Book Review: ORFEO by Richard Powers

Orfeo by Richard Powers
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life."

A composer dabbling in garage lab experiments calls for authorities to help take away his pet dog's remains in the paranoid years following 9/11, and suddenly becomes the most wanted "Bioterrorist Bach" because he tried to imprint his compositions in the make up of bacteria.

This book is for anyone who has lived for music or art, whether for several years, or for a lifetime. "Vissi d'arte" is all very well in good onstage, but what happens when Tosca and Mario manage to escape and have to do mundane things like raise a family and hold down jobs?

For some weird reason I thought the book would be about Baroque or similar classical music, in the order of Gluck's immortal opera, Orfeo ed Euridice (which was also my own introduction to the beautiful world of opera). But for the story to be relevant, Powers had to use more difficult 20th century music (think Crumb and Cage, Shostakovitch and Mahler).

I was also surprised to learn that the novel was based on a true story! (That of Steve Kurtz).

It is also a reflection on the subversive nature of art, as well as an extended debate on whether there is room for beauty in art today.

No one matches Powers' gift for writing about music ("the first language, direct transcription of inner states, the thing words used to be before they bogged down with meaning"), although admittedly there are still several technical terms and musical references that might send non-music majors rushing to Spotify. (There's a helpful portion at the end of the book with a list of composers and compositions used in the book.)

On atonal music: "Be grateful for anything that still cuts. Dissonance is a beauty that familiarity hasn’t yet destroyed."

On the joy in a minor key: "There's a deep pleasure to be had from hearing the darkest tune and discovering you’re equal to it."

While not his best book, it is still a Richard Powers novel! They are always worth the intellectual weight-lifting. The book hits deep because I know actual folks like its main character... Willing to sacrifice everything for a performance of a song with more people onstage than in the audience. The book asks: Is the sacrifice worth it?

"Grace was pouring out everywhere... And all that secret, worldwide composition said the same thing: listen closer, listen smaller, listen lighter, to any noise at all, and hear what the world will still sound like, long after your concert ends."


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