A guest review from DJ Dycus
Bewilderment, by Richard Powers, is the story of a widowed father struggling to raise his nine–year–old, special–needs son: “I never believed 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…there’s something wrong.” And those last three words would serve as a good thematic summation of the novel. Our lives provide beautiful experiences, but there’s very little that we can know for sure and there are few parts of our lives that don’t present some sort of challenge or confusion.
The narrator, Theo Byrne, is an astrobiologist working at a university in Wisconsin. His wife died two years before the opening of the novel in an automobile accident. He is plagued by doubts about the future of federal funding for his work, his ability to parent a high–needs son, and even his past relationships with his deceased wife. You can see just how fitting the title of the book is.
Bewilderment, by Richard Powers, is the story of a widowed father struggling to raise his nine–year–old, special–needs son: “I never believed 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…there’s something wrong.” And those last three words would serve as a good thematic summation of the novel. Our lives provide beautiful experiences, but there’s very little that we can know for sure and there are few parts of our lives that don’t present some sort of challenge or confusion.
The narrator, Theo Byrne, is an astrobiologist working at a university in Wisconsin. His wife died two years before the opening of the novel in an automobile accident. He is plagued by doubts about the future of federal funding for his work, his ability to parent a high–needs son, and even his past relationships with his deceased wife. You can see just how fitting the title of the book is.
Byrne has a colleague at the university, Martin Currier, a senior research professor in neuroscience. Currier is working on a neurofeedback system to aid people in mindfulness, to help regulate their emotions. He proposes allowing Byrne’s son, Robbie, to try out the experimental device since the boy is about to be removed from the public school system due to emotional outbursts and being bullied. The results are extraordinary. Robbie begins to calm down, to become more focused, and to take an increased interest in climate change.
Not surprisingly, there are emotional entanglements. The neurofeedback system is based on the subject learning to mimic healthy brain patterns from other people, one of whom is Robbie’s mother, Alyssa. Byrne is unsure of his deceased wife’s relationship with Currier, but it is clear that the neuroscientist still harbors feelings of affection for her. As Robbie progresses through the training, he begins to have uncanny recollections of his mother – things he shouldn’t be able to remember – and more than once he tells his father, “Your wife loves you. You know that, right?”
Alyssa was an animal rights activist before she died, and, not surprisingly, Robbie latches on to this cause and becomes obsessed with the plight of endangered animals. Due to Currier’s treatment, Robbie tells his father, “I feel like I’m waking up. Like I’m inside everything.” He shows us what a more aware, more sensitive, more highly developed person would look like – someone who has profound empathy for the environmental impact of industrialized economies. And by making Byrne an astrobiologist unable to discern life outside of Earth, Powers highlights just how precarious our situation is regarding the climate crisis. Robbie tells his father, There’s something wrong with us, Dad.”
The title of book, Bewilderment, isn’t merely a nod to the existential quandary with which we are all occupied, but it also captures humanity’s lack of motivation to do anything about the impending crisis of global warming. With his dad’s support, Robbie goes to Wisconsin’s state capitol building to stage a one–person protest. Byrne sits off to the side, per his son’s request, and observes, “He wanted drama and showdown and righteous calls for justice from concerned citizens. Instead, he got America.”
Bewilderment is a narrow, tightly focused story that touches on a wide range of topics:
The only other novel I’ve read by Powers is The Overstory, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. His previous novel is a sprawling affair, weaving together the narratives of seven central characters – all of whom have significant connections to trees. Bewilderment deals with the same central themes of relationships and the precariousness of the environment, but in a much narrower manner. While The Overstory is powerful, Powers’ newest novel provides a deeper, more tightly focused experience that would be more suitable for someone who wasn’t up to tackling his previous, 500–page novel.
The most impressive feature of Powers’ writing is the depth in which he explores a wide variety of complex topics while presenting an engrossing story. If the concept of bewilderment is one side of the novelistic coin, the other is a sense of mystery, awe, and wonder. Before her death, Alyssa asks her husband, “Does it make any difference at all if it [life] happened anywhere else? It happened here. That’s everything, right?”
As I stated earlier, Powers doesn’t answer the questions that he raises – but he provides interesting and important food for thought, inviting us to look more deeply at the circumstances in which we currently find ourselves and the global challenges we face.
Not surprisingly, there are emotional entanglements. The neurofeedback system is based on the subject learning to mimic healthy brain patterns from other people, one of whom is Robbie’s mother, Alyssa. Byrne is unsure of his deceased wife’s relationship with Currier, but it is clear that the neuroscientist still harbors feelings of affection for her. As Robbie progresses through the training, he begins to have uncanny recollections of his mother – things he shouldn’t be able to remember – and more than once he tells his father, “Your wife loves you. You know that, right?”
Alyssa was an animal rights activist before she died, and, not surprisingly, Robbie latches on to this cause and becomes obsessed with the plight of endangered animals. Due to Currier’s treatment, Robbie tells his father, “I feel like I’m waking up. Like I’m inside everything.” He shows us what a more aware, more sensitive, more highly developed person would look like – someone who has profound empathy for the environmental impact of industrialized economies. And by making Byrne an astrobiologist unable to discern life outside of Earth, Powers highlights just how precarious our situation is regarding the climate crisis. Robbie tells his father, There’s something wrong with us, Dad.”
The title of book, Bewilderment, isn’t merely a nod to the existential quandary with which we are all occupied, but it also captures humanity’s lack of motivation to do anything about the impending crisis of global warming. With his dad’s support, Robbie goes to Wisconsin’s state capitol building to stage a one–person protest. Byrne sits off to the side, per his son’s request, and observes, “He wanted drama and showdown and righteous calls for justice from concerned citizens. Instead, he got America.”
Bewilderment is a narrow, tightly focused story that touches on a wide range of topics:
- the daunting task of parenting
- the inability to really know another person
- the relationship between technology and people
- personal responsibility in regard to global issues
- neuro–divergent perspectives on the world
- the climate crisis and its impact on imperiled species
- living in crowded cities compared to time in nature
- the human potential for overcoming adversity
- the mystery of life in its unpredictability
- bullying people different than ourselves
- the possibility of other life in the universe
- mass shootings
The only other novel I’ve read by Powers is The Overstory, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. His previous novel is a sprawling affair, weaving together the narratives of seven central characters – all of whom have significant connections to trees. Bewilderment deals with the same central themes of relationships and the precariousness of the environment, but in a much narrower manner. While The Overstory is powerful, Powers’ newest novel provides a deeper, more tightly focused experience that would be more suitable for someone who wasn’t up to tackling his previous, 500–page novel.
The most impressive feature of Powers’ writing is the depth in which he explores a wide variety of complex topics while presenting an engrossing story. If the concept of bewilderment is one side of the novelistic coin, the other is a sense of mystery, awe, and wonder. Before her death, Alyssa asks her husband, “Does it make any difference at all if it [life] happened anywhere else? It happened here. That’s everything, right?”
As I stated earlier, Powers doesn’t answer the questions that he raises – but he provides interesting and important food for thought, inviting us to look more deeply at the circumstances in which we currently find ourselves and the global challenges we face.