Richard Powers

Bewilderment

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... With its soaring descriptions of the natural world, its tantalizing vision of life beyond, and its account of a father and son's ferocious love, Bewilderment marks Richard Powers's most intimate and moving novel. At its heart lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperiled planet?

A Novel

life is something we need to stop correcting. my boy was a pocket universe i could never hope to fathom.

Third book I've read by Powers, and the least so far. I was enjoying it. Until I realized the book's main character (the son) is just the most pedantic little dude.

Frederik De Bosschere

里森

Picked as one of the 'best books of 2021' in the Sunday Times ____________________________________________ I never believed the diagnoses the doctors settled on my son. When a condition gets three different names over as many decades, when it goes from non-existent to the country's most commonly diagnosed childhood disorder in one generation, when two different physicians want to prescribe three different medications, there's something wrong... Theo Byrne is a promising young astrobiologist who has found a way to search for life on other planets dozens of light years away. He is also the widowed father of a most unusual nine-year-old. His son Robin is funny, loving, and filled with plans. He thinks and feels deeply, adores animals, and can spend hours painting elaborate pictures. He is also on the verge of being expelled from third grade, for smashing his friend's face with a metal thermos. What can a father do, when the only solution offered to his rare and troubled boy is to put him on psychoactive drugs? What can he say when his boy comes to him wanting an explanation for a world that is clearly in love with its own destruction? The only thing for it is to take the boy to other planets, while all the while fostering his son's desperate campaign to help save this one. ____________________________________________

Eva Ströberg

At first I thought this book would be a modern version of Contact. Space drama that was heavy on the issue of humanity and our identity. I was wrong but I was also right in a way that this book confirms that unless we can understand ourselves, the inside of our minds, we would not understand outer space.

It is the story of a relationship between a single father - astrobiologist and his son - suffering from Aspergers/ADHD, living in a near future America, with the president that sounds very much like Trump, and the endless streaming of bad news on the media. Forest fires, viruses, diseases, yet people think it’s the new normal.

How come we can ignore and live with the fact that our home, the earth, is burning and on the edge of destruction, with us, humans as the main culprit, eliminating plants and other animals. This book will make you question yourself. Should have you done more? Should you have acted sooner? Shouldn’t we have stood up against the bigots and the ignorants?

elizabeth

Take this as a warning or a reason to ignore this review: I only made it halfway through.

I don't mind lyrical prose when it feels effortless. In this book, it crossed the line (well, my line) to overwrought. The construction of some sentences made me feel how I felt when I saw this tweet.

Obviously, this is just a personal preference kind of thing. Maybe your line is different than mine. Maybe you really prefer this side of the line and call it "poetic" or "artful" or "wistful" or something instead. Maybe you're looking for a Coehlo or Neruda kind of vibe in your climate-adjacent ficiton. It turns out that I'm not. 

Powers's writing seems most egregious when it directly references the planet and "the science" (both things I really love). He opts for poetic, romantic, sentimental, corny navel-gazing rather than an ugly, nuanced, grappling with reality. It's a sad attempt to make digestible or beautiful meaning out of chaos and desctruction, and it reads as shallow at best, dishonest at worst.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Overstory, a powerful new novel that asks an essential question: What are we doing to our children? They are our hope for the future, yet we seem to be leaving it up to them to figure out how we all survive. I never believed the diagnoses the doctors settled on my son. When a condition gets three different names over as many decades, when it goes from non-existent to the country's most commonly diagnosed childhood disorder in one generation, when two different physicians want to prescribe three different medications, there's something wrong.... Theo Byrne is a promising young astrobiologist who has found a way to search for life on other planets dozens of light years away. He is also the widowed father of a most unusual nine-year-old. His son, Robin, is funny, loving, and filled with plans. He thinks and feels deeply, adores animals, and can spend hours painting elaborate pictures. He is also on the verge of being expelled from third grade for smashing his friend's face with a metal thermos. What can a father do, when the only solution offered to his rare and troubled boy is to put him on psychoactive drugs? What can he say when his boy comes to him wanting an explanation for a world that is clearly in love with its own destruction? The only thing for it is to take the boy to other planets, even while fostering his son's desperate campaign to help save this one.

