Bewilderment
Richard Powers
★★★★★ 4/5
Science Fiction
Superbly written—too many themes
If you pick up Richard Powers’ Bewilderment, regardless of your literary inclinations, you will agree that it is a tender, beautifully written story. Mr. Powers’ narration of the struggles of widowed and single parent Theo, and their son Robin, is deeply touching. His descriptions of nature, as the father son duo spend time outdoors, are breathtaking—elegiac even. But this book has so many themes interwoven—a grieving single parent; a father’s love for his son; mental health treatment in the realm of science fiction; environmental activism; eroding funding for meaningful science, an evolving dystopian political and social environment—all ingredients for the tragic story it tells, and a lot to chew on! But these varied ideas left me struggling (should I say bewildered) unable to grasp any substantial whole point or feeling that the author intended to leave me with. Unless that feeling is hopelessness and dread for the future!
Sort of Sci-Fi
The story is set in what appears to be the near future—a time when a demagogue eerily similar to Donald Trump, is the president and human depredation of the planet’s environment continues unabated, with the populace largely apathetic as always. It is narrated by Theo, who is an exobiologist: an academic studying life and its possibilities beyond earth. He is a widower having lost his environmentalist wife to an accident and consequently is a single parent to their son Robin. Theo and Robin are coping as best as they can with their lives that have been changed irrevocably by tragedy. Robin is displaying behavioral issues—likely a result of losing his mother—having problems at school and home. Theo is dead set against having Robin be put on psychoactive drugs for his behavioral problems, variously diagnosed as ADHD, Aspergers and OCD. So he turns to an experimental neural feedback technology based treatment for Robin. This trains Robin to map his mental state to a snapshot of his mom that the medical team happened to have taken before her passing.
Life itself is a spectrum disorder, where each of us vibrated at some unique frequency in the continuous rainbow.
The near future setting and experimental brain-state-training technology make this sort of science fiction. But the future and science just provide the backdrop for the larger story, and not the primary elements—similar to Dexter Palmer’s excellent Version Control. I wouldn’t really classify this book as Sci-Fi.
Oddly enough, there’s no name in the DSM for the compulsion to diagnose people.
A little preachy:
Robin takes after his late mother in his passion for nature and environmental conservation. News of environmental harm, especially to fauna, is a trigger for his behavioral problems before treatment. Through the treatment he manages to channel his obsession towards activism and helping create public awareness.
But Robin’s almost maniacal obsession seems to not be restricted to his character. This notion that the only problem for humanity worth solving right now is the harm we are doing to the habitat of birds and animals, permeates beyond Robin to the entire book. When confined within a deeply empathetic child, it is endearing. But painting the world and its people in black and white: those who love nature and want to do what it takes to save it vs. the ignorant and unfeeling who aren’t infatuated with environmental causes like Robin, feels moralizing and naive.
Earth had two kinds of people: those who could do the math and follow the science, and those who were happier with their own truths. But in our hearts’ daily practice, whatever schools we went to, we all lived as if tomorrow would be a clone of now.
Overall
This is a superbly written book showcasing Richard Powers’ not insubstantial writing abilities and the deep empathy he imbues his characters with. My favorite parts of the book were the father-son nature outings where the two embrace a tenuous tranquility. Mr. Powers is simply brilliant in his writing with those parts.
However, the absence of a cohesive theme, a smidgen of pontification, and the general sense of hopelessness I felt at the ending, left me somewhat unsatisfied with the book.