Shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize - A Reader's Review
This is about a grieving widowed astrobiologist and his autistic young son. I enjoyed bits of the science and psychology but there were so many things I disliked about this book. None of the characters were believable or rounded, including the narrator or his son. I can't claim to know but I'd be surprised if it resonates with many people's experience of parenting kids on the spectrum, embracing too many cliches of talented, fascinating, magical near-savant (who he also massively infantalises by the way: "tiny hand", "tiny" this and that - he's a 10 year old boy for gods sake!). I also hated the way he clumsily brought in recent history - a President who is obviously Trump, and even a character who is obviously Greta Thunberg but he gives a ridiculous new name to! And he leads towards a dystopic Amercian vision which is miserable enough but so obvious and lacking imagination that it could have been lifted straight from some social media rants mid-2020 (cattle pandemic and wildfires raging, a President nullifying election results etc...). No idea why this book was on the list - and if someone could set me straight on that I'd appreciate it! - Tanya Carus
Robbie is a 9-year old boy with Asperger's-like traits, a precocious intelligence, a prodigious memory and exquisitely tuned to loss. A gifted young artist, he aims to draw all of the animals in danger of extinction. His father, Theo, is an astