Bewilderment by Richard Powers

I was awed by the majesty of Richard Powers' enormous, thought-provoking and imaginative novel “The Overstory”. Even though I felt some of the interlinking stories worked better than others, I was so compelled and impressed with how that book engaged with environmental activism in such a dynamic way. His new novel “Bewilderment” also addresses climate change and animal extinction but in a more concentrated story. It concerns Theo, an astrobiologist who seeks to demonstrate a complex method of searching for life on other planets, and his nine-year-old son Robin, a lively and unpredictable boy who cares passionately about the environment. As we follow their lives over the course of a troubled year, Theo struggles to care for his emotionally erratic son and allows him to be used in an experimental trial to stabilize the boy's behaviour. It's a method of behavioural training which inspires a surprising connection to his deceased mother Alyssa, an environmental lobbyist who tragically died a couple of years prior to the events in this novel. The combination of these elements forms an astoundingly moving and urgent story. 

One of the most strikingly effective aspects of this novel is the dialogue between father and son which is heartfelt and convincingly realistic. Robin's passionate earnestness and straightforward idealistic logic constantly threatens to overwhelm Theo who is all too aware of the complex workings of their society which is tragically regressing under a populist leader. Robin's dialogue is italicised while other characters' speech is in quotes and this typographical distinction allows his words to chime with a moving innocence. It reminded me of the intimate way the father and son converse in Cormac McCarthy's tremendous novel “The Road” as their exchanges convey a patient exchange of ideas and touching emotional bond. Part of Theo's job is to speculate what sort of life might develop on other planets given the specific environmental conditions of these distant worlds. His method of stabilizing his son's erratic moods is to imaginatively transport them to the potential living planets he's devised. These sections convey a wonderful intimacy between parent and child.

This story is set in a near future which already feels alarmingly close to our present reality. Funding for science is being reduced, extreme weather causes havoc in communities, new forms of disease are rapidly spreading, the democratic process of voting is undermined by presidential skepticism, journalists are suppressed and the solution for dealing with emotionally unstable children is to drug them with pharmaceuticals en masse. Given these overwhelming threats, it's no wonder that Theo's son feels extremely anxious: “The question wasn't why Robin was sliding down again. The question was why the rest of us were staying so insanely sanguine.” Inspired by a Greta Thunberg-type character named Inga Alder, Robin is determined to take practical efforts to inspire change or contribute to the benefit of the world in any small way he can. Though the novel presents a grim-mirror to our rapidly devolving present times, there's hope and optimism amongst a new generation determined to reject the self-centred logic of our society and preserve the environment.

It's interesting how Powers has created a novel which is so strikingly realistic in many ways, but can also be read as science fiction because of the way it creatively speculates about alien species and societies. It also feels at times like a ghost story because of the lingering presence of Alyssa. But the real heart of this book is the bond between father and son amidst the chaos of the world. They discover a beautiful tranquility by camping in the mountains where nature comes magically alive, but these precious moments are sadly cut short by pressures from the larger world. The real tragedy of this story is not that the world is falling apart but that people have become so complacent about its destruction while passively looking at their phones: “In this place, with such a species, trapped in such technologies, even a simple head count grew impossible. Only pure bewilderment kept us from civil war.” This is such a tender, expertly-written and emotionally gripping tale which has the power of an alarm bell signalling that our planet is in crisis.

The Overstory by Richard Powers

This novel was recently shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. It’s a magnificent and truly epic tale primarily about ecological activism, family heritage and the surprising interconnections between people and the natural world. I was immediately enthralled by the long separate stories of nine individuals which vary so wildly in subject matter. They range from tales about a Chinese immigrant to a farmer that embarks on an ambitious photography project to a boy with a flair for writing code at the dawn of the computer age to a college girl with a hazardous bad-girl streak. He frames these stories through the lens of trees so time is altered to recount events at their pace of life. The stories initially leap through years and big events are recounted in brief. While they seem so disparate at first they gradually thread together throughout the novel to tell a much larger story. Powers structures the novel like a tree itself from the roots to the trunk to the crown to the seeds. While I don’t think every storyline or device he used worked, I was nevertheless astounded by the ambitious scope of this novel and found it continuously engaging despite its considerable length.

It’s quite a challenge to get humans to think on a timescale like that which trees experience, but Powers accomplishes this in such an inventive way. One character photographs a certain tree at a particular time for many years and its observed how “The generations of grudge, courage, forbearance, and surprise generosity: everything a human being might call the story happens outside his photos’ frame.” In this way, Powers trains the reader to think beyond the emotions which rule our daily lives and consider the way which trees bear themselves throughout time and in the world. His mission for doing this is admirable because it encourages the reader to really feel the central concern of the novel which is the rapid destruction of our natural world.

One scene vividly describes the soulless task of working in a mega website’s fulfilment centre.

Powers even seems to doubt the ambition of his mission within the course of the book. Late in the novel he observes how “To be human is to confuse a satisfying story with a meaningful one, and to mistake life for something huge with two legs. No: life is mobilized on a vastly larger scale, and the world is failing precisely because no novel can make the contest for the world seem as compelling as the struggles between a few lost people.” It’s so challenging for us to conceive of the larger struggles of the world which is why watching news about depressing world events feels important to us, but doesn’t often motivate us to instigate any actual changes. What I think Powers is attempting to do in this novel is compel us to re-view how we look at time and nature in a radically different way – while also doing that exact thing of compelling his readers with the stories about a few lost people.

I was most strongly drawn to the story of Adam who possesses unique psychological insight because he found it so difficult to connect with other people as a child. It’s so moving how Powers describes that for Adam “Every hug is a small, soft jail.” Equally, I really enjoyed the story of Neelay whose physical disability compels him to vividly conjure alternate lives. It’s also very effective how Powers shows the trajectory of student Olivia’s life and how he frames this within sections of the novel. But I was somewhat put off by the story of Ray and Dorothy’s relationship. Their sections aren’t badly told, but the progression of their story felt somewhat cliched to me and noticeably separate from the intertwining stories of the other characters. I’m not sure the way in which the characters’ stories mix together was always believable either. But they are so dramatically told and contain such fascinating insights drawn from a wide range of subjects. I was glad to sink wholeheartedly into this wildly energetic and impressive novel.