Lisa Lindquist 

Philip Rosenbaum

Kristen Claiborn

** spoiler alert **
           	Boy am I going to receive some criticism for my take on this book. I hated it. Ok, hate might be a severe word. I seriously disliked it. While some of the writing was eloquent, the whole thing was a jumbled, depressing mess. I had such high hopes, but it really just ended in a deep pit of icky for me. 
	One of the things that I find immediately turns me off from a book is creative use of grammar and punctuation. Unless you’re Stephen King, follow the damn laws of grammar! This book, for the most part, does. However, when Robin’s words are written, Powers italicized his commentary instead of using quotation marks. I hate that. I don’t hate it as much as those books where commentary isn’t offset by anything, but I hate it nonetheless. That was the first knock on this book. 
	Second, there is a lot of science. My mind turned into “stupid” mush for most of it, glossing over large portions because of all the science. Eleven years ago, I walked away from my teaching career because of science. I was, unfortunately, certified to teach science in middle school, based on the number of science credits I had in college (I like rocks…and somehow that translated into me having the desire and ability to teach life science to 6th graders). I got hired to teach social studies, but I ended up teaching science…at two different schools. I noped myself right out of the profession I hocked my life to get into because of friggin science. I DO NOT want to read a novel that revolves around it. Nope, no thank you. 
	And finally, the sheer tragedy of the story was a complete turn-off. These two humans are forging ahead, full-steam, following a horrible loss, one that deeply affected them both in unimaginable ways. Robin, clearly neurodivergent, was not coping well with the loss of his mother on top of his clear special needs, and Robin’s dad had his head in the sand. I was frustrated the entire time with the lack of action for Robin, even knowing why none was being taken. There are many treatment options for children like Robin, many that don’t include meds, but Robin’s dad refused, which proved to be the biggest mistake. So a novel about horrible tragedy had an unbelievable ending that made me want to throw the book across the room (which I didn’t, because it was on the kindle app on my phone and I kinda like my phone being functional). It made me mad. So that’s why this book gets two stars, I’m mad at the end.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZE A heartrending new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning and #1 New York Times and internationally bestselling author of The Overstory. Named one of the Most Anticipated Books of 2021 by New York, Chicago Tribune, BookPage, Literary Hub, The Millions, New Statesmen and Times of London The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while singlehandedly raising his unusual nine-year-old son, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is funny, loving, and filled with plans. He thinks and feels deeply, and can spend hours painting elaborate pictures of the endangered animals he loves. He is also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. What can a father do, when the only solution offered to his troubled son is to put him on psychoactive drugs? What can he say when his boy comes to him wanting an explanation for a world that is clearly in love with its own destruction? With its soaring descriptions of the natural world, its tantalizing visions of life beyond and its account of a father and son's ferocious love, Bewilderment marks Richard Powers's most intimate and moving novel. At its heart lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperilled planet?

A novel

Nelson Zagalo

A moving read about a world humanly intimate and abounding in science. The story takes place in a near-future surrounded by the problems of today - global warming, pandemic, political polarisation and activism -, seen from the eyes of a 9-year-old child, diagnosed distinctly according to each doctor - with autism, OCD or ADHD - who has recently lost his mother and has to face the world, with his only friend being his father who is an astrobiologist and is dedicated to modelling simulations of possible life forms on exoplanets. An adorable page-turner, and one of the best books of 2021.

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Análise completa em português no Virtual Illusion: 
https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...

Ethan Hill

My mother always said If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. So I'm just going to keep my mouth shut for this one.

Fraser Simons

2.5 rounded up.

While it is technically written well, this firmly occupies the intersection of preachy self-help in fiction that I will never get on with, because in a word it is “unbelievable”. Ironic. Given they’re always concerned with inspiration and fostering belief and positivity in something. But they’re also so concerned with that aspect it becomes necessarily solipsistic in order to maintain its self-generated fantasy. 

That said, I can see why people who can fall into this voice and perspective really enjoyed this book. For me, it bordered on the fetishistic in its language around neurodivergent people, science in general, and an almost disturbing veneration and enshrinement of pretty much the only woman that appears. Though, I don’t think we could call her a character. 

Mostly this is a feel-good fever dream that feels far too idyllic for my taste, which tends to define and make sense of the world through the human condition. The old roller coaster that this is, where you hear the distinct *click* with each increment to the summit of the roller coaster as you wait for the inevitable fast-paced descent, is not my idea of a good time. But it is a perfectly fine way to tell this kind of story. Like I said: it is technically well written, for what it is. But I can never bring myself to get on this ride.

