in all 2.5 stars rounded down and a disappointment versus my expectations based on the blurb and early reviews of the novel.
November 2, 2021
I was awed by the majesty of Richard Powers' enormous, thought-provoking and imaginative novel “The Overstory”. Even though I felt some of the interlinking stories worked better than others, I was so compelled and impressed with how that book engaged with environmental activism in such a dynamic way. His new novel “Bewilderment” also addresses climate change and animal extinction but in a more concentrated story. It concerns Theo, an astrobiologist who seeks to demonstrate a complex method of searching for life on other planets, and his nine-year-old son Robin, a lively and unpredictable boy who cares passionately about the environment. As we follow their lives over the course of a troubled year, Theo struggles to care for his emotionally erratic son and allows him to be used in an experimental trial to stabilize the boy's behaviour. It's a method of behavioural training which inspires a surprising connection to his deceased mother Alyssa, an environmental lobbyist who tragically died a couple of years prior to the events in this novel. The combination of these elements forms an astoundingly moving and urgent story.
One of the most strikingly effective aspects of this novel is the dialogue between father and son which is heartfelt and convincingly realistic. Robin's passionate earnestness and straightforward idealistic logic constantly threatens to overwhelm Theo who is all too aware of the complex workings of their society which is tragically regressing under a populist leader. Robin's dialogue is italicised while other characters' speech is in quotes and this typographical distinction allows his words to chime with a moving innocence. It reminded me of the intimate way the father and son converse in Cormac McCarthy's tremendous novel “The Road” as their exchanges convey a patient exchange of ideas and touching emotional bond. Part of Theo's job is to speculate what sort of life might develop on other planets given the specific environmental conditions of these distant worlds. His method of stabilizing his son's erratic moods is to imaginatively transport them to the potential living planets he's devised. These sections convey a wonderful intimacy between parent and child.
Read my full review of Bewilderment by Richard Powers on LonesomeReader
I also had the enormous pleasure of interviewing Richard about this novel and you can watch our discussion here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdFU1nNCqwE
One of the most strikingly effective aspects of this novel is the dialogue between father and son which is heartfelt and convincingly realistic. Robin's passionate earnestness and straightforward idealistic logic constantly threatens to overwhelm Theo who is all too aware of the complex workings of their society which is tragically regressing under a populist leader. Robin's dialogue is italicised while other characters' speech is in quotes and this typographical distinction allows his words to chime with a moving innocence. It reminded me of the intimate way the father and son converse in Cormac McCarthy's tremendous novel “The Road” as their exchanges convey a patient exchange of ideas and touching emotional bond. Part of Theo's job is to speculate what sort of life might develop on other planets given the specific environmental conditions of these distant worlds. His method of stabilizing his son's erratic moods is to imaginatively transport them to the potential living planets he's devised. These sections convey a wonderful intimacy between parent and child.
Read my full review of Bewilderment by Richard Powers on LonesomeReader
I also had the enormous pleasure of interviewing Richard about this novel and you can watch our discussion here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdFU1nNCqwE
September 14, 2021
On the 2021 Booker Prize Shortlist
Richard Powers latest offering is a more human, ambitious, profoundly moving, genre defying novel that echoes, consolidates and moves on from The Overstory, a blend of science, fact and fiction. At its core is the incredible bond and love between a widowed father, astrobiologist at the University of Madison, Wisconsin, Theo Byrne, and his bright, kind, if emotionally volatile, troubled 9 year old son, Robin. Both are grieving the loss of wife and mother, birdwatcher Alyssa 'Aly', passionate environmentalist and activist, who died in a accident, still looming large in their lives. It is set in a U.S. in a near dystopic future, mirroring contemporary realities, with a populist unnamed President emulating Trump, in a world teetering under a host of issues, such as climate change and animal extinction, cuts in scientific research budgets, with a civil war averted merely because of the bewilderment of the population.
Theo is struggling to raise his son, Robin faces being thrown out of school that wants him medicated into becoming a more manageable student, something that Theo is against, there have been multiple 'explanations' of Robin's 'condition', including being on the spectrum, Theo feels that psychoactive drugs are not the answer. He takes Robin camping, the two of them captivated by the possibilities of life beyond earth, imagining and speculating about what could be on other planets. Theo ventures towards an experimental approach for Robin to help stabilise him, overseen by a friend of Aly's, a technique of using real time neural imaging and AI mediated feedback to help Robin manage his emotions and thought processes by replicating the more desired qualities of his mother, using her as a model template for behavioural training. This really helps Robin, he becomes an activist, campaigning and lobbying for what really matters.
I really felt for Theo when it came to responding to the innocent and idealistic Robin's bafflement at humanity's insanity and self destructiveness when it comes to the environment and the multitude of life that comprise our complex eco-systems, allowing the planet to reach such a crisis point. There is little in the way of answers to the eco-challenges we face on earth, this is a heartbreaking and despairing read in so many ways, but what shines in this novel is the depth and intimacy of Theo and Robin's father-son relationship, the nature of human consciousness, and the importance of all life on earth. I hope many readers do not get put off by the science in this book, because this is both thought provoking and inspiring, and I loved it. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.
Richard Powers latest offering is a more human, ambitious, profoundly moving, genre defying novel that echoes, consolidates and moves on from The Overstory, a blend of science, fact and fiction. At its core is the incredible bond and love between a widowed father, astrobiologist at the University of Madison, Wisconsin, Theo Byrne, and his bright, kind, if emotionally volatile, troubled 9 year old son, Robin. Both are grieving the loss of wife and mother, birdwatcher Alyssa 'Aly', passionate environmentalist and activist, who died in a accident, still looming large in their lives. It is set in a U.S. in a near dystopic future, mirroring contemporary realities, with a populist unnamed President emulating Trump, in a world teetering under a host of issues, such as climate change and animal extinction, cuts in scientific research budgets, with a civil war averted merely because of the bewilderment of the population.
Theo is struggling to raise his son, Robin faces being thrown out of school that wants him medicated into becoming a more manageable student, something that Theo is against, there have been multiple 'explanations' of Robin's 'condition', including being on the spectrum, Theo feels that psychoactive drugs are not the answer. He takes Robin camping, the two of them captivated by the possibilities of life beyond earth, imagining and speculating about what could be on other planets. Theo ventures towards an experimental approach for Robin to help stabilise him, overseen by a friend of Aly's, a technique of using real time neural imaging and AI mediated feedback to help Robin manage his emotions and thought processes by replicating the more desired qualities of his mother, using her as a model template for behavioural training. This really helps Robin, he becomes an activist, campaigning and lobbying for what really matters.
I really felt for Theo when it came to responding to the innocent and idealistic Robin's bafflement at humanity's insanity and self destructiveness when it comes to the environment and the multitude of life that comprise our complex eco-systems, allowing the planet to reach such a crisis point. There is little in the way of answers to the eco-challenges we face on earth, this is a heartbreaking and despairing read in so many ways, but what shines in this novel is the depth and intimacy of Theo and Robin's father-son relationship, the nature of human consciousness, and the importance of all life on earth. I hope many readers do not get put off by the science in this book, because this is both thought provoking and inspiring, and I loved it. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.
December 30, 2021
He rehearsed memories endlessly, and every repetition of the details made him happier. When he finished a book he liked, he’d start it again immediately, from page one.
So having read and loved (let alone liked) an ARC of this book ahead of the Booker longlist announcement (on which I was rightly sure it would feature) it seems appropriate to start it again on its print publication a week after its shortlisting for the 2021 Booker Prize
My views on the book on a second read (and also having read a number of other reviews both here and in the press - at the time I originally reviewed I think there were at best a handful of reviews anywhere) are to further strengthen (and confirm) my views on both the book's tremendous strengths and its clear weakenesses.
But my overall view is to echo the view of Aly on mankind
No novel is perfect - but this one falls short so beautifully
ORIGINAL REVIEW
They share a lot, astronomy and childhood. Both are voyages across huge distances. Both search for facts beyond their grasp. Both theorize wildly and let possibilities multiply without limits. Both are humbled every few weeks. Both operate out of ignorance. Both are mystified by time. Both are forever starting out.
The latest novel from the author of Booker shortlisted “The Overstory” and one which I feel will appeal strongly to the many fans of that book.
Whereas the etymology of Bewilder implies being lured into the wild and left astray and confused as a result, the sense of this book is of an encounter with the wild (both wilderness on earth and the wilderness of outer space) as a way to make sense of our own world and to think of the implications for how we should change the current trajectory of our society.
The novel is also partially a rewrite of a classic science fiction short story - in 2018 after the success of "The Overstory” Powers said he was looking at the genre of science fiction for continuing his writing ”But when you’re asking what would it take to effect the transformation in consciousness that humans need, the only people who ask these questions are the sci-fi writers.”
The book is set in what is best perhaps described as a very near future dystopian extrapolation of 2021 USA – a world in which an (unnamed) Trump remains in power and turning his rhetoric into hard action and where various interrelated climate, species-extinction and human-pollution crises are heading inexorably to a tipping point.
The book is narrated in first person by Theo Byrne (his surname he notes derived from Bran – the Irish for raven). After a slightly wild youth, Theo found his métier in astrobiology and the love of his life in Aly(ssa), a fiercely effective and committed environmental (particularly animal right) lobbyist and activist, with a love of birdwatching as a hobby. He thinks of her as “compact and planetary” (after a Neruda Sonnet). As an aside the Sonnet is Number XVI which opens (this is not quoted in the novel)
I love the handful of the earth you are.
Because of its meadows, vast as a planet,
I have no other star. You are my replica
of the multiplying universe.
And this I think is very important to the plot (and hence I am sure Power’s inclusion of it) as Theo works in the search for exoplanetary life. His specialty is around the analysis of spectroscopic signals from planets which reveal the gases in its atmosphere.
In particular he models theoretical life bearing planets and the gases they may admit (so that planetary searchers can know likely signals to search for ). In a clear nod to Aly’s birdwatching his work is referred to as the Byrne Alien Field Guide – “A taxonomic catalog of all kinds of stereoscopic signatures collated to the stages and types of possible extraterrestrial life that might make them”. For Theo the real driver is to understand if life is almost nowhere (with Earth a genuinely unique case) or almost everywhere – and to understand why some people for religious or other reasons would actually much prefer the former to be the case.
At the time of the novel, Aly has died in a car crash (seemingly avoiding an opossum, but killing herself and her unborn child) and the bereft and hapless although well-intentioned Theo is left alone to bring up their son Robin (named after his parent’s “national” bird – which they used to signify the beauty in the everyday in their marriage).
Robin is an unusual child – best I think described by Theo in a passage which I think gives a good sense of Theo and his life views as well as Robin, and is also important to the plot of the book).
I never believed in the diagnoses the doctors settled on my son. When a condition gets three different names over as many decades, when it requires two subcategories to account for completely contradictory symptoms, when it goes from nonexistent to the country’s most commonly diagnosed childhood disorder in the course of one generation, when two different physicians want to prescribe three different medications, there’s something wrong.. The link between this spectrum and Theo's own work with spectroscopic signals is another neat one linking Theo's work to a member of his family (here Robin).
The suggestions were plentiful, including syndromes linked to the billion pounds of toxins sprayed on the country’s food supply each year. His second pediatrician was keen to put Robin “on the spectrum.” I wanted to tell the man that everyone alive on this fluke little planet was on the spectrum. That’s what a spectrum is. I wanted to tell the man that life itself is a spectrum disorder, where each of us vibrated at some unique frequency in the continuous rainbow. Then I wanted to punch him. I suppose there’s a name for that, too.
The book starts around Robin’s 9th birthday – with him struggling at school, Theo takes him on a camping trip in the wild – there the two stargaze, remember Aly and say and discuss her “secular prayer” (May All Sentient Beings Be Free From Suffering), play Wildlife bingo and discuss Fermi’s Paradox
I lay in our tent that night, thinking how Robbie had spent two days worrying over the silence of a galaxy that ought to be crawling with civilizations. How could anyone protect a boy like that from his own imagination, let alone from a few carnivorous third-graders flinging shit at him? Alyssa would’ve propelled the three of us forward on her own bottomless forgiveness and bulldozer will. Without her, I was flailing.
They play a game Theo has invented as a distraction for Robin – whereby he describes an imaginary but plausible life-bearing planet, hugely different from Earth and our own definition of life, and the two travel there together in their imaginations and read a classic science fiction short story “Flowers of Algernon” (which story effectively gives the novel its plot).
When they return home, Robin, who struggles to understand others and to control his temper, is suspended after an incident with a classmate the authorities put pressure on Theo to allow some form of chemical treatment for Robin.
Desperate to avoid this, Theo approaches an old friend of Aly’s, a scientific researcher who is experimenting with the (real-life) technique of Decoded Neurorfeedback – in simple terms training subjects to control their emotions and thinking patterns by learning how to reproduce neural activity with visual aids; and particularly by learning to reproduce the activity of other subjects with desired traits. Theo and Aly were guinea pigs at an early stage and once Robin shows an aptitude and enthusiasm for reproducing the neural patterns, the researcher uses Aly’s thought patterns to train him to deal with his condition.
Initially these inspire Robin to turn his frustration and anger at the human race’s terrible treatment the other sentient beings with which it shares a home, into effective campaigning – inspired partly by his father (who is lobbying against government plans to cut off the funding for exoplanet researches), partly by a Greta Thunberg type character who Robin adores but mainly by his mother (who increasingly he believes is behind him in his head). The trajectory of what happens to Robin though is tragically predictable from the seed-story.
The book has the same strengths which made “The Overstory” much loved. It has the same motivations and world-view (here perhaps more of a worlds-view) as “The Overstory”, the same rather folksy setting and writing, the same embrace of the wonder of nature, the same rather cynical view of mankind, the same huge range of ideas, and the same passionate and didactic presentation of them. If there is a difference it is in the length – whereas Overstory was rather sprawling, this can feel sometimes like some ideas are picked up and discarded.
I do also feel the book has many of the weaknesses of “Overstory” also.
