Book Review: BEWILDERMENT by Richard Powers

Bewilderment by Richard Powers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

(Mild spoilers below: be warned!)
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"Everyone alive on this fluke little planet was on the spectrum. That's what a spectrum is. Each of us vibrated at some unique frequency in the continuous rainbow. Nobody's perfect, but, man, we all fall short so beautifully."

If ever a book made be bewildered about my reaction (HAHA), it's this unforgettably heart-breaking book!! I can't decide whether I love it or hate it!! Had an inner debate on whether I would give it 5 stars or 1 (because of the last chapter DARN YOU TO HIGH HEAVENS RICHARD POWERS HUHU), but finally settled on a 4 because MY GOLLY THE MAN CAN WRITE. (And apparently the Pulitzer and Booker shortlisters agree!)

***Pardon all the exclamation points but THE BOOK LEFT ME AN EMOTIONAL WRECK!***

Prospective readers be warned: you will want to highlight/transcribe/put sticky tabs on nearly 3/4 of the book! Powers is able to say so much with very short sentences ("She felt like a prediction, a thing on its way here" and "What's grief? The world stripped of something you admire").

The author's background in physics before turning to literature is evident in his unique manner of rhapsodizing over things others might consider too mundane to write about: birdsong, insects, and flowers and plants. There's a great deal of pontificating as well, as this is a contemporary novel written by one who has a LOT on his mind. Powers managed to fit in Trump, TED talks, Greta Thunberg, Marie Kondo, Big Pharma and the political and environmental lunacy of 2021 under the guise of literary fiction, all while telling the story of a father and a nine-year-old son doing their best to cope after the death of the wife/mother.

This book will make you want to do the following (in no particular order):

1) Turn vegan
2) Throw it angrily after finishing the last chapter, lock yourself in a room and weep for a week
3) Research terms like Hadean Eon and the Fermi Paradox, and basically "obsess over the stars instead of Star Wars" and abiogenesis (the origin of life)
4) Call out all the institutions who are so quick to label (and prescribe medication for!) very young children as ADHD or OCD or "on the spectrum" instead of realizing that each and every child is a unique universe unto himself
5) Go camping under the night sky
6) Worry about the ethics of new research

Much of the book was about the father's agonizing choice of a new therapy for his child: a unique kind of behavioral modification from the Decoded Neurofeedback (DecNef) machine. It would involve having the son try to fit the template of his late mother's brain.

This paragraph on reading was lovely!

"I bought it in a used bookstore. Paying for it with my own money felt like cracking the code of adulthood. Holding it open in my hands, I wormholed into a different Earth. Small, light, portable parallel universes..."

The book defies categorization. Part sci-fi, part horror, part therapy for dealing with grief... All I know is... it isn't a romance because there is no HEA. But the longer I think about it, THAT's the message of the book. Seen through the eyes of a child more empathetic than most (and thus labelled as "special"), recent events on earth are too worrisome to ignore.

This book is a warning: act now, before we doom our children. But also... despite the world's madness, there is so much beauty in it to marvel at!

This latest Powers novel was my first, and half-way in the book I ordered his previous novel. It's like being immersed in the brain of a philosophy/science professor, and I just can't get enough!!

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