Bewilderment

BEWILDERMENT

by Richard Powers

 

Nominations: Aspen Words Longlist 2022, Booker Finalist 2021, Carnegie Longlist 2022, National Book Longlist 2021, Oprah Book Club 2021

 

Date Read: October 11, 2021

 

It has been a long time since a book made me cry and here I am sobbing with the beauty and devastation of this piece of art. I think I feel especially connected to these characters as my son struggles through his complicated and bewildering life. I am doing everything in my power to help him but I am terrified it’s not enough. The only thing that could really make a difference is if I had given him a better world. And that’s just not within my power.

 

Robbie, Robin, is different. His teachers and other adults in his life really want to slap a label on this wondrous soul and shovel some medication down his throat. Theo, his father, instinctively and understandably resists. “My boy was a pocket universe I could never hope to fathom. Every one of us is an experiment, and we don’t even know what the experiment is testing.” And also, “His second pediatrician was keen to put Robin ‘on the spectrum.’ I wanted to tell the man that everyone alive on this fluke little planet was on the spectrum. That’s what a spectrum is.”

 

Theo and Robbie are still struggling with the loss of Aly, their wife and mother respectively. Her leaving was sudden and left the both of them reeling. Theo is doing his absolute best to raise Robbie but as with any parent on Earth, all you can be certain of is the uncertainty of whether you are doing it right.

 

Theo is a astrobiologist who cherishes his time with Robbie, revealing the potential of other planets and what that life might look like. Of course, all of it is so beyond our comprehension. He spins out beautiful and strange universes where the creatures can relate to one another without speaking, without the need to touch and yet feel infinitely connected. Escaping to these new and fascinating planets is a part of their nighttime ritual.

 

I didn’t fully understand the experimental brain training Robbie underwent but I completely embraced the outcome. Without drugs or psychotherapy, without the pretext of trying to fix something that clearly isn’t broken, this experimental therapy revealed the beauty of Robbie to himself and allowed him an even greater connection to the Earth, its inhabitants and, most miraculously, his mother. Robbie is able to occupy his whole body from the tips of his toes to the tips of his fingers.

 

And, of course, it all comes crashing down as everything does in an imperfect world. The results of his training all too quickly vanish and only fragments remain as Robbie slowly regresses to the outbursts and unpredictability of his previous self.

 

What absolutely stabs me in the heart is how much I wish this were a better world for our children. I am frustrated, incredulous and baffled as to why we can’t all be moving in the same direction. Most of what I want for humankind, I cannot imagine others not wanting the same. So why are our kids here? I like to think it’s to influence the world for the better but maybe it’s simply to bear witness to the end. 

 

While I only have one Powers book under my belt, I am completely in awe of his ability to embrace topics beyond simply the art of storytelling such as astrophysics and neuroscience. I can see this author becoming one of my top five of all time. Bless. 

 

Aly: “Nobody’s perfect, she liked to say. But, man, we all fall short so beautifully.”

 

Theo:  Robbie “…wanted drama and showdown and righteous calls for justice from concerned citizens. Instead he got America.”