Review and quotes: BEWILDERMENT: A NOVEL

Title: Bewilderment: A Novel by Richard Powers

Book Beginnings quote: 

BUT WE MIGHT NEVER FIND THEM? We'd set up the scope on the deck, on a clear autumn night, on the edge of one of the last patches of darkness in the eastern U.S. Darkness this good was hard to come by, and so much darkness in one place lit up the sky. We pointed the tube through a gap in the trees above our rented cabin. Robin pulled his eye from the eyepiece -- my sad, singular, newly turning nine-year-old, in trouble with this world.

Friday56 quote: 

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.

Summary:  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. And the results are amazing and miraculous...until they aren't. (Publisher)

Review: Back in 7th or 8th grade my class read Flowers for Algernon, a heart-breaking book about artificial intelligence and the its limitations. I honestly don't remember much about the book except it broke my heart because first the test mouse and then Charlie, the human volunteer, did great with their with their new intelligence and then it stopped working and both of them slid backwards. I desperately wanted a happy ending. But that was not to be. In Bewilderment when Robin and his father travel to North Carolina for their space-gazing trip they listen to an audiobook of Flowers for Algernon. Astute readers would pick this up as foreshadowing. (It took me a while, but I finally figured it out.)

Robin is a misfit by every sense of the word. He can't get along with children his own age and almost everything about the way humans live today hurts his sensibilities. When he sees a young activist on TV (a Greta Thunberg type) Robin decides he must live a life of activism, too. But he is so sensitive, even slight frustrations send him into tantrums. Until he is offered a chance at an experimental treatment which involves engaging with his mother's recorded brain activity, captured before her death. These treatments bring about a miracle in Robbie's life. He can think clearly and doesn't need to fall apart violently when things don't go as he thinks they should. He is creative and sensitive. But when the treatments are abruptly halted, his progress digresses back to the starting point. Another heartbreaking story. But what is the point?

Regarding the inevitable forms of tragedy with which this book is intent upon grappling — that loved ones die, that progress has its limits, that as a species we fail more often than we succeed — Bewilderment invites us to ponder not only our dominance of the planet and the ways that the unjust power of a few dominates the lives of others. It also insists we ponder this: At what cost do we allow our capacities for fear, jealousy and appetite to trounce other equally intrinsic capacities, like empathy, courage and forbearance? What if our worst enemy is not barricading himself in the White House or pelting our children with taunts on the playground? What if it’s right here, lighting up neural pathways inside our own skulls?

The conscience animating Bewilderment lobbies for the essentialness of plants, animals and those of differing needs and abilities.(NYT)

Lucille Clifton’s quote (above) asks us to shift our focus in order for our species to recognize its proper place in the universe, we must collectively admit to the beauty, the inviolable sanctity and essentialness of all life. The book asks it readers to address what it REALLY important and to get busy addressing ways that we, all humans, can change to save ourselves. It is powerful stuff. Not a very cheery message, I admit, but in the hands of a master story-teller, Richard Powers, beautifully wrought.

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material. 

 

-Anne