Jenna

Bewilderment is a touching portrait of a father and son, grieving the loss of a wife and mother, trying to stay afloat in a changing world. Robin is a special boy. His teachers think he is acting out, while his astrobiologist father Theo thinks he is just sensitive to the loss of the world around them. When an old friend of Robin's mom thinks he can help "fix" Robin's behavior with experimental brain-training instead of drugs, they take the opportunity.

Interspersed through the book are descriptions of faraway planets and life that might be there, as Theo has written a program that allows them to virtually visit these distant places. The vignettes of the planets reminded me of Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino.

In the background, the setting is a near-future with a Trump-like leader and Greta Thunberg-like teen climate change activist fighting the good fight. The politics aren’t really delved deeply into, which I think speaks to our human ability to almost ignore and adapt to more restrictive laws and cruel government.

I liked this book, and did feel moved by the end, but there were some moments where it felt preachy, slow, and a bit boring. I also didn’t love how opposed Theo was to giving his son medication - struck me as a little anti-science, for being a science-focused book. I haven’t read The Overstory yet, but I’m interested to now go back and read that one too.

Geoffrey Landward

As a father of an autistic child, this was a strikingly accurate depiction of the internal struggle a parent can feel. The desperation, the panic, the depression, the anger is all real. It makes for bad decisions and flawed reasoning sometimes. So those who criticize his anti-doctor sentiment are missing the point. 

This is a book about a relationships between husband and wife, father and son, and mother and son. The writing is gorgeous. His creativity and thoughtfulness kept me riveted and were brilliantly used to better explore these characters and the world around them. 

I enjoyed the book, but in the same way I loved The Road. It left me devastated and broken. I won’t ever read it again.

Christina Pappas

Hope, heartbreak, rage. A story about a father's love for his son, his son's inexhaustible care for every sentient creature, and the awe-inspiring potential of science - and how that potential loses out to fear. The definition of Bewilderment. Read this if you're craving a wake-up call, a beautiful punch to the gut.

Cindy Lieberman

4.5 rounded up. Gut-wrenching novel of an widowed and tenured astrophysicist with a 9-year-old son on the spectrum who feels deeply the damage humans are doing to the planet and especially to all the other species who inhabit it. Beautifully written, interesting, and thought-provoking. The father and son tell each other stories of visiting other planets against the backdrop of an America with a science-adverse, Dump-like president who actively hastens this planet’s demise.

Brian Walborn

Beautiful and brilliant. Prose as illuminating as the universe it explores. One star short of perfect. There was an odd detachment in this intimate story that felt clinical toward the end.

Chris G

** spoiler alert **
           Preordered as soon as I heard it was coming and it is a book that I needed; less intense than The Overstory but still holding some of the compassion and emotion in its pages. There are moments where it feels like it is trying to pull on heartstrings by mentioning the same sensitive topics but I think it accurately portrays how much these single events in time permeate every moment of the life that follows. 

I saw some people mention the avoidance of medicating him as a bad thing and falling to conspiracy theories but I think 2 key points are made here:
1. If his son does not have a diagnosis, how can he be medicated?
2. There is reason to be suspicious of these when no study can verify the long term benefits of antidepressants over regular exercise and sleep. It doesn’t have to go to conspiracy level concerns but there are valid concerns for not wanting to medicate a 9 year old that is still developing; particularly in a country using a private healthcare model. 

The majority of the book felt like it was using the characters and their experiences as a fine border between the ages and No answer to the question: Are we good for Earth and do we deserve to be here? The final 2 pages jump far from the border and throw themselves firmly into the No. If you are also on the fence about this question: this book will not help you answer that question but it will be a great read.

Amanda J 

Sits with you. Not a book you praise, but one you think about. I liked the other planets sections. I wish AU would have spent more time on the implications of mom in boy's head. Saw the end coming but still hurt

I feel like the huance that came with Overstory was lost when it came to Bewilderment. The activism and narrative about science and lack of funding really just rips you out of the story and we get sidetracked into the father going on rants and just making vague references to events that might not be good. 

When the writing shifted to describing world and other, more lyrical things it think it was great, but it is overshadowed by Overstory in my mind.

Bewilderment

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