None of Robin, Aly or Theo are particularly convincing or rounded characters – feeling perhaps a little more caricatures functioning as plot-vehicles. Some of this of course is due to Theo as a filter, idolising the memory of Aly (despite a number of clear counter-indications) and supporting his motherless and troubled son even in his excesses (Theo's reaction when Robin smashes a boy in the face with a flask is particularly troubling).
For a book which is fascinated with the life of other terrestrial life forms and the possibility of extra-terrestrial life and particularly how both differ fundamentally from mankind – the book is spectacularly uninterested in (or seemingly aware of) any Earth countries or human cultures other than the USA.
For a book which explores spectroscopy and tell tale colour signatures - everything is seen very much in black and white. Those who disagree with Theo's world view, disagree (at least as seen by Theo) from either ignorance, evil, greed or prejudice. The concentration is on emphasising difference rather than using empathy to seek to break down divisions. Perhaps wittingly one of the imaginary planets that Theo invents is Geminus where the capture of the planet's rotation by its star has lead to a planet divided into halves of light and dark and "the minds of the day failed to find the night intelligible, while night's minds couldn't comprehend the day. They shares only one bit of common knowledge: life could never exist "over the edge" - and there is little attempt her to travel "over the edge" of US politics.
Theo I think knows that this is a weakness of his - an early on reflects how Aly was able to deal with conflict much better with her mantra "Nobody's perfect ... But, man, we all fall short so beautifully"
I also did not like at all the anti-Christian barbs.
In addition to have a book which castigates those in America anti-science on areas like climate change and astronomy but then with a main character who effectively lines up as anti the medical profession is a little troubling given current anti-vaxxer debates. Theo's views on how to treat Robin's condition - demonising the education, care and medical professions in favour of taking his own rather reckless decision on an experimental treatment - seems to be remarkably similar to how Trump dealt with his own COVID - except that Trump's gut feel turned out to have better long run results.
But the strong points of the novel still made up for these weaknesses in my view.
I was reminded too of some other novels.
Like Salman Rushdie’s “Quichotte” the protagonists read a very famous (and IRL) science fiction short story (actually its two short stories in Quichotte) and the plot of the book then explicitly follows that short story. And both books are in part a homage to science fiction and how this much-maligned genre tells us something about our world today and particularly our future. (The author in an interview on the Booker website says it "pays homage to both contemporary and classic speculative fiction writers including Daniel Keyes, Ursula LeGuin, Olaf Stapledon, Alan Lightman, Italo Calvino, and Kim Stanley Robinson
I had strong overtones of Max Porter’s “Lanny” (maybe even Jesse Ball’s “Census”) in the special child revealing the truths about the absurdities and cruelties of the adult world - the author himself in the Booker site interview talked of the book as partly "a novel about the anxiety of family life on a damaged planet" and name checks Margaret Atwood, Barbara Kingsolver, Evan Dara, Don Delillo, and Lauren Groff.
And the focus on absence/disappearance (here a mother, a pet dog, and of course the Fermi lack of alien contact) as a metaphor for species extinction is a strong echo of Richard Flanagan’s “Living Sea of Waking Dreams”.
The author's overall take on the book
For me, the astrobiology and neuroscience in Bewilderment—two fields undergoing rapid and dramatic revolutions—are really ways into much older and more intimate human passions. Beneath the immense technologies and intellectual achievements of those pursuits are some primal questions built into human beings: Is life a one-off fluke, or is it inevitable and ubiquitous in the universe? What is consciousness? Can we know what it is like to be someone or something else? How do we land back on Earth and make a home here among the neighbours? Can we find contentment despite our bottomless hunger? How do we surrender the increasingly isolated self to the terrifying diversity of “endless forms most beautiful?” All these questions form the time-honoured heart of fiction. Bewilderment is Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. I’ve just updated the fable for the age of pandemics, exoplanets, and mass extinction.
Overall I found this a very impressive book - it stimulated my mind, challenged my conscience and moved my heart.
One final comment – just as with “Overstory” Powers seems allergic in the text to any form of afterword/references/acknowledgement so a few links which may prove useful
https://www.sdfo.org/gj/stories/flowe...
https://www.pnas.org/content/111/35/1...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/
My thanks to Penguin Random House, William Heinmann for an ARC via NetGalley
March 14, 2022
Powers has written a tender allegory that drifts from despair to melancholy and then back again into the dark. The setting is either the near future, or a parallel world that echoes our social perils and ecological failures. Powers is whip smart, finding all kinds of intricate connections and clever observations that magnify the theme and ignite curiosity. The story feels honest and authentic. Written in first person, it often felt like someone describing their actual experiences.
The plot follows a widowed astrobiologist and his troubled, neurodiverse nine-year-old son. Theo, the father is researching what life might exist on other worlds and how we might detect that life. He is also just barely keeping his son, Robin, out of a system of therapists and psychoactive drugs that he worries will do more harm than good. He signs up for an experimental treatment, that makes use of his dead wife’s brainwave patterns to retrain his son’s brain to help him be resilient and control his emotions. It uses fMRI with a graphical feedback loop to allow Robin to learn how to control his mind. Before long the boy blossoms, excelling in artistic ability, advancing intellectually, and finding the emotional stability he was lacking. In other words, he becomes a little buddha. Intertwined with this plot, Powers alternates between beautiful observations of our planet’s biodiversity, and through a game with his son, fascinating vignettes of creative exploration of what life might look like on other worlds. The ending is poignant, but disheartening. Hint: Power’s deliberately references “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes as a parallel to this tale.
I saw his son, Robin, as a symbol of Earth. Full of wonder, but precariously balanced on the edge of tragedy. There are remote seeds of hope, but the odds are stacked vastly against him, and us. Powers describes the dangers our world faces; loss of habitat, species extinction, pollution, and yes, climate change through the eyes of this special child, but offers little chance for salvation. The best we get, it seems, is to appreciate what we had and what is left before it’s all gone. Still, there is a great love of nature and of the universe in this story and I hope Powers can find more to be optimistic about in his future works.
A bittersweet, delicate weave of science, fiction, and philosophy that exposes the beauty and the likely tragedy of our lives, our world, and our universe.
The plot follows a widowed astrobiologist and his troubled, neurodiverse nine-year-old son. Theo, the father is researching what life might exist on other worlds and how we might detect that life. He is also just barely keeping his son, Robin, out of a system of therapists and psychoactive drugs that he worries will do more harm than good. He signs up for an experimental treatment, that makes use of his dead wife’s brainwave patterns to retrain his son’s brain to help him be resilient and control his emotions. It uses fMRI with a graphical feedback loop to allow Robin to learn how to control his mind. Before long the boy blossoms, excelling in artistic ability, advancing intellectually, and finding the emotional stability he was lacking. In other words, he becomes a little buddha. Intertwined with this plot, Powers alternates between beautiful observations of our planet’s biodiversity, and through a game with his son, fascinating vignettes of creative exploration of what life might look like on other worlds. The ending is poignant, but disheartening. Hint: Power’s deliberately references “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes as a parallel to this tale.
I saw his son, Robin, as a symbol of Earth. Full of wonder, but precariously balanced on the edge of tragedy. There are remote seeds of hope, but the odds are stacked vastly against him, and us. Powers describes the dangers our world faces; loss of habitat, species extinction, pollution, and yes, climate change through the eyes of this special child, but offers little chance for salvation. The best we get, it seems, is to appreciate what we had and what is left before it’s all gone. Still, there is a great love of nature and of the universe in this story and I hope Powers can find more to be optimistic about in his future works.
A bittersweet, delicate weave of science, fiction, and philosophy that exposes the beauty and the likely tragedy of our lives, our world, and our universe.
September 26, 2021
I really enjoyed large parts of this, particularly the more tender moments between Theo and Robin. The emotional heart of Bewilderment is a story about a recently widowed father and his young son coming to terms with the death of their wife and mother. At that level, I thought this was excellent. The story faltered when the science babble took over, as it often did, which led to some pretty silly dialogue. The eco-activism was also a bit on the nose.
October 17, 2021
Audiobook/ebook sync
7 hours and 51 minutes for the audio….and narrated by
Edoardo Ballerini
I never finished “Overstory”….but I do want to return to it.
Once I started ‘Bewilderment’ - worried I wouldn’t connect with it - or understand it - I was pleasantly surprised….
( don’t laugh) …> I thought, “whew”…..it’s not only not going over my head leaving me in the dust - but it’s WONDERFUL.
I had seen only low reviews —so mixed with my own hesitation - I didn’t ‘jump’ at this novel —
Well….
I was enchanted - mystified - fascinated and in love with the intimacy…
FEELING THE LOVE….the grief, and the perplexing bewilderment.
I especially loved all the nature descriptions…and Aly, (an environmental advocate), who had died….was a woman I would have loved to be friends with - gone hiking with.
When Theo talked about his deceased wife — with his son, Robin, (a lovable inquisitive child…..bright and seriously concerned about what’s happening to our planet; a child on the spectrum)….
I was completely moved!
COULDN’T YOUR HEART MELT? >>> a child who was WORRIED ABOUT PLANET?????
Trump could take a few lessons.
Okay…I’ll be good….
Point is…..
…..I felt mushy love both father and son!!
I loved the science information passed on from Theo to Robin about atoms and neutrons, etc. ….. [I WOULD HAVE GIVEN ANYTHING TO HAVE HAD A FATHER LIKE *Theo*]…..
Loved the references to “Flowers For Algernon” in association to the loss father and son were going through.
So, on a personal level ….equally as important as the grim realities about the planet, I felt sad for how Theo was struggling over the loss of Aly—and the loss for Robin —(I know that loss intimately growing up with a deceased parent).
“Theo felt as trapped in childhood and death as much as Robin did”. I’ve been contemplating this sentence—( what? why? explain?)….
In the end I figured it was my work to ponder.
When Theo said: (directing his inner voice to Aly)….
“We are fine together here in the woods, but I am afraid to take Robin home”….
I said to myself….”so stay!!! Stay in the woods LONGER”!
Climate change is still a concern, social, political concerns aren’t going away,…..so I wanted to tell Theo to stay > bask in the the enchanting woods with Robin longer!!!
The love and comfort they provided for each was bigger than the whole wide world!
Did anyone else play the ‘bigger-than-the-whole-wide -world’ game with your mother or father you were a child?
Remember when love was bigger than the planet?
As the title suggests- bewilderment means ‘not understanding’, but it goes beyond that… It implies a state of complete mystification…
So…. for whatever I didn’t understand in this book I forgive myself…
Point is …..
It’s beautiful….heartbreaking….
fascinating….INTIMATE & MAGNIFICENT!
Soooo glad I didn’t skip this novel.
7 hours and 51 minutes for the audio….and narrated by
Edoardo Ballerini
I never finished “Overstory”….but I do want to return to it.
Once I started ‘Bewilderment’ - worried I wouldn’t connect with it - or understand it - I was pleasantly surprised….
( don’t laugh) …> I thought, “whew”…..it’s not only not going over my head leaving me in the dust - but it’s WONDERFUL.
I had seen only low reviews —so mixed with my own hesitation - I didn’t ‘jump’ at this novel —
Well….
I was enchanted - mystified - fascinated and in love with the intimacy…
FEELING THE LOVE….the grief, and the perplexing bewilderment.
I especially loved all the nature descriptions…and Aly, (an environmental advocate), who had died….was a woman I would have loved to be friends with - gone hiking with.
When Theo talked about his deceased wife — with his son, Robin, (a lovable inquisitive child…..bright and seriously concerned about what’s happening to our planet; a child on the spectrum)….
I was completely moved!
COULDN’T YOUR HEART MELT? >>> a child who was WORRIED ABOUT PLANET?????
Trump could take a few lessons.
Okay…I’ll be good….
Point is…..
…..I felt mushy love both father and son!!
I loved the science information passed on from Theo to Robin about atoms and neutrons, etc. ….. [I WOULD HAVE GIVEN ANYTHING TO HAVE HAD A FATHER LIKE *Theo*]…..
Loved the references to “Flowers For Algernon” in association to the loss father and son were going through.
So, on a personal level ….equally as important as the grim realities about the planet, I felt sad for how Theo was struggling over the loss of Aly—and the loss for Robin —(I know that loss intimately growing up with a deceased parent).
“Theo felt as trapped in childhood and death as much as Robin did”. I’ve been contemplating this sentence—( what? why? explain?)….
In the end I figured it was my work to ponder.
When Theo said: (directing his inner voice to Aly)….
“We are fine together here in the woods, but I am afraid to take Robin home”….
I said to myself….”so stay!!! Stay in the woods LONGER”!
Climate change is still a concern, social, political concerns aren’t going away,…..so I wanted to tell Theo to stay > bask in the the enchanting woods with Robin longer!!!
The love and comfort they provided for each was bigger than the whole wide world!
Did anyone else play the ‘bigger-than-the-whole-wide -world’ game with your mother or father you were a child?
Remember when love was bigger than the planet?
As the title suggests- bewilderment means ‘not understanding’, but it goes beyond that… It implies a state of complete mystification…
So…. for whatever I didn’t understand in this book I forgive myself…
Point is …..
It’s beautiful….heartbreaking….
fascinating….INTIMATE & MAGNIFICENT!
Soooo glad I didn’t skip this novel.
October 30, 2021
“Everybody knows what’s happening. But we all look away.”
How do we tell our children that the world is on the brink of environmental collapse?
Bewilderment explores this question by borrowing elements from Flowers for Algernon, creating a character whose regressive condition can be mitigated through contact with his deceased mother’s brain patterns.
The mother was a vegan activist. And as time goes on Robin (the son) begins to act and think like she did after experimental exposure to her cognitive processing. He organises protests and actions. He begins to actively attempt to improve the world from a very young age. And, quite naturally, he becomes enamoured by a vegan teen activist on the autism spectrum, Inga Alder (a character based heavily on Greta Thunberg.) Robin identifies with her words and her ideas about climate change, and he realises that he is just like her. To quote some of the rhetoric Robin regurgitates here:
“The creatures of this state do not belong to us. We hold them in our trust. The first people who lived here knew: all animals are our relatives. Our ancestors and descendants are watching our stewardship: let’s make them proud.”
