Words&Dirt

Summary:

Richard Powers’s Bewilderment is a novel narrated by single father, Theo, who is trying to care for his young son, Robin. Theo is an academic astrobiologist who constructs computer models of how life could evolve on distant exoplanets; he is also a widower whose wife died in a tragic accident. Robin is a troubled child with a host of medical diagnoses and behavioral problems; he struggles in school, worries obsessively about humanity’s assault on the natural world, and has a difficult time relating to other people. Reluctant to put Robin on psychotropic medications, Theo decides to let him try a new fMRI-based treatment called Decoded Neurofeedback (DecNef). Robin becomes something of a DecNef savant, but the world around him remains determined to undermine his happy ending.

Key Concepts and Notes:

• I’ll start with what I liked about this book, which wasn’t much. Powers has a distinct talent for nature writing, and this novel contains top-notch prose similar to his previous novel, The Overstory.
• I thought his depiction of neurofeedback, a therapeutic technology with which I have some personal experience, was intriguing and generally well-executed (with one exception, stated below).
• I also thought Powers’s descriptions of possible exoplanets were fun and very creative.
• Now for the bad stuff. Bewilderment is a well-written story full of good intentions, but I personally found it insufferable pretty much from start to finish. It felt like Powers took all my least favorite qualities of The Overstory and decided to give them their own novel.
• The worst aspect of the novel is Theo’s overwhelming cynicism. He truly seems to hate humanity despite loving his son and dead wife. This quality makes it hard to conjure the level of sympathy I would typically feel for a character experiencing such hardships. The novel is pretty short, but it’s overstuffed with hand-wringy histrionics about how shortsighted and destructive humans are. I was repeatedly reminded of this excellent passage from Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now:  “It’s time to retire the morality play in which modern humans are a vile race of despoilers and plunderers who will hasten the apocalypse unless they undo the Industrial Revolution, renounce technology, and return to an ascetic harmony with nature” (134). Powers appears happy to perpetuate this outdated “morality play” (at least the part about humanity being a “vile race of despoilers and plunderers”), which in my view really compromises the value of his work. 
  
• Also disturbing is Theo’s dogmatic commitment to what I would call “eco-tribalism.” He lives in a mental prison in which any possible goodness or beauty is constantly threatened by anti-nature boogeymen: “Earth had two kinds of people: those who could do the math and follow the science, and those who were happier with their own truths” (162). This type of snobbish liberal elitism has done so much damage to America’s political and cultural landscape in recent years, despite being a somewhat-understandable reaction to the increasingly unhinged views that dominate conservative politics and media.
• Although Robin’s neurofeedback-driven transformation is interesting to observe, I felt like Powers took it too far. At its peak, Robin has become a kind of semi-famous guru––a boy who has “seen the light” and utters endless platitudes that his adoring fans devour (his own father most of all). It felt more religious to me than scientific, which is too bad given that I think neurofeedback is a promising technology that deserves more attention and research.
• Powers has no problem penning insulting caricatures of public servants––educators, social workers, and police officers. He seems to have no faith whatsoever in the basic decency of people trying to support our beleaguered public sector. Also, his descriptions of a Trump-esque presidency feel like panicky and dishonest hyperboles, which I didn’t even think was possible until I read this book.
• Bewilderment is full of complaints but offers little in the way of practical solutions to our collective problems. Closed-minded liberals will read it and double down on their smug sense of superiority, and everyone else will see through Powers’s blatant lack of empathy for anyone who doesn’t see the world the way he does. This is massively ironic––and, dare I say, bewildering––given his commendable compassion for all non-human life.

Favorite Quotes:

What’s grief? The world stripped of something you admire. (92)

This late in the world’s story, everything was marketing. Universities had to build their brands. Every act of charity was forced to beat the drum. Friendships were measured out now in shares and likes and links. Poets and priests, philosophers and fathers of small children: we were all on an endless, flat-out hustle. Of course science had to advertise. (179)

Imagine a world where one person’s anger is soothed by another’s calm, where your private fears are assuaged by a stranger’s courage, and where pain can be trained away, as easily as taking piano lessons. We could learn to live here, on Earth, without fear. (202-3)

Here we were, in a place fast becoming something new. Predictions were shaky from a sample size of one. (259)

Rating: 2/10