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A review by okiecozyreader
Bewilderment by Richard Powers
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
4.0
This is my first book by Powers and I feel like maybe it was a good place to start. I really liked the start of the book - the relationship of a child with a behavior disorder somewhere on the spectrum and his father (after the tragic loss of the mother). The father wants to avoid medicating his son, so he submits him to the care of a practitioner whose goal it is to change the way he thinks through a reasoning brain “game.”
I was really interested where the book would go from this point. Being an educator, I think about students like Robin and wonder what is the best way to help them.
It’s a little sci fi, with a message about the condition of the earth, nature and empathy. When it got to this part, I felt like it was at times more heavy handed.
I went back and watched Oprah’s interview with the author on Apple plus. (It’s interesting he doesn’t have internet connection and has to go somewhere to do zooms, etc). The discussion about the title was interesting - based on Plato’s Cave - “The eye knows two kinds of bewilderment- coming into the light and out of the light”
This is a story about a little boy who goes into and out of the light - and both processes are bewildering.
I could see comparisons to Flowers for Algernon and at times, it reminded me of Ted Chiang.
“Imagine a planet where the past never went away, but kept happening again and again, forever. That’s the planet my nine-year-old wanted to live on.”
“In the face of the world's basic brokenness, more empathy meant deeper suffering.”
“He'd discovered, on his own, what formal education tried to deny: Life wanted something from us. And time was running out.”
“The world had become something no schoolchild should be allowed to discover.”
“And you always say, an experiment with a negative result isn't a failed experiment.
"No," l agreed. "You can learn a lot from negative results."
Which do you think is bigger?
Outer space ...? Or inner space?
I was really interested where the book would go from this point. Being an educator, I think about students like Robin and wonder what is the best way to help them.
It’s a little sci fi, with a message about the condition of the earth, nature and empathy. When it got to this part, I felt like it was at times more heavy handed.
I went back and watched Oprah’s interview with the author on Apple plus. (It’s interesting he doesn’t have internet connection and has to go somewhere to do zooms, etc). The discussion about the title was interesting - based on Plato’s Cave - “The eye knows two kinds of bewilderment- coming into the light and out of the light”
This is a story about a little boy who goes into and out of the light - and both processes are bewildering.
I could see comparisons to Flowers for Algernon and at times, it reminded me of Ted Chiang.
“Imagine a planet where the past never went away, but kept happening again and again, forever. That’s the planet my nine-year-old wanted to live on.”
“In the face of the world's basic brokenness, more empathy meant deeper suffering.”
“He'd discovered, on his own, what formal education tried to deny: Life wanted something from us. And time was running out.”
“The world had become something no schoolchild should be allowed to discover.”
“And you always say, an experiment with a negative result isn't a failed experiment.
"No," l agreed. "You can learn a lot from negative results."
Which do you think is bigger?
Outer space ...? Or inner space?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness and Death of parent