“That’s why they’ll all go extinct. Because everyone wants to solve it latter.”
Robin becomes extremely focused on these ideas and works hard to mitigate the apathy of society. He wants change and understands change can only occur if one changes their own behaviour and works to change that of others. He dreams of a better world and gazes at the stars with his father, creating one in his mind.
And through this Bewilderment questions the restrictive nature of labels that hinder individualism. Accurate classification can be a problem when “disorders” such as autism exist on a spectrum. How do we precisely define what someone has? We can’t. No two cases are the same as no two people are the same. And I think this is an important idea to push. People should not be grouped up under such a label that diminishes their identity and personality. And for me this became one of the strongest elements of the book.
Bewilderment is a careful novel; it is introspective, slow and very conversational. And as with the narrative progress of Flowers for Algernon, it becomes clear the positive effects Robin has received (his ability to affect change and to manage his emotions) due to experimentation will soon begin to fade. Powers alludes to this heavily from the beginning, and without giving away spoilers, the interaction between the two novels is quite clever. And it did much to enhance the story here.
Whilst the novel explores many modern themes in a clever way, it lacks the energy and power of The Overstory. It is also simpler, less chaotic and far more precise. There’s much less to take away too in comparison, but I do hope Powers builds on these themes in latter books. He’s quite sensitive with them, but I feel like there is still much left to say. This is a very good novel, but it could have been a great one if it had a little more energy.
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You can connect with me on social media via My Linktree.
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How do we tell our children that the world is on the brink of environmental collapse?
Bewilderment explores this question by borrowing elements from Flowers for Algernon, creating a character whose regressive condition can be mitigated through contact with his deceased mother’s brain patterns.
The mother was a vegan activist. And as time goes on Robin (the son) begins to act and think like she did after experimental exposure to her cognitive processing. He organises protests and actions. He begins to actively attempt to improve the world from a very young age. And, quite naturally, he becomes enamoured by a vegan teen activist on the autism spectrum, Inga Alder (a character based heavily on Greta Thunberg.) Robin identifies with her words and her ideas about climate change, and he realises that he is just like her. To quote some of the rhetoric Robin regurgitates here:
“The creatures of this state do not belong to us. We hold them in our trust. The first people who lived here knew: all animals are our relatives. Our ancestors and descendants are watching our stewardship: let’s make them proud.”
“That’s why they’ll all go extinct. Because everyone wants to solve it latter.”
Robin becomes extremely focused on these ideas and works hard to mitigate the apathy of society. He wants change and understands change can only occur if one changes their own behaviour and works to change that of others. He dreams of a better world and gazes at the stars with his father, creating one in his mind.
And through this Bewilderment questions the restrictive nature of labels that hinder individualism. Accurate classification can be a problem when “disorders” such as autism exist on a spectrum. How do we precisely define what someone has? We can’t. No two cases are the same as no two people are the same. And I think this is an important idea to push. People should not be grouped up under such a label that diminishes their identity and personality. And for me this became one of the strongest elements of the book.
Bewilderment is a careful novel; it is introspective, slow and very conversational. And as with the narrative progress of Flowers for Algernon, it becomes clear the positive effects Robin has received (his ability to affect change and to manage his emotions) due to experimentation will soon begin to fade. Powers alludes to this heavily from the beginning, and without giving away spoilers, the interaction between the two novels is quite clever. And it did much to enhance the story here.
Whilst the novel explores many modern themes in a clever way, it lacks the energy and power of The Overstory. It is also simpler, less chaotic and far more precise. There’s much less to take away too in comparison, but I do hope Powers builds on these themes in latter books. He’s quite sensitive with them, but I feel like there is still much left to say. This is a very good novel, but it could have been a great one if it had a little more energy.
__________________________________
You can connect with me on social media via My Linktree.
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November 12, 2021
I'd missed something obvious, in over thirty years of reading and two thousand science fiction books: there was no place stranger than here.
powers' last novel, The Overstory, was met with such across-the-board praise, such reverence, that it's almost shocking how poorly this one has been received.
i get why people dislike it—the trump/greta thunberg stuff is kludgy, the planetary bedtime stories are distracting, and robin is wicked annoying.
Don't worry, Dad. We might not figure it out. But Earth will.
oh, brother.
and yet.
the way this book encapsulated all the feels of the nowtimes, distilling the zeitgeist of our collective anxiety over divisive politics and environmental collapse and humanity's uncertain future into such a compressed narrative, letting loose the whole anguished howl of it—i thought it was magnificent.
quickplot: theo is an astrobiologist and recent widower challenged by his new role as sole caregiver to his nine-year-old son robin; a sensitive precocious child with an undiagnosed (or overdiagnosed) behavioral disorder: ...the votes are two Asperger’s, one probable OCD and one possible ADHD.
for his part, robin is coping with his grief over the death of his environmental activist mother aly by embracing her causes, channeling his impotent rage into advocacy for the animals and ecosystems endangered by generations of careless human activity.
it would be facile and cheesy to say that although robin couldn't save his own mother, he could try to save mother earth, but i'm a facile and cheesy kind of gal. feel free to toss an "oh, brother" eyeroll my way.
after robin has another violent outburst at school, theo ignores the numerous recommendations that he be on medication and instead pulls him out of school altogether.
theo's a little out of his depth—he had always been a hesitant parent, letting aly take the lead—and robin's unpredictable mood-swinging grief-rages require a patient and unconventional approach.
theo devotes himself to the task of becoming a father-teacher—putting his own career on the back burner in order to be present for robin, nurturing his passions by tailoring projects and assignments to his particular interests, whipping up a million vegan meals and snacks and cobbling together an educational pupu platter of good intentions, book learning, and life lessons.
a bright, sensitive boy majoring in how effed the planet is—what could go wrong?
it's a tricky situation, yeah?; educating children about How Things Are—torn between protecting their innocence or telling them the truth. theo always opts for honesty, for scientific facts, never talking down to robin even when the answers are intellectually or emotionally beyond the scope of what a nine-year-old can digest.
in a locked-down 2020 world, where parents were suddenly quarantined with their kids ALL DAY LONG, often thrust unprepared into homeschooling situations, when the news was filled with horrors impossible to explain to young kids, how do you as a parent navigate any of that?
it was a common theme permeating the 2020&etc. experience—hand-wringing anxiety about the hubristic audacity of having children; of bringing a life into this falling-apart world, concerns about children growing up traumatized by media informing them that the future of the planet is all downhill from here.
How did real teachers handle this? How did they manage field trips down that river without faking the data or ignoring the obvious? The world had become something no schoolchild should be allowed to discover.
still, theo and robin are managing, in their father-and-son-and-grief-makes-three way, but when an opportunity to treat robin with an experimental neurofeedback procedure that synthesizes (probably the wrong word, but whatever—science is hard), robin's brain with recordings made of aly's brain, theo is intrigued and agrees to give it a shot. robin's demeanor changes drastically following these training sessions; he is calmer, happier, and more self-possessed. but also—maybe—a little bit possessed by aly's brain-essence infusion, bringing her back to life, in a way, by exhibiting some eerily familiar mannerisms, by saying things—knowing things—he couldn't possibly know. it's a beautiful, painful, and spooky situation.
and then a lot of other stuff happens and some of it is great and some of it is cloying. it's a relatively short, fast-paced book, and when it's on, it's a wonder: joy and hope and awe and grief and rage and betrayal and dread, the whole mess of life experienced by and passed between a father and a son against the incomprehensible world. (for a thematic bleakfest, double-bill this one with The Road).
the ending is effective, equal parts shocking and inevitable. EDIT: i just read sarah pinsker's short story A Better Way of Saying: A Tor.com Original (read it for yourself here), which references that strange moment in a disaster where everything feels at once preventable and inevitable, and that description is a pretty apt summation of what transpires.
it's not a perfect book, but there's a lot to admire, and months after reading it, i am still sitting here admiring it.
************************************************
heart and brain too overloaded by this right now. will review when i'm down to a simmer.
come to my blog!
May 28, 2021
Robin is nine years old. His father is an astrobiologist, teaching and participating in research at the University in Madison, Wisconsin. His mother was killed in a vehicle accident when Robin was seven. He is a different boy, strongly empathetic, unable to control his emotions. He has been diagnosed with various labels, but his father doesn't want to use drugs to change, control his son. So in a last ditch attempt he turns to something that is still being researched, Neuro feedback, using brain patterns to learn control.
Robin loves, like his mother, the natural world and all in it. His father looks for other planets and these planets and imagined happenings on them, form a strong bond between father and son.
This is a novel of love but also loss. Not only people but all we on earth have destroyed and are continuing to destroy, with all the consequences this will have on environment, climate. It's also political, as the last administration pulled funding on many scientists of different backgrounds, exploring many different areas.
This won't be for everyone. It helps if one has an interest in the natural world as there are beautiful descriptions detailing different species. Or an interest in science, as the stories of planets are a big part of this book. It takes patience but ultimately it is a wonderful story of a father who loves his son, no matter how differently he sees, handles what is going on in our world.
ARC from Edelweiss.
September 17, 2021
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2021
Nominated for the National Book Award 2021
Aaah, this is a tough one: I have to admit that I found this novel incredibly affecting and emotionally disturbing, but I'm not sure whether Powers intended readers to accept the actions of the main character, Theo, uncritically - if so (and that's how many seem to have interpreted the book), that's a problem. The story is told from Theo's point of view, a grieving astrobiologist who recently lost his wife and who is now trying to raise his (at the beginning) seven-year-old son Robin by himself. Robin is deeply traumatized because he has lost his mother and then, shortly after, his dog, he shows severe behavioral problems, but finds purpose in following in his mother's footsteps: She was a lawyer for an NGO aiming to protect the environment. Now Robin wants to help endangered animals, and the state of the natural world becomes new fuel for his depression...
So after The Overstory, Powers is back at ecofiction, but he gives it a new, painful twist: He shows us a young boy who does not have a defence mechanism to deal with the impending environmental catastrophe- and the author basically asks: Isn't he, like Greta Thunberg (who is autistic and features in a very thin disguise), the sane one, aren't the people who perceive his behavior as a problem emotionally stunted and denying reality? There is also an important storyline that introduces a new neuroscientific training method to learn empathy, there is a Donald-Trump-character trying to destroy scientific research that challenges his beliefs, there is lots of astrophysics and astrobiology, hiking, birding, camping. But it all comes together pretty nicely - the dense story is well-paced and well-composed.
But I think it's important to note that Theo is right when he says that his parenting abilities are flawed (like everyone's are to some degree, btw); e.g., the politician at the Capitol is right that he should connect Robin with other children/teenagers who fight for the environment, and he is also unfairly sceptical regading the intentions of childcare professionals: Would they really all go into the field if they generally perceived troubled children as administrative problems that need to be on psychoactive drugs? Granted, I think I would be terrified if a medical professional told me that my child needs medication for their mental health, and I would feel helpless because I would take into consideration that I maybe NOT the best person to judge this (unlike Theo), but would I assume that everyone is out there to harm my child to make their own lives easier? No.
So I have to give this four stars because it really, really rattled me, which is what literature should do, but it's also sometimes a little simplistic and, dare I say, manipulative as it very effectively connects the loss of the mother to the loss of mother nature: The huge impact this move achives glosses over the more questionable parts. Nevertheless, I greatly enjoyed reading this little pageturner.
Nominated for the National Book Award 2021
Aaah, this is a tough one: I have to admit that I found this novel incredibly affecting and emotionally disturbing, but I'm not sure whether Powers intended readers to accept the actions of the main character, Theo, uncritically - if so (and that's how many seem to have interpreted the book), that's a problem. The story is told from Theo's point of view, a grieving astrobiologist who recently lost his wife and who is now trying to raise his (at the beginning) seven-year-old son Robin by himself. Robin is deeply traumatized because he has lost his mother and then, shortly after, his dog, he shows severe behavioral problems, but finds purpose in following in his mother's footsteps: She was a lawyer for an NGO aiming to protect the environment. Now Robin wants to help endangered animals, and the state of the natural world becomes new fuel for his depression...
So after The Overstory, Powers is back at ecofiction, but he gives it a new, painful twist: He shows us a young boy who does not have a defence mechanism to deal with the impending environmental catastrophe- and the author basically asks: Isn't he, like Greta Thunberg (who is autistic and features in a very thin disguise), the sane one, aren't the people who perceive his behavior as a problem emotionally stunted and denying reality? There is also an important storyline that introduces a new neuroscientific training method to learn empathy, there is a Donald-Trump-character trying to destroy scientific research that challenges his beliefs, there is lots of astrophysics and astrobiology, hiking, birding, camping. But it all comes together pretty nicely - the dense story is well-paced and well-composed.
But I think it's important to note that Theo is right when he says that his parenting abilities are flawed (like everyone's are to some degree, btw); e.g., the politician at the Capitol is right that he should connect Robin with other children/teenagers who fight for the environment, and he is also unfairly sceptical regading the intentions of childcare professionals: Would they really all go into the field if they generally perceived troubled children as administrative problems that need to be on psychoactive drugs? Granted, I think I would be terrified if a medical professional told me that my child needs medication for their mental health, and I would feel helpless because I would take into consideration that I maybe NOT the best person to judge this (unlike Theo), but would I assume that everyone is out there to harm my child to make their own lives easier? No.
So I have to give this four stars because it really, really rattled me, which is what literature should do, but it's also sometimes a little simplistic and, dare I say, manipulative as it very effectively connects the loss of the mother to the loss of mother nature: The huge impact this move achives glosses over the more questionable parts. Nevertheless, I greatly enjoyed reading this little pageturner.
May 30, 2023
I'm really on the fence about this book. On one hand, I understand what the writer was trying to do. I get it. On the other hand, I really didn't like it as much as I wanted to. A shame, really, as it's really not a bad book. As was the case with Klara and the Sun, (another sci-fi book from another well-known, award-winning writer released this year) I have to say that I was disappointed.
If you're into science, i'd recommend this as you'll probably find much to like. The visits to the made-up planets are touching at times, but honestly, at page 200, I was ready for it to end. And let's talk about that ending. The writer obviously wanted something with emotional punch; a tearjerker, so to speak, but to me, it felt abrupt and was indicative of the main problem I had with the book overall- it feels too sentimental. I can definitely see why Oprah chose it for her book club.
Another issue I had with this? The characters. While they didn't exactly feel fake, I didn't really care much about them. They are too specific and too broadly drawn at the same time. Aly (the mother) feels like a plot device. Theo (the father) is frustrating. I couldn't relate with Robin's anxieties (maybe they were a bit too urgent) but I completely understood what Powers was trying to do through his characterization. As a character on the spectrum, my heart went out to him, but I really didn't like how he was portrayed as this kind of spiritual being or some kind of ghost with all of his dialogue in italics. It was like he wasn't really there. Climate change is an urgent issue. Robin totally understands this. His frustration comes from the fact that everybody else doesn't also seem to understand this. Why then wasn't I more moved by this book?
Quite frankly, if this wins the Booker, I'd be a little upset. I want the prize to go to something, in my opinion, more deserving. Something a little more substantial. (My bet is on either The Promise or A Passage North.) It was my first time reading Richard Powers, too, which is a shame... Let's hope I like The Overstory more than I did this.
Update: I'm very happy this did not win the Booker prize.
If you're into science, i'd recommend this as you'll probably find much to like. The visits to the made-up planets are touching at times, but honestly, at page 200, I was ready for it to end. And let's talk about that ending. The writer obviously wanted something with emotional punch; a tearjerker, so to speak, but to me, it felt abrupt and was indicative of the main problem I had with the book overall- it feels too sentimental. I can definitely see why Oprah chose it for her book club.
Another issue I had with this? The characters. While they didn't exactly feel fake, I didn't really care much about them. They are too specific and too broadly drawn at the same time. Aly (the mother) feels like a plot device. Theo (the father) is frustrating. I couldn't relate with Robin's anxieties (maybe they were a bit too urgent) but I completely understood what Powers was trying to do through his characterization. As a character on the spectrum, my heart went out to him, but I really didn't like how he was portrayed as this kind of spiritual being or some kind of ghost with all of his dialogue in italics. It was like he wasn't really there. Climate change is an urgent issue. Robin totally understands this. His frustration comes from the fact that everybody else doesn't also seem to understand this. Why then wasn't I more moved by this book?
Quite frankly, if this wins the Booker, I'd be a little upset. I want the prize to go to something, in my opinion, more deserving. Something a little more substantial. (My bet is on either The Promise or A Passage North.) It was my first time reading Richard Powers, too, which is a shame... Let's hope I like The Overstory more than I did this.
Update: I'm very happy this did not win the Booker prize.
January 31, 2022
This reads like the marginalia of the high school senior who was snobby as hell in English class and also happened to be taking a single biology class. Powers is drowning in the shallow end of a pool of half-baked metaphors and similes. That’s it. Behold:
• I exhaled, changing the atmosphere inside our tent.
• One quadrillion neural connections lay on the inflatable camping pillow next to me.
• After a night in the woods, the trailhead parking lot felt like death.
• A lineage of slow, weak, naked, awkward creatures on a far luckier planet had lasted through several near-extinctions and held on long enough to discover that gravity bent light, everywhere in the universe.
• It was one of the first books in my two-thousand-volume library of science fiction... Holding it open in my hands, I wormholed into a different Earth. Small, light, portable parallel universes turned out to be the only thing in this life I’d ever collect.
• She felt like a prediction, a thing on its way here. Compact but planetary.
• Then our lives changed, thanks to the one-point-five percent failure rate of our favored birth control.
• Thermodynamics long ago proved that putting things back together is lots harder than taking them apart.
• Teaching is like photosynthesis: making food from air and light.
• I told her, “You don’t love me. You love my microbiome.”
• [He] lifted a dumpling to his lips with chopsticks and chewed. Some lump of gluten and pride, insoluble in tea, stuck in his Adam’s apple.
�� I felt us travelling on a small craft, piloting through the capital city of the reigning global superpower on the coast of the third largest continent of a smallish, rocky world near the inner rim of the habitable zone of a G-type dwarf star that lay a quarter of the way out to the edge of a dense, large, barred, spiral galaxy that drifted through a thinly spread local cluster in the dead center of the entire universe.
Powers…. Richie. Rich. Dick. Take a second off. You are sitting on characters that 8/10 authors can make a masterpiece out of. And what do you do? Every single time you are touching on something promising, anytime a bit of real life is pouring through one or two sentences, you can’t help yourself. You just can’t help yourself. Look – your knowledge of science and astrobiology and the planet is beautiful. It’s immense. We get it. We know you know. You did the research. But maybe cut down on the pages upon pages of non-fiction textbook blurbs, pick a few, stick to them, and stop ruining the moment. Build it up. 21 thousand ratings at the time of rating and an aggregate of 4.02? I have watched Hallmark movies with more soul. I think you can watch Powers talk on YouTube and get much more out of that than you would reading this book – he is a lovely, articulate, and calming man.
Looks like The Overstory is catching a quick sale to the used bookstore without even being read.
• I exhaled, changing the atmosphere inside our tent.
• One quadrillion neural connections lay on the inflatable camping pillow next to me.
• After a night in the woods, the trailhead parking lot felt like death.
• A lineage of slow, weak, naked, awkward creatures on a far luckier planet had lasted through several near-extinctions and held on long enough to discover that gravity bent light, everywhere in the universe.
• It was one of the first books in my two-thousand-volume library of science fiction... Holding it open in my hands, I wormholed into a different Earth. Small, light, portable parallel universes turned out to be the only thing in this life I’d ever collect.
• She felt like a prediction, a thing on its way here. Compact but planetary.
• Then our lives changed, thanks to the one-point-five percent failure rate of our favored birth control.
• Thermodynamics long ago proved that putting things back together is lots harder than taking them apart.
• Teaching is like photosynthesis: making food from air and light.
• I told her, “You don’t love me. You love my microbiome.”
• [He] lifted a dumpling to his lips with chopsticks and chewed. Some lump of gluten and pride, insoluble in tea, stuck in his Adam’s apple.
�� I felt us travelling on a small craft, piloting through the capital city of the reigning global superpower on the coast of the third largest continent of a smallish, rocky world near the inner rim of the habitable zone of a G-type dwarf star that lay a quarter of the way out to the edge of a dense, large, barred, spiral galaxy that drifted through a thinly spread local cluster in the dead center of the entire universe.
Powers…. Richie. Rich. Dick. Take a second off. You are sitting on characters that 8/10 authors can make a masterpiece out of. And what do you do? Every single time you are touching on something promising, anytime a bit of real life is pouring through one or two sentences, you can’t help yourself. You just can’t help yourself. Look – your knowledge of science and astrobiology and the planet is beautiful. It’s immense. We get it. We know you know. You did the research. But maybe cut down on the pages upon pages of non-fiction textbook blurbs, pick a few, stick to them, and stop ruining the moment. Build it up. 21 thousand ratings at the time of rating and an aggregate of 4.02? I have watched Hallmark movies with more soul. I think you can watch Powers talk on YouTube and get much more out of that than you would reading this book – he is a lovely, articulate, and calming man.
Looks like The Overstory is catching a quick sale to the used bookstore without even being read.
January 22, 2022
I feel a bit contrite to rate this book with only three stars, mainly because it had the ambition to grasp the vast dimension of the whole universe within its few pages and I barely glimpsed three of its celestial bodies.
As much as I admire what Richard Powers wanted to achieve with this multilayered story, mixing science-based themes, dystopia, the wonder and imagination of a nine year-old and the bond between a father and his son, I wasn’t as moved as I expected to be.
There are brilliant, even sublime moments in the narration. Sentences that stop you in your tracks for the transcendence Powers encapsules in a few words.
There is blinding love for the world, for the magic nature bestows upon us with every day, even if the human race is headed towards absurd self-destruction.
There is a fantastic world where imagined planets flowrish with life bigger than us, planets where a special boy lets his creative aptitudes fly free with his father, channeling the emotions of his deceased mother.
Neverhteless, all these sparking moments couldn’t dogde the somewhat preachy overtone of the narration or the thinly drawn characters that felt like mere sketches to carry on a hopeless message, one that might feel too feasible to be mere fiction.
The near future Powers’ describes with sure hand is soaked in self-disgust and the bleak chapters leading to an appalling closure leaves so little space for comfort that even all the stars in the firmament shinning at once couldn’t make up for the void Powers left in this bewildered reader.
May 24, 2023
I want to use the word ‘bewildered’ to describe my response to this novel but accept that that would get people to roll their eyes. A synonym check gives me baffled, flabbergasted, mystified, perplexed, but in the end, I am bewildered.
I want to say something intelligent but default to the other well-written reviews, both positive and negative.
The writing style is interesting… I don’t know if Powers deliberately attempts to make the reader feel isolated, outside the story. If so, that is clever. I did not feel an invitation to plunge into the story and intimately share in lives of the characters like I have with some other books. There is a distance in this one. The sense of foreboding permeates the read and leads to an ending that left me quite breathless (yes, the word bewildered is deliberately avoided this time).
I gave up googling all the scientific stuff after the first few chapters realising my limited scientific brain was just not going to get it all.
I think this would have been one of the rare times reading the blurb beforehand might have helped, or maybe just this sentence from the blurb:
“At the heart of ‘Bewilderment’ lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperilled planet?”
My generous rating reflects that I think being bewidered by a novel can often be a positive thing.
I want to say something intelligent but default to the other well-written reviews, both positive and negative.
The writing style is interesting… I don’t know if Powers deliberately attempts to make the reader feel isolated, outside the story. If so, that is clever. I did not feel an invitation to plunge into the story and intimately share in lives of the characters like I have with some other books. There is a distance in this one. The sense of foreboding permeates the read and leads to an ending that left me quite breathless (yes, the word bewildered is deliberately avoided this time).
I gave up googling all the scientific stuff after the first few chapters realising my limited scientific brain was just not going to get it all.
I think this would have been one of the rare times reading the blurb beforehand might have helped, or maybe just this sentence from the blurb:
“At the heart of ‘Bewilderment’ lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperilled planet?”
My generous rating reflects that I think being bewidered by a novel can often be a positive thing.
September 26, 2021
Shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize
Richard Powers, what are you doing to us?! This was one of the most emotionally moving books I’ve read in ages. Theo and Robin felt like real people. I had very minor qualms with some of the sci-fi bits but I can absolutely overlook that. I don’t have many intelligent thoughts to write about this one. I’d rather not overanalyze it. Just read the dang book. Oh, and my money’s on this one for the Booker this year!
Richard Powers, what are you doing to us?! This was one of the most emotionally moving books I’ve read in ages. Theo and Robin felt like real people. I had very minor qualms with some of the sci-fi bits but I can absolutely overlook that. I don’t have many intelligent thoughts to write about this one. I’d rather not overanalyze it. Just read the dang book. Oh, and my money’s on this one for the Booker this year!
September 30, 2021
Now re-read.
Part of me was a bit nervous about re-reading this. Some of the discussion on the M&G Booker thread had tarnished the book for me and I felt I would only see flaws as I read it. And it's not perfect. But I actually ended up enjoying it more on second reading than I did on first. I think I noticed a lot more detail this time through.
I read Powers because I enjoy his writing as much as I enjoy the stories he tells and the science he plays with. I like little sentences like "Halfway between a- and be-mused". Sometimes in his later books, especially The Overstory and this one, that writing heads towards being a bit saccharine, but I have such a history with his books (I've now read all of them at least twice) that I easily forgive him for that. I like the ideas he explores and the connections he makes (some of that is noted in my original review below so I won't mention it again here). And this book is the one of his that tugs most directly at the heart strings.
I also, this time through, spent a bit of time exploring the names of the planets that Theo invents for Robin. For example, the very first one is Dvau which, it turns out, is Sanskrit for "two" and the planet is a kind of copy of Earth, and the next one is Falasha which is a reference to Ethiopian Jews and means "landless" (i.e. homeless) or wanderer and the planet is one cut adrift from its star wandering in empty space. Have fun with the rest when you read it.
And, finally, I read this on the back of reading The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred. These two books make strange bedfellows but they have formed a clear pairing in my brain. Partly this is because the covers are so similar. Partly this is because both Theo and Prescod-Weinstein talk about spectroscopy as a way to explore distant planets. Partly it's because both seek to defend science against a political system that tries to destroy it. Partly it's because both books are a cry for equality instead of prejudice. I don't know what would happen if you put Powers and Prescod-Weinstein in a room together, but I'd love to be there to see it happen.
"I mean, think about it, Dad. It could just be a regular part of school. Everyone would have to learn what it felt like to be something else. Think of the problems that would solve!"
---------------
ORIGINAL REVIEW
---------------
I once met Richard Powers at a book reading/signing for The Overstory in London. We had a few minutes to talk and we talked about our mutual love for nature - him writing about it and me photographing it. He doesn’t sign his books but rather writes a dedication on a piece of paper that you can keep with the book and I left our encounter with one of these bearing the words “From one nature lover to another”.
This isn’t name dropping, by the way. It’s more by way of introduction to the fact that, as in The Overstory, nature plays a key role in Bewilderment. In fact, reading those two books can’t help give you the impression that Richard Powers has rather lost faith in humanity. But I should qualify that observation by narrowing it down to humanity’s leaders. When it comes to ordinary people, our narrator at one point says, ”My wife would have known how to talk to the doctors. Nobody’s perfect, she liked to say. But, man, we all fall short so beautifully.”
Our narrator is Theo Byrne, an astrobiologist searching for life on other planets. You’ll have guessed from the quote above that he is no longer with his wife and this is because she died not long before the book starts leaving him to raise their son, Robin, on his own. And Robin is an unusual child: he lives his life on a hairs-width border between creative calm and destructive anger. Theo describes Robin’s condition like this:
”I never believed in the diagnoses the doctors settled on my son. When a condition gets three different names over as many decades, when it requires two subcategories to account for completely contradictory symptoms, when it goes from nonexistent to the country’s most commonly diagnosed childhood disorder in the course of one generation, when two different physicians want to prescribe three different medications, there’s something wrong.”
You will note that this paragraph moves very quickly from Robin’s condition to a criticism of the country. Bewilderment is set very slightly in our future but with several things pushed forward towards some kind of dystopia. The focus is purely the USA, but this is a USA where we have ”the White House’s new decree requiring everyone in the country to carry proof of citizenship or visas”, a USA with a president who shifts election dates until he is confident he can manipulate the system enough to win a second term (this president is not named but is renowned for his tweets - enough said). It’s not just politics that is slightly different - climate change and associated freak weather events, transfer of viruses from the food chain into humans: the natural order of things is breaking down rapidly.
When Robin’s anger erupts at school one day, it sets in motion a chain of events that lead to Robin undergoing some experimental treatment in an attempt to avoid state intervention and psychoactive drugs. Here, an early mention of the classic sci-fi short story “Flowers for Algernon” really comes into play because Bewilderment makes direct reference to that story and then follows the same basic plot. This, I assume, is a very deliberate choice by Powers: anyone who knows the original short story will have a good idea of the overall story arc. I'd recommend reading that short story if you don't know it.
The novel explores external and internal versions of several ideas. For example, Theo analyses spectroscopic signals from other planets building models which will predict the atmosphere, and therefore chance of life. He trains these models on known planets including Earth with the data deliberately degraded to model seeing Earth from a huge distance. Compare this with Robin’s treatment which involves training his brain to develop emotional control by matching it to signals recorded from other people’s brains. Then the novel also makes the point about the vastness of space and we read ”Which do you think is bigger? Outer space…? He touched his fingers to my skull. Or inner?”. At one point we read:
They share a lot, astronomy and childhood. Both are voyages across huge distances. Both search for facts beyond their grasp. Both theorize wildly and let possibilities multiply without limits. Both are humbled every few weeks. Both operate out of ignorance. Both are mystified by time. Both are forever starting out.
If, like me, you have read Powers other novels, there are references to or reminders of many of these throughout the book. Perhaps the two most obvious are the way Bewilderment continues the themes of The Overstory, and the way Robin’s response to his treatment (and his experience at the hands of the world’s media) echoes Thassadit Amzwar from Generosity. I also found myself thinking about The Goldbug Variations quite a bit. My attention was grabbed by the mention of sandhill cranes that feature in The Echo Maker. I also though quite a bit about a comparison with Gain where a key idea was how well meaning, but necessarily ignorant, business decisions taken over the course of many years can gradually evolve into creation of a toxic environment.
This is by no means a long book (less than 300 pages), but I have barely scratched the surface and I’ve missed out many things that are key to any proper description. My only advice, really, is that you read the book for yourself.
My thanks to Random House UK for an ARC via NetGalley.
Part of me was a bit nervous about re-reading this. Some of the discussion on the M&G Booker thread had tarnished the book for me and I felt I would only see flaws as I read it. And it's not perfect. But I actually ended up enjoying it more on second reading than I did on first. I think I noticed a lot more detail this time through.
I read Powers because I enjoy his writing as much as I enjoy the stories he tells and the science he plays with. I like little sentences like "Halfway between a- and be-mused". Sometimes in his later books, especially The Overstory and this one, that writing heads towards being a bit saccharine, but I have such a history with his books (I've now read all of them at least twice) that I easily forgive him for that. I like the ideas he explores and the connections he makes (some of that is noted in my original review below so I won't mention it again here). And this book is the one of his that tugs most directly at the heart strings.
I also, this time through, spent a bit of time exploring the names of the planets that Theo invents for Robin. For example, the very first one is Dvau which, it turns out, is Sanskrit for "two" and the planet is a kind of copy of Earth, and the next one is Falasha which is a reference to Ethiopian Jews and means "landless" (i.e. homeless) or wanderer and the planet is one cut adrift from its star wandering in empty space. Have fun with the rest when you read it.
And, finally, I read this on the back of reading The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred. These two books make strange bedfellows but they have formed a clear pairing in my brain. Partly this is because the covers are so similar. Partly this is because both Theo and Prescod-Weinstein talk about spectroscopy as a way to explore distant planets. Partly it's because both seek to defend science against a political system that tries to destroy it. Partly it's because both books are a cry for equality instead of prejudice. I don't know what would happen if you put Powers and Prescod-Weinstein in a room together, but I'd love to be there to see it happen.
"I mean, think about it, Dad. It could just be a regular part of school. Everyone would have to learn what it felt like to be something else. Think of the problems that would solve!"
---------------
ORIGINAL REVIEW
---------------
I once met Richard Powers at a book reading/signing for The Overstory in London. We had a few minutes to talk and we talked about our mutual love for nature - him writing about it and me photographing it. He doesn’t sign his books but rather writes a dedication on a piece of paper that you can keep with the book and I left our encounter with one of these bearing the words “From one nature lover to another”.
This isn’t name dropping, by the way. It’s more by way of introduction to the fact that, as in The Overstory, nature plays a key role in Bewilderment. In fact, reading those two books can’t help give you the impression that Richard Powers has rather lost faith in humanity. But I should qualify that observation by narrowing it down to humanity’s leaders. When it comes to ordinary people, our narrator at one point says, ”My wife would have known how to talk to the doctors. Nobody’s perfect, she liked to say. But, man, we all fall short so beautifully.”
Our narrator is Theo Byrne, an astrobiologist searching for life on other planets. You’ll have guessed from the quote above that he is no longer with his wife and this is because she died not long before the book starts leaving him to raise their son, Robin, on his own. And Robin is an unusual child: he lives his life on a hairs-width border between creative calm and destructive anger. Theo describes Robin’s condition like this:
”I never believed in the diagnoses the doctors settled on my son. When a condition gets three different names over as many decades, when it requires two subcategories to account for completely contradictory symptoms, when it goes from nonexistent to the country’s most commonly diagnosed childhood disorder in the course of one generation, when two different physicians want to prescribe three different medications, there’s something wrong.”
You will note that this paragraph moves very quickly from Robin’s condition to a criticism of the country. Bewilderment is set very slightly in our future but with several things pushed forward towards some kind of dystopia. The focus is purely the USA, but this is a USA where we have ”the White House’s new decree requiring everyone in the country to carry proof of citizenship or visas”, a USA with a president who shifts election dates until he is confident he can manipulate the system enough to win a second term (this president is not named but is renowned for his tweets - enough said). It’s not just politics that is slightly different - climate change and associated freak weather events, transfer of viruses from the food chain into humans: the natural order of things is breaking down rapidly.
When Robin’s anger erupts at school one day, it sets in motion a chain of events that lead to Robin undergoing some experimental treatment in an attempt to avoid state intervention and psychoactive drugs. Here, an early mention of the classic sci-fi short story “Flowers for Algernon” really comes into play because Bewilderment makes direct reference to that story and then follows the same basic plot. This, I assume, is a very deliberate choice by Powers: anyone who knows the original short story will have a good idea of the overall story arc. I'd recommend reading that short story if you don't know it.
The novel explores external and internal versions of several ideas. For example, Theo analyses spectroscopic signals from other planets building models which will predict the atmosphere, and therefore chance of life. He trains these models on known planets including Earth with the data deliberately degraded to model seeing Earth from a huge distance. Compare this with Robin’s treatment which involves training his brain to develop emotional control by matching it to signals recorded from other people’s brains. Then the novel also makes the point about the vastness of space and we read ”Which do you think is bigger? Outer space…? He touched his fingers to my skull. Or inner?”. At one point we read:
They share a lot, astronomy and childhood. Both are voyages across huge distances. Both search for facts beyond their grasp. Both theorize wildly and let possibilities multiply without limits. Both are humbled every few weeks. Both operate out of ignorance. Both are mystified by time. Both are forever starting out.
If, like me, you have read Powers other novels, there are references to or reminders of many of these throughout the book. Perhaps the two most obvious are the way Bewilderment continues the themes of The Overstory, and the way Robin’s response to his treatment (and his experience at the hands of the world’s media) echoes Thassadit Amzwar from Generosity. I also found myself thinking about The Goldbug Variations quite a bit. My attention was grabbed by the mention of sandhill cranes that feature in The Echo Maker. I also though quite a bit about a comparison with Gain where a key idea was how well meaning, but necessarily ignorant, business decisions taken over the course of many years can gradually evolve into creation of a toxic environment.
This is by no means a long book (less than 300 pages), but I have barely scratched the surface and I’ve missed out many things that are key to any proper description. My only advice, really, is that you read the book for yourself.
My thanks to Random House UK for an ARC via NetGalley.
July 27, 2021
Now Longlisted for The Booker Prize 2021
Such a rich, multilayered and passionate book that explores astrobiology, the funding of scientific research, man's predations of the planet, US politics around all these issues - but the heart of the story lies in a tender tale of paternal love for a nine year old son deemed different by his school and medical professionals who want to pathologise him and put him on drugs to control his behaviour.
I'm not usually one to go all mushy over kids in books but young Robin just stole my heart with his intelligence and his care and his original outlook, and I loved this. Powers wears his learning lightly but some of the science made my head spin - all the same, the very human story that binds this complex book together won me over completely.
Many thanks to Random House, Cornerstone for an ARC via NetGalley.
Such a rich, multilayered and passionate book that explores astrobiology, the funding of scientific research, man's predations of the planet, US politics around all these issues - but the heart of the story lies in a tender tale of paternal love for a nine year old son deemed different by his school and medical professionals who want to pathologise him and put him on drugs to control his behaviour.
I'm not usually one to go all mushy over kids in books but young Robin just stole my heart with his intelligence and his care and his original outlook, and I loved this. Powers wears his learning lightly but some of the science made my head spin - all the same, the very human story that binds this complex book together won me over completely.
Many thanks to Random House, Cornerstone for an ARC via NetGalley.
September 20, 2021
Video Review (YouTube, more of a rant than normal)
I would like to thank Netgalley and Random House UK for the honor of reading Bewilderment before its commercial release. This is the hardest review I remember writing.
I really don't think everyone will love reading this, because I did not find it uplifting or touching as other reviewers have. However, I still think it will be shortlisted and stands a very good chance of winning the Booker Prize, because it is highly topical and relevant to the 'pandemic era' we are (hopefully) beginning to leave.
When I started Bewilderment I really thought I'd like it based on the blurb. I love stories with strong father figures (The Road, To Kill A Mockingbird). I love stories about boys who seem like they could be on the autistic spectrum (The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Night-Time, Independence Day). I love stories about grief (Nox, Bough Down). I think we need to write more frequently and deeply about these topics, and that the world needs more books about them.
I am a former neuroscience researcher, and I knew this would have science in it. Richard Powers has won the Pulitzer Prize for The Overstory, so I figured this book would be popular too.
I like Bewilderment for what it does, but I dislike it for what it was as a reading experience. To read it was a cold, claustrophobic, paranoid reading experience. I'm sure Bewilderment will serve history in reminding the world the sociopolitical climate in America during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its themes outside of the father-son relationship reminds me a bit of First Reformed, except that film had more heart to it, which is what I think is the distinction to my disdain for this book.
I found it strange how there was no conflict was seen between people strongly in support of space exploration and environmental conservation. I wanted simpler explanations of space, not technical simulations loaded with jargon. I felt like space sequences were randomly interspersed literally as an escape from the story, but they didn't really add much? Nothing really happens in the plot, and I found little else to redeem that. There wasn't the description or empathy I felt that would compensate for an uneventful story, but instead, multiple scenarios of emotional discomfort. If anything, Bewilderment to me seems like a masterful exercise in how uncomfortable can you make a reader with an uneventful yet realistic plot. I felt like there was no real momentum to the story itself. I felt the story had a nihilistic dread to it that threatened anyone who cared about anything. I didn't feel like there was much development to the grief process.
It bothered me that there was never any reflection on whether space research funds could not be redirected into environmental activism? It felt like an obvious connection to me based on the conversations and motivations of the characters in the book. It felt almost necessary to deal with the emotional leap from speculating what species might exist on other planets, while also showing that you want to save the ones on earth?
The ending to me felt a bit predictable and abrupt. My reading experience was always a matter of 'what on earth is going to happen next', so when the story was over, it was not so memorable to me. I don't carry with me moments from this book, only missed expectations. It did not flow to me very well as a narrative. I did not cherish any sentence constructions, I found nothing memorable in the writing style. I felt closed off from the vulnerable emotions and thoughts of the characters by a pane of glass.
My ARC review is negative and in the minority, and I am sorry if this disappoints other readers (I feel bad about it, more so than normal). I am not representative here, I only write here how I truly felt. This may be partly because unlike other ARC reviewers I had not read and loved Richard Powers's last book (The Overstory). I went into this blind. It may also be specifically personal issues I had with the representation of the son's behaviour and the neuroscience scifi element. It is hard for me to realize why my perspective differs so much from the collective response now. It's not a 1* review because there's some fascination here, Richard Powers does write some natural conversations very well, and the book is unconventional.
It probably seems very conflicting for me to still hope this book wins the 2021 Booker Prize. Something in me still thinks that, what Bewilderment drags the reader through, makes it worthy of being promoted as a talking point for the current problems in the world. It's an eyesore and a warning, not a fun time looking up at the stars. I just don't think this book will be as popular in a decade, it seems too relevant/current, and progress is surely ahead. I only hope more stories will write about these themes, but do so with quite a different perspective and writing style.
——
[Initial thoughts after reading]
Oh boy. I'm going to have to fight my corner for this one. Very conflicted. My experience that this was a 2-3* experience, but I need time to process it all. I did really want to love this and I'm still confident it will be shortlisted, and may even win the Booker Prize this year. But I also don't think it will be an enjoyable read for many. It is hard to articulate that massively conflicting view right now. All I can say for now is — read the synopsis in the blurb very closely, and think about what that might feel like to read. The pre-release rating is currently 4.31, I predict it'll come down to around 3.8-3.9 after release. Expect a more comprehensive review soon.
I would like to thank Netgalley and Random House UK for the honor of reading Bewilderment before its commercial release. This is the hardest review I remember writing.
I really don't think everyone will love reading this, because I did not find it uplifting or touching as other reviewers have. However, I still think it will be shortlisted and stands a very good chance of winning the Booker Prize, because it is highly topical and relevant to the 'pandemic era' we are (hopefully) beginning to leave.
When I started Bewilderment I really thought I'd like it based on the blurb. I love stories with strong father figures (The Road, To Kill A Mockingbird). I love stories about boys who seem like they could be on the autistic spectrum (The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Night-Time, Independence Day). I love stories about grief (Nox, Bough Down). I think we need to write more frequently and deeply about these topics, and that the world needs more books about them.
I am a former neuroscience researcher, and I knew this would have science in it. Richard Powers has won the Pulitzer Prize for The Overstory, so I figured this book would be popular too.
I like Bewilderment for what it does, but I dislike it for what it was as a reading experience. To read it was a cold, claustrophobic, paranoid reading experience. I'm sure Bewilderment will serve history in reminding the world the sociopolitical climate in America during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its themes outside of the father-son relationship reminds me a bit of First Reformed, except that film had more heart to it, which is what I think is the distinction to my disdain for this book.
I found it strange how there was no conflict was seen between people strongly in support of space exploration and environmental conservation. I wanted simpler explanations of space, not technical simulations loaded with jargon. I felt like space sequences were randomly interspersed literally as an escape from the story, but they didn't really add much? Nothing really happens in the plot, and I found little else to redeem that. There wasn't the description or empathy I felt that would compensate for an uneventful story, but instead, multiple scenarios of emotional discomfort. If anything, Bewilderment to me seems like a masterful exercise in how uncomfortable can you make a reader with an uneventful yet realistic plot. I felt like there was no real momentum to the story itself. I felt the story had a nihilistic dread to it that threatened anyone who cared about anything. I didn't feel like there was much development to the grief process.
It bothered me that there was never any reflection on whether space research funds could not be redirected into environmental activism? It felt like an obvious connection to me based on the conversations and motivations of the characters in the book. It felt almost necessary to deal with the emotional leap from speculating what species might exist on other planets, while also showing that you want to save the ones on earth?
The ending to me felt a bit predictable and abrupt. My reading experience was always a matter of 'what on earth is going to happen next', so when the story was over, it was not so memorable to me. I don't carry with me moments from this book, only missed expectations. It did not flow to me very well as a narrative. I did not cherish any sentence constructions, I found nothing memorable in the writing style. I felt closed off from the vulnerable emotions and thoughts of the characters by a pane of glass.
My ARC review is negative and in the minority, and I am sorry if this disappoints other readers (I feel bad about it, more so than normal). I am not representative here, I only write here how I truly felt. This may be partly because unlike other ARC reviewers I had not read and loved Richard Powers's last book (The Overstory). I went into this blind. It may also be specifically personal issues I had with the representation of the son's behaviour and the neuroscience scifi element. It is hard for me to realize why my perspective differs so much from the collective response now. It's not a 1* review because there's some fascination here, Richard Powers does write some natural conversations very well, and the book is unconventional.
It probably seems very conflicting for me to still hope this book wins the 2021 Booker Prize. Something in me still thinks that, what Bewilderment drags the reader through, makes it worthy of being promoted as a talking point for the current problems in the world. It's an eyesore and a warning, not a fun time looking up at the stars. I just don't think this book will be as popular in a decade, it seems too relevant/current, and progress is surely ahead. I only hope more stories will write about these themes, but do so with quite a different perspective and writing style.
——
[Initial thoughts after reading]
Oh boy. I'm going to have to fight my corner for this one. Very conflicted. My experience that this was a 2-3* experience, but I need time to process it all. I did really want to love this and I'm still confident it will be shortlisted, and may even win the Booker Prize this year. But I also don't think it will be an enjoyable read for many. It is hard to articulate that massively conflicting view right now. All I can say for now is — read the synopsis in the blurb very closely, and think about what that might feel like to read. The pre-release rating is currently 4.31, I predict it'll come down to around 3.8-3.9 after release. Expect a more comprehensive review soon.
February 4, 2022
13th book of 2022.
So, so bad. I pretty much hated this; it was somehow worse than The Overstory, which was terrible. If you know the plot of Flowers for Algernon, you already know the plot to this: save yourself the time. I usually like to say some good things about everything I read but this was so awful, I probably won’t. This will mostly just be a rant.
Powers wouldn’t—ironically—know subtle if it punched him in the face; the whole emotional drive of this pathetic, sickly, sentimental novel comes from the father/son relationship and the relationship with the dead mother, the latter being hinged entirely on his corny one-liners [1] and moments of exposition set up in the most artificial way with the son asking questions about his mother and the past (questions we presume he already must know the answers to and, yes, Powers actually tells us he knows the answers to) on the pretext that he just likes to hear his father say them. Sadly this isn’t the case: it reads like Powers’ incompetence to layer exposition and character history into his prose so instead has to have his two character playing Q&A just to give the reader the emotional backdrop. I actually gave up recording them because they were appearing every other page, every page, probably, but here are some awful and/or soppy lines from the novel: ‘Dad? If you went to sea or to war… if something happened to you? If you had to die? I would just hold still and think of how your hands move when you walk, and then you’d still be here’ [2], ‘I can’t understand why my boys love Star Wars more than they love the stars’, ‘The field guide felt as heavy as it would have on Jupiter’, ‘Smart phones are miracles, and they’ve turned us into gods. But in one simple respect, they’re primitive: you can’t slam down the receiver’, and I can’t even capture how many times things were said like humans are so awful, we are the problem!, get the animals away from us!, we will never learn!, the planet needs us and we do nothing!, etc., etc., etc., to mind-numbing banality.
As well as being a weird copy of Flowers for Algernon where Theo (father) refuses to give drugs to his autistic (he claims not) son (Robin) and instead signs him up for some strange program where he eventually begins to be ‘cured’ (e.g. not scream and attack people and have tantrums), the novel also has these irritating fictional planets dropped in that they ‘travel’ to (in their minds), à la Invisible Cities, but of course, without the skill of Calvino’s prose. These only stand as further reiterations of Powers’ central point of the novel which simply came across as the planet is dying and humans are evil. The same with The Overstory: Powers beats the reader incessantly over the head with his themes, in fact, rather than exploring them in interesting ways, he fills the pages of the novel with science jargon and crap and literal protests by characters, as in The Overstory. . . But this needs a new paragraph.
I actually considered launching the book across the room when Robbie said he wanted to protest; I couldn’t actually believe Powers was going for that shit again. And he did, I had to read about a boy with a sign in front of the Capitol protesting. Powers’ complete lack of the basic ‘show don’t tell’ rule of creative writing, again. There’s also some strange Greta Thunberg character that Robbie falls in love with on the TV. There’s also, I think, a single mention of another child that died, but it never really comes up again. There’s also Robbie, at 9-years-old, spouting deep profound life lessons about animal cruelty and climate change as if we don’t already read this on the news every day. The whole science play reminded me of McEwan’s worst novel, Solar, where we sit through science jargon, for what? Just a giant look-at-me-I-did-the-research or worse yet look-at-me-I-know-science-too. The ending was, as I said, completely predictable having read Flowers for Algernon and abrupt at that, too. 300 pages of trite and mawkish prose that was somehow longlisted for the Booker. It’s beyond me. Powers is probably my least favourite author alive or dead.
___________________________
[1] I honestly had to read this 9-year-old boy say multiple times to his dad things like, ‘You know mom loved you a lot, right?’ Unbearable.
[2] For some reason unknown to me, all of Robbie’s dialogue in the novel is italicised and without speech marks. All other dialogue is standard. Powers just reeks of pretentious gratuitous choices.
So, so bad. I pretty much hated this; it was somehow worse than The Overstory, which was terrible. If you know the plot of Flowers for Algernon, you already know the plot to this: save yourself the time. I usually like to say some good things about everything I read but this was so awful, I probably won’t. This will mostly just be a rant.
Powers wouldn’t—ironically—know subtle if it punched him in the face; the whole emotional drive of this pathetic, sickly, sentimental novel comes from the father/son relationship and the relationship with the dead mother, the latter being hinged entirely on his corny one-liners [1] and moments of exposition set up in the most artificial way with the son asking questions about his mother and the past (questions we presume he already must know the answers to and, yes, Powers actually tells us he knows the answers to) on the pretext that he just likes to hear his father say them. Sadly this isn’t the case: it reads like Powers’ incompetence to layer exposition and character history into his prose so instead has to have his two character playing Q&A just to give the reader the emotional backdrop. I actually gave up recording them because they were appearing every other page, every page, probably, but here are some awful and/or soppy lines from the novel: ‘Dad? If you went to sea or to war… if something happened to you? If you had to die? I would just hold still and think of how your hands move when you walk, and then you’d still be here’ [2], ‘I can’t understand why my boys love Star Wars more than they love the stars’, ‘The field guide felt as heavy as it would have on Jupiter’, ‘Smart phones are miracles, and they’ve turned us into gods. But in one simple respect, they’re primitive: you can’t slam down the receiver’, and I can’t even capture how many times things were said like humans are so awful, we are the problem!, get the animals away from us!, we will never learn!, the planet needs us and we do nothing!, etc., etc., etc., to mind-numbing banality.
As well as being a weird copy of Flowers for Algernon where Theo (father) refuses to give drugs to his autistic (he claims not) son (Robin) and instead signs him up for some strange program where he eventually begins to be ‘cured’ (e.g. not scream and attack people and have tantrums), the novel also has these irritating fictional planets dropped in that they ‘travel’ to (in their minds), à la Invisible Cities, but of course, without the skill of Calvino’s prose. These only stand as further reiterations of Powers’ central point of the novel which simply came across as the planet is dying and humans are evil. The same with The Overstory: Powers beats the reader incessantly over the head with his themes, in fact, rather than exploring them in interesting ways, he fills the pages of the novel with science jargon and crap and literal protests by characters, as in The Overstory. . . But this needs a new paragraph.
I actually considered launching the book across the room when Robbie said he wanted to protest; I couldn’t actually believe Powers was going for that shit again. And he did, I had to read about a boy with a sign in front of the Capitol protesting. Powers’ complete lack of the basic ‘show don’t tell’ rule of creative writing, again. There’s also some strange Greta Thunberg character that Robbie falls in love with on the TV. There’s also, I think, a single mention of another child that died, but it never really comes up again. There’s also Robbie, at 9-years-old, spouting deep profound life lessons about animal cruelty and climate change as if we don’t already read this on the news every day. The whole science play reminded me of McEwan’s worst novel, Solar, where we sit through science jargon, for what? Just a giant look-at-me-I-did-the-research or worse yet look-at-me-I-know-science-too. The ending was, as I said, completely predictable having read Flowers for Algernon and abrupt at that, too. 300 pages of trite and mawkish prose that was somehow longlisted for the Booker. It’s beyond me. Powers is probably my least favourite author alive or dead.
___________________________
[1] I honestly had to read this 9-year-old boy say multiple times to his dad things like, ‘You know mom loved you a lot, right?’ Unbearable.
[2] For some reason unknown to me, all of Robbie’s dialogue in the novel is italicised and without speech marks. All other dialogue is standard. Powers just reeks of pretentious gratuitous choices.
October 5, 2021
"Which is bigger, outer space or inner?"
-Richard Powers, Bewilderment
Pay no attention to the NY Times Book Review - this book is shortlisted for the Booker and longlisted for the National Book Award, and is as worthy of a read as Powers' previous works.
Theo is an astrobiologist in a near future world where schools are banned from teaching evolution and science is even less in favor from the powers that be than ever despite the climate collapsing around them. In the wake of the loss of his wife, his world collapses to the size of his research and his son. Robin is 9 and the schools see him as a problem to be medicated, but Theo takes him in another direction.
The book is rather meditative even for Powers, and it seems from what I've gleaned from interviews that perhaps it was a journey to explore his younger self in a way he was never allowed to. It has the hopeful dystopian feel of The Road or Good Morning, Midnight, where the end seems obvious but there are still relationships that move us forward and ideas to explore. I actually think Powers finally wrote a true science fiction book this time.
I listened to the audio as read by Edoardo Ballerini, and felt he was embodying the voice of the author, and this just solidified my feelings of how much the author put into this novel. The Overstory felt environmentally conscious and maybe didactic but to me, Bewilderment feels personal.
-Richard Powers, Bewilderment
Pay no attention to the NY Times Book Review - this book is shortlisted for the Booker and longlisted for the National Book Award, and is as worthy of a read as Powers' previous works.
Theo is an astrobiologist in a near future world where schools are banned from teaching evolution and science is even less in favor from the powers that be than ever despite the climate collapsing around them. In the wake of the loss of his wife, his world collapses to the size of his research and his son. Robin is 9 and the schools see him as a problem to be medicated, but Theo takes him in another direction.
The book is rather meditative even for Powers, and it seems from what I've gleaned from interviews that perhaps it was a journey to explore his younger self in a way he was never allowed to. It has the hopeful dystopian feel of The Road or Good Morning, Midnight, where the end seems obvious but there are still relationships that move us forward and ideas to explore. I actually think Powers finally wrote a true science fiction book this time.
I listened to the audio as read by Edoardo Ballerini, and felt he was embodying the voice of the author, and this just solidified my feelings of how much the author put into this novel. The Overstory felt environmentally conscious and maybe didactic but to me, Bewilderment feels personal.
July 26, 2022
Bewilderment is not an easy read; it’s a complicated, heavy, ambitious, emotionally intelligent read. It requires critical thinking, patience, and time to reflect on the themes. It is steeped in science, and at times, I lost patience with it, and it took me a long time to get through the story. It is also an extraordinary, tender, insightful story that offers us many questions to ponder about the themes.
Themes
A lot is going on here with the story’s themes, and it is laid out there for us what is at stake. I had some mixed feelings about the way the themes are explored. It feels like Powers provokes a sense of dread in a world buckled down under the weight of the explored themes. On the one hand, that opens up an insightful story; on the other, it feels like instilling fear and making a point.
Head and Heart/Parenting: The story’s heart is the moving, tender love story of a father, Theo, and his bond with his unusual nine-year-old son, Robin, as they navigate grief, uncertainty, and the different ways Robin’s brain works following the death of Robin’s mother.
I loved the complexities of parenting explored as Theo uses his heart to do what he thinks is best for Robin while ignoring and denying what everyone is telling him about Robin’s behavior. Theo shows us the helplessness parents feel when trying to do what is best for their child while providing love and acceptance. His love and acceptance make him blind to the complexities of Robin’s behavior and denial that Robin’s disruptive behavior might need more than he can give him.
Big Pharma
After Robin is labeled with “special needs,” Theo refuses to put him on psychoactive drugs. Theo denies that Robin needs help managing his emotions and is skeptical that doctors’ suggestions are motivated by Big Pharma.
Robin finds the wilderness calming and Theo turns to nature to nurture Robin. After an incident at school, Theo is given an ultimate, find a solution for his behavior, or authorities will intervene. Feeling he out of options Theo agrees to an experimental neurofeedback treatment to regulate Robin’s emotions.
Climate Change/Science denial
The story explores the weight of telling children about our crumbling world while trying to understand why there is denial that climate change is real. Robin wants to continue his Mother’s environmental causes and is fixated and obsessed with climate activism. He draws hundreds pictures of endangered species to raise awareness and sell for charities. He is confused as to why people won’t do anything about the natural world collapsing. Through Robin, we see how the weight of this truth might burden a child.
American Politics
Powers highlights the doom of right-wing authoritarianism and makes some references to Trump without mentioning his name. It all felt a bit too complicated and heavy for me to understand some of his underlying meaning, and I needed it spelled out for me.
Characters: I liked that the story solely focuses on Theo and Robin while the ghost-like presence of Robin’s mother lingers over them. However, while tackling all the themes in the story and their weight, I feel Powers forgets to develop his characters. While I experienced many emotions while reading, I felt for the characters, but I found it hard to feel with them and see how they grew and changed from their conflicts. However, I am not sure that was the story’s point, and I can’t say anymore because of spoilers.
What I loved: The number of questions the story provokes. Questions that show how complex our world is with no real answers and that gave me a lot to think deeply about.
What I didn’t love as much: How heavy the story is and weighed down by the themes and science.
I received a copy from the publisher through NG
Themes
A lot is going on here with the story’s themes, and it is laid out there for us what is at stake. I had some mixed feelings about the way the themes are explored. It feels like Powers provokes a sense of dread in a world buckled down under the weight of the explored themes. On the one hand, that opens up an insightful story; on the other, it feels like instilling fear and making a point.
Head and Heart/Parenting: The story’s heart is the moving, tender love story of a father, Theo, and his bond with his unusual nine-year-old son, Robin, as they navigate grief, uncertainty, and the different ways Robin’s brain works following the death of Robin’s mother.
I loved the complexities of parenting explored as Theo uses his heart to do what he thinks is best for Robin while ignoring and denying what everyone is telling him about Robin’s behavior. Theo shows us the helplessness parents feel when trying to do what is best for their child while providing love and acceptance. His love and acceptance make him blind to the complexities of Robin’s behavior and denial that Robin’s disruptive behavior might need more than he can give him.
Big Pharma
After Robin is labeled with “special needs,” Theo refuses to put him on psychoactive drugs. Theo denies that Robin needs help managing his emotions and is skeptical that doctors’ suggestions are motivated by Big Pharma.
Robin finds the wilderness calming and Theo turns to nature to nurture Robin. After an incident at school, Theo is given an ultimate, find a solution for his behavior, or authorities will intervene. Feeling he out of options Theo agrees to an experimental neurofeedback treatment to regulate Robin’s emotions.
Climate Change/Science denial
The story explores the weight of telling children about our crumbling world while trying to understand why there is denial that climate change is real. Robin wants to continue his Mother’s environmental causes and is fixated and obsessed with climate activism. He draws hundreds pictures of endangered species to raise awareness and sell for charities. He is confused as to why people won’t do anything about the natural world collapsing. Through Robin, we see how the weight of this truth might burden a child.
American Politics
Powers highlights the doom of right-wing authoritarianism and makes some references to Trump without mentioning his name. It all felt a bit too complicated and heavy for me to understand some of his underlying meaning, and I needed it spelled out for me.
Characters: I liked that the story solely focuses on Theo and Robin while the ghost-like presence of Robin’s mother lingers over them. However, while tackling all the themes in the story and their weight, I feel Powers forgets to develop his characters. While I experienced many emotions while reading, I felt for the characters, but I found it hard to feel with them and see how they grew and changed from their conflicts. However, I am not sure that was the story’s point, and I can’t say anymore because of spoilers.
What I loved: The number of questions the story provokes. Questions that show how complex our world is with no real answers and that gave me a lot to think deeply about.
What I didn’t love as much: How heavy the story is and weighed down by the themes and science.
I received a copy from the publisher through NG
June 12, 2022
Can we sit by the water first, before we pitch the tent? The day was fresh and clear, with hours of light left and no chance of rain.
“We can sit by the river for as long as it takes.”
As long as what takes?
“To figure out the human race.”
The only other novel by Richard Powers I have read is ‘Orfeo’ (2014), about an avant-garde composer who biohacks musical patterns into a bacterial human pathogen, which does not endear him to the local authorities. ‘Bewilderment’ features the experimental Decoded Neurofeedback used to treat the Asperger syndrome and related mental ailments of the child Robin by ‘training’ him on a healthy brain pattern, in this instance his deceased mother.
Exactly how the process functions is never spelled out, but it clearly serves as a narrative device, because Robin soon comes to spookily mimic mannerisms and spout arcane knowledge that could only have come from his mother. When the government gets a sniff in the wind about the behavioural modification potential of Decoded Neurofeedback, its kneejerk reaction is to close down the experiment with immediate effect. Which, of course, has a dramatic impact on test subjects like Robin, who rely on weekly treatments to retain their mental equilibrium.
If you are getting vibes of ‘Flowers for Algernon’ (1959) by Daniel Keyes, you are not wrong, as Powers himself references that classic. The problem with Robin in ‘Bewilderment’ is that he never seems like a fully fledged character, but rather an idea animated by the author. This is underscored by the curious decision to have Robin speak in all-italics and without speech marks, which distances him from the narrative. When he begins to act like his dead mother, the ghostly estrangement is even more pronounced.
Aly is an equally problematic figure, painted in a haze of reminiscence by husband Theo as the great love of his life who got away. There is some mystery as to how she died in a car accident, but this is a plot strand that ultimately does not interest Powers, so he abandons it abruptly. Another jettisoned plot strand is the merest hint that Aly This is an unresolved value judgement on Aly that, for me, skewed the narrative even further. It also raises important issues about the nature of their relationship, which clearly was not as idyllic as Theo remembers it to be, not to mention the impact it had on Robin’s own development.
Another classic book referenced by Powers is ‘Star Maker’ (1937) by Olaf Stapledon: “The whole cosmos was infinitely less than the whole of being … the whole infinity of being underlay every moment of the cosmos.” Theo is an astrobiologist working on the ‘Byrne Alien Field Guide’, “a taxonomic catalogue of all kinds of spectroscopic signatures collated to the stages and types of possible extraterrestrial life that might make them.” That is, alien worlds.
This was my favourite part of the book. It begins quietly and unannounced 5% into the Kindle version when Powers gives us the following sentence, which had me reread it and then check to see if I had missed anything prior to that point: “I took him to the planet Dvau, about the size and warmth of ours.” These chapters, usually brief interludes, are moments of genuine wonder and flights of fancy, yet underpinned by credible science. It is also the emotional heart of the novel, as it is where the father and son bond is at its strongest, especially towards the end when Robin begins to make up his own versions of alien worlds for his father.
However, none of this is actually the core focus of the book. It takes place in an unspecified ‘near future’ that is clearly a dystopian Trump version of America where he never accepted the outcome of the election, declares martial law, and installs himself as dictator-in-chief. Law and order continue to break down, the authorities’ response becomes ever more draconian, and so the country begins an agonising death spiral into anarchy. All of this plays out against a backdrop of global extreme weather events and bizarre disruptions of the natural order, such as mass outbreaks of animal diseases in human populations.
Instead of using the ‘Byrne Alien Field Guide’ to illustrate the immense richness and variety of the universe, Powers takes the bewildering turn of using his characters as soapboxes for the idea that life is unique to earth, and that if we continue on our current path of environmental self-destruction, it is effectively the end of the universe as we know it. (There is a lot of discussion of the Fermi Paradox and how this is actually a true reflection of nature: Humans are the epitome, and hence custodians, of sentience. Also, you do not have to look anywhere else for ‘alien’ life: it is all here in copious abundance and infinite variety on earth itself.)
It is curious to find such an anti-scientific and human-centric argument lurking like a black hole at the heart of a book that is ostensibly on the side of science and reason. It is also a curiously didactic and polemical book where it is clearly apparent that the author is manipulating the characters, and hence the reader’s response to them, especially on an emotional level. This does not gel. The dystopia is tired, preaches to the converted anyway, and keeps the climate change scenario at the periphery rather letting it steer the narrative.
I have yet to read ‘The Overstory’ (2019) by Powers, which of course won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Other CliFi novels I have yet to read that I think will provide an interesting dialectic with ‘Bewilderment’ are ‘The Ministry for the Future’ (2020) by Kim Stanley Robinson and ‘Terminal Shock’ (2021) by Neal Stephenson.
Invariably when ‘mainstream’ or ‘literary’ writers dabble in genre, the end results are unsatisfactory. One only has to recall ‘Machines like Me’ (2019) or ‘Klara and the Sun’ (2021) by Kazuo Ishiguro. ‘Bewilderment’ packs a lot into his short length, to its detriment. Powers could have narrowed his focus even further and produced a far more powerful book that paradoxically would have had the universe as its true backdrop.
“We can sit by the river for as long as it takes.”
As long as what takes?
“To figure out the human race.”
The only other novel by Richard Powers I have read is ‘Orfeo’ (2014), about an avant-garde composer who biohacks musical patterns into a bacterial human pathogen, which does not endear him to the local authorities. ‘Bewilderment’ features the experimental Decoded Neurofeedback used to treat the Asperger syndrome and related mental ailments of the child Robin by ‘training’ him on a healthy brain pattern, in this instance his deceased mother.
Exactly how the process functions is never spelled out, but it clearly serves as a narrative device, because Robin soon comes to spookily mimic mannerisms and spout arcane knowledge that could only have come from his mother. When the government gets a sniff in the wind about the behavioural modification potential of Decoded Neurofeedback, its kneejerk reaction is to close down the experiment with immediate effect. Which, of course, has a dramatic impact on test subjects like Robin, who rely on weekly treatments to retain their mental equilibrium.
If you are getting vibes of ‘Flowers for Algernon’ (1959) by Daniel Keyes, you are not wrong, as Powers himself references that classic. The problem with Robin in ‘Bewilderment’ is that he never seems like a fully fledged character, but rather an idea animated by the author. This is underscored by the curious decision to have Robin speak in all-italics and without speech marks, which distances him from the narrative. When he begins to act like his dead mother, the ghostly estrangement is even more pronounced.
Aly is an equally problematic figure, painted in a haze of reminiscence by husband Theo as the great love of his life who got away. There is some mystery as to how she died in a car accident, but this is a plot strand that ultimately does not interest Powers, so he abandons it abruptly. Another jettisoned plot strand is the merest hint that Aly This is an unresolved value judgement on Aly that, for me, skewed the narrative even further. It also raises important issues about the nature of their relationship, which clearly was not as idyllic as Theo remembers it to be, not to mention the impact it had on Robin’s own development.
Another classic book referenced by Powers is ‘Star Maker’ (1937) by Olaf Stapledon: “The whole cosmos was infinitely less than the whole of being … the whole infinity of being underlay every moment of the cosmos.” Theo is an astrobiologist working on the ‘Byrne Alien Field Guide’, “a taxonomic catalogue of all kinds of spectroscopic signatures collated to the stages and types of possible extraterrestrial life that might make them.” That is, alien worlds.
This was my favourite part of the book. It begins quietly and unannounced 5% into the Kindle version when Powers gives us the following sentence, which had me reread it and then check to see if I had missed anything prior to that point: “I took him to the planet Dvau, about the size and warmth of ours.” These chapters, usually brief interludes, are moments of genuine wonder and flights of fancy, yet underpinned by credible science. It is also the emotional heart of the novel, as it is where the father and son bond is at its strongest, especially towards the end when Robin begins to make up his own versions of alien worlds for his father.
However, none of this is actually the core focus of the book. It takes place in an unspecified ‘near future’ that is clearly a dystopian Trump version of America where he never accepted the outcome of the election, declares martial law, and installs himself as dictator-in-chief. Law and order continue to break down, the authorities’ response becomes ever more draconian, and so the country begins an agonising death spiral into anarchy. All of this plays out against a backdrop of global extreme weather events and bizarre disruptions of the natural order, such as mass outbreaks of animal diseases in human populations.
Instead of using the ‘Byrne Alien Field Guide’ to illustrate the immense richness and variety of the universe, Powers takes the bewildering turn of using his characters as soapboxes for the idea that life is unique to earth, and that if we continue on our current path of environmental self-destruction, it is effectively the end of the universe as we know it. (There is a lot of discussion of the Fermi Paradox and how this is actually a true reflection of nature: Humans are the epitome, and hence custodians, of sentience. Also, you do not have to look anywhere else for ‘alien’ life: it is all here in copious abundance and infinite variety on earth itself.)
It is curious to find such an anti-scientific and human-centric argument lurking like a black hole at the heart of a book that is ostensibly on the side of science and reason. It is also a curiously didactic and polemical book where it is clearly apparent that the author is manipulating the characters, and hence the reader’s response to them, especially on an emotional level. This does not gel. The dystopia is tired, preaches to the converted anyway, and keeps the climate change scenario at the periphery rather letting it steer the narrative.
I have yet to read ‘The Overstory’ (2019) by Powers, which of course won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Other CliFi novels I have yet to read that I think will provide an interesting dialectic with ‘Bewilderment’ are ‘The Ministry for the Future’ (2020) by Kim Stanley Robinson and ‘Terminal Shock’ (2021) by Neal Stephenson.
Invariably when ‘mainstream’ or ‘literary’ writers dabble in genre, the end results are unsatisfactory. One only has to recall ‘Machines like Me’ (2019) or ‘Klara and the Sun’ (2021) by Kazuo Ishiguro. ‘Bewilderment’ packs a lot into his short length, to its detriment. Powers could have narrowed his focus even further and produced a far more powerful book that paradoxically would have had the universe as its true backdrop.
October 4, 2021
This is the story of a visionary scientist and grieving father whose fierce love for his unique son (also grieving) is both a blessing and a curse. As expected from Richard Powers, it is intelligent, geopolitical in tone, celebratory of the natural world, and condemnatory of anything that threatens or destroys the environment. He also champions the safety and security of all creatures, and their peaceful coexistence on Planet Earth. All under the guise of fiction, of course, but it is clear who is speaking and what messages are being delivered.
My own politics and beliefs appear to be very similar to the author's, and I should have adored this book. At the heart lies a tale that - while cautionary and alarming - is touching and even hopeful in places. I was moved by Theo's fondness for Robin and how that fuels a passionate defense of his son whenever the world withholds its embrace from the boy, particularly in the early part of the novel. I also loved the ornithology, hiking and camping, stargazing, and occasional nerdy humor. But I'll be damned if I could focus on such things for long, given all the interference from virtue signaling.
Further limiting my fondness for this book was the presence of characters who too often appear as avatars rather than people I recognize; stereotypes instead of individuals. I do think many readers will bond with them but I found several off-putting, sometimes insufferable. We have Our Lady of Sentient Beings, Papa Bear, and Robin the Boy Wonder (sorry, Batman!) as the nuclear family. Elementary school teachers are self-appointed diagnosticians, in cahoots with the Medical-Industrial Complex and Big Pharma. Pediatricians are similarly only interested in applying labels to children and placing them on prescription medications. Yes, I understand that this is a dystopian story, but it is set in the not-too-distant future. And, while I believe things are as parlous as Powers implies, my experience has not been that the average person working with children is a source of limitation and harm to them. Far from it.
This book is going to get a lot of love, and I'm more than a little shocked that I'm not feeling it. Powers cued his soundtrack and I came ready to let the music wash over me. Somewhere in the distance, I did hear Louie Armstrong singing about skies of blue and clouds of white, the bright blessed day, the dark sacred night. It is a wonderful world and I very much wanted to tap into that vibe! Unfortunately, Powers played other tunes more frequently and at higher volume, and these I could have lived without. Most annoying was The Beatles' incessant promise that the Magical Mystery Boy (sic) is coming to take you away. Had he asked for requests (and he did not), I would have made my feelings known with the apt Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered, because that's how this one has left me.
My own politics and beliefs appear to be very similar to the author's, and I should have adored this book. At the heart lies a tale that - while cautionary and alarming - is touching and even hopeful in places. I was moved by Theo's fondness for Robin and how that fuels a passionate defense of his son whenever the world withholds its embrace from the boy, particularly in the early part of the novel. I also loved the ornithology, hiking and camping, stargazing, and occasional nerdy humor. But I'll be damned if I could focus on such things for long, given all the interference from virtue signaling.
Further limiting my fondness for this book was the presence of characters who too often appear as avatars rather than people I recognize; stereotypes instead of individuals. I do think many readers will bond with them but I found several off-putting, sometimes insufferable. We have Our Lady of Sentient Beings, Papa Bear, and Robin the Boy Wonder (sorry, Batman!) as the nuclear family. Elementary school teachers are self-appointed diagnosticians, in cahoots with the Medical-Industrial Complex and Big Pharma. Pediatricians are similarly only interested in applying labels to children and placing them on prescription medications. Yes, I understand that this is a dystopian story, but it is set in the not-too-distant future. And, while I believe things are as parlous as Powers implies, my experience has not been that the average person working with children is a source of limitation and harm to them. Far from it.
This book is going to get a lot of love, and I'm more than a little shocked that I'm not feeling it. Powers cued his soundtrack and I came ready to let the music wash over me. Somewhere in the distance, I did hear Louie Armstrong singing about skies of blue and clouds of white, the bright blessed day, the dark sacred night. It is a wonderful world and I very much wanted to tap into that vibe! Unfortunately, Powers played other tunes more frequently and at higher volume, and these I could have lived without. Most annoying was The Beatles' incessant promise that the Magical Mystery Boy (sic) is coming to take you away. Had he asked for requests (and he did not), I would have made my feelings known with the apt Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered, because that's how this one has left me.
August 23, 2022
Previous to this novel I had admired rather than loved Richard Powers. Watching as he wrestles the hard sciences into some form of literary catnip can be exhausting. His themes are grand, high concept affairs: technology, environmental destruction, the very future of the human race. He takes a dim view of humanity generally. Cataloguing our attempts to fling ourselves into oblivion with our collective apathy.
It is surprising then to discover Bewilderment is not only more accessible but also endearing on a personal level. Was it ever possible to care as much about one of Powers characters?
9- year old Robin will break your heart if you let him. Highly sensitive to the natural world, stories of animal cruelty send him into rages.
"Two percent, Dad ?" He snarled like a cornered badger. "Only two percent of all animals are wild ? Everything else is factory cows and factory chickens and us ?"
The indifference of the adult world flummoxes him and yet he tries to bring the wonder of the world to those that will listen, in this way Powers makes him a proto-Greta Thunberg. As Robin grows increasingly hard to control, his recently widowed father turns to an experimental treatment, called neurofeedback, which helps Robin control his emotions by studying the emotions of others - an empathy machine if you will.
At its core, this is a novel about empathy, and at this stage in humanities progress, that theme resonated with me.
“In the face of the world's basic brokenness, more empathy meant deeper suffering. The question wasn't why Robin was sliding down again. The question was why the rest of us were staying so insanely sanguine.
Bewilderment contains multitudes ( other reviews may well find totally different aspects to explore). With lashings of astrobiology, side trips to invented exoplanets, a rollcall of environmental catastrophes, ( Powers has thrown me into an existential crisis over rock cairns ) add in some wry commentary on American politics and science funding and the result is an outstanding novel.
Side note: how is this not the best description of me surfing the internet on my phone?
Mass cascades of error-correcting bits surged in waves of electromagnetic radiation around the planets surface. They blasted in vertical geysers 35.786 km upward into space and rained back down at 300 million meters per second. They coursed in bundles of parallel light through fiber conduits only to fan out in bursts of radio across the open air at the whim of tens of millions of grazing fingers coaxing electrons from hundreds of millions of spots on capacitive touch screens a few inches high.
It is surprising then to discover Bewilderment is not only more accessible but also endearing on a personal level. Was it ever possible to care as much about one of Powers characters?
9- year old Robin will break your heart if you let him. Highly sensitive to the natural world, stories of animal cruelty send him into rages.
"Two percent, Dad ?" He snarled like a cornered badger. "Only two percent of all animals are wild ? Everything else is factory cows and factory chickens and us ?"
The indifference of the adult world flummoxes him and yet he tries to bring the wonder of the world to those that will listen, in this way Powers makes him a proto-Greta Thunberg. As Robin grows increasingly hard to control, his recently widowed father turns to an experimental treatment, called neurofeedback, which helps Robin control his emotions by studying the emotions of others - an empathy machine if you will.
At its core, this is a novel about empathy, and at this stage in humanities progress, that theme resonated with me.
“In the face of the world's basic brokenness, more empathy meant deeper suffering. The question wasn't why Robin was sliding down again. The question was why the rest of us were staying so insanely sanguine.
Bewilderment contains multitudes ( other reviews may well find totally different aspects to explore). With lashings of astrobiology, side trips to invented exoplanets, a rollcall of environmental catastrophes, ( Powers has thrown me into an existential crisis over rock cairns ) add in some wry commentary on American politics and science funding and the result is an outstanding novel.
Side note: how is this not the best description of me surfing the internet on my phone?
Mass cascades of error-correcting bits surged in waves of electromagnetic radiation around the planets surface. They blasted in vertical geysers 35.786 km upward into space and rained back down at 300 million meters per second. They coursed in bundles of parallel light through fiber conduits only to fan out in bursts of radio across the open air at the whim of tens of millions of grazing fingers coaxing electrons from hundreds of millions of spots on capacitive touch screens a few inches high.
June 7, 2022
4/5 Estrellas
Desconcierto por una sociedad que está ciega ante el cambio climático y que va directa hacia la destrucción de la Naturaleza y nuestros ecosistemas y, por tanto, hacia nuestra propia autodestrucción.
Desconcierto ante un Universo enorme con millones de planetas potencialmente similares a nuestra Tierra, que podrían tener vida, pero que permanece en "silencio" (Paradoja de Fermi).
Desconcierto ante la deriva autoritaria que se está produciendo en las llamadas democracias occidentales, que están involucionando a marchas forzadas hacia posiciones extremadamente conservadoras y nacionalistas.
Todo este "desconcierto" es el que sufre nuestro protagonista, Robin, un niño especial de 9 años, con unas facultades excepcionales, que sufre increíblemente por la Tierra y por todos sus habitantes. Un niño que acaba de perder a su madre y cuyo padre, astrobiólogo de profesión, intenta educar de la mejor manera posible encauzando su energía hacia el conocimiento, pero que asiste cada vez con mayor frustración a episodios de ira incontrolada, con la que su hijo intenta escapar de ese desconcierto que no entiende y que asedia su mente.
Una nueva técnica neurológica, el neurofeedback, acudirá en ayuda de ambos y, como si de un nuevo Charlie Gordon se tratara (atención amantes de Flores para Algernon), asistiremos al impacto que esta nueva técnica tendrá en el cerebro de Robin.
No sé si estamos ante un libro de Ciencia Ficción (se supone que la acción transcurre en un futuro muy próximo), aunque gran parte de lo que aquí se cuenta tiene una base científica real, pero realmente no sabría decir en qué porcentaje (ni la astrobiología, ni la neurología son mi campo).
También estamos ante un libro sobre el activismo ecológico, ya que el objetivo de la vida de Robin es salvar a todos los animales y las plantas de este planeta. El amor a la Naturaleza rezuma en todas y cada una de las páginas del libro.
De lo que no hay ninguna duda es que se trata de un homenaje al aclamado libro "Flores para Algernon", incluso en uno de los capítulos nuestros protagonistas lo escuchan en formato audiolibro durante un viaje.....y si, la lagrimita se escapa al final.
Libro duro, si. Aborda temas arduos y complicados: Cambio climático, extinciones masivas, salud mental en los niños, educación, nacionalismos........
¿Dónde se le ha caído la estrella?: hay bastantes páginas sobre astrobiología, planetas imaginarios, neurología, que tienen su sitio en la historia, pero tienden a desconectarte un poco, pese a los capítulos cortos.
Diría que imprescindible.
Desconcierto por una sociedad que está ciega ante el cambio climático y que va directa hacia la destrucción de la Naturaleza y nuestros ecosistemas y, por tanto, hacia nuestra propia autodestrucción.
Desconcierto ante un Universo enorme con millones de planetas potencialmente similares a nuestra Tierra, que podrían tener vida, pero que permanece en "silencio" (Paradoja de Fermi).
Desconcierto ante la deriva autoritaria que se está produciendo en las llamadas democracias occidentales, que están involucionando a marchas forzadas hacia posiciones extremadamente conservadoras y nacionalistas.
Todo este "desconcierto" es el que sufre nuestro protagonista, Robin, un niño especial de 9 años, con unas facultades excepcionales, que sufre increíblemente por la Tierra y por todos sus habitantes. Un niño que acaba de perder a su madre y cuyo padre, astrobiólogo de profesión, intenta educar de la mejor manera posible encauzando su energía hacia el conocimiento, pero que asiste cada vez con mayor frustración a episodios de ira incontrolada, con la que su hijo intenta escapar de ese desconcierto que no entiende y que asedia su mente.
Una nueva técnica neurológica, el neurofeedback, acudirá en ayuda de ambos y, como si de un nuevo Charlie Gordon se tratara (atención amantes de Flores para Algernon), asistiremos al impacto que esta nueva técnica tendrá en el cerebro de Robin.
No sé si estamos ante un libro de Ciencia Ficción (se supone que la acción transcurre en un futuro muy próximo), aunque gran parte de lo que aquí se cuenta tiene una base científica real, pero realmente no sabría decir en qué porcentaje (ni la astrobiología, ni la neurología son mi campo).
También estamos ante un libro sobre el activismo ecológico, ya que el objetivo de la vida de Robin es salvar a todos los animales y las plantas de este planeta. El amor a la Naturaleza rezuma en todas y cada una de las páginas del libro.
De lo que no hay ninguna duda es que se trata de un homenaje al aclamado libro "Flores para Algernon", incluso en uno de los capítulos nuestros protagonistas lo escuchan en formato audiolibro durante un viaje.....y si, la lagrimita se escapa al final.
Libro duro, si. Aborda temas arduos y complicados: Cambio climático, extinciones masivas, salud mental en los niños, educación, nacionalismos........
¿Dónde se le ha caído la estrella?: hay bastantes páginas sobre astrobiología, planetas imaginarios, neurología, que tienen su sitio en la historia, pero tienden a desconectarte un poco, pese a los capítulos cortos.
Diría que imprescindible.
September 12, 2021
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy of this book.
This was my first Richard powers read and I requested it because I’ve heard good things about his previous novels.
I appreciated the environmental issues that were raised in this book. Although no time era was specified it felt very relevant.
I know astrobiology was a key part of the novel but I found it a bit much at times and wanted to skip over the details as I didn’t think they added to the story on the whole.
I thought the ending was sudden and short although I did feel it coming just before
This was my first Richard powers read and I requested it because I’ve heard good things about his previous novels.
I appreciated the environmental issues that were raised in this book. Although no time era was specified it felt very relevant.
I know astrobiology was a key part of the novel but I found it a bit much at times and wanted to skip over the details as I didn’t think they added to the story on the whole.
I thought the ending was sudden and short although I did feel it coming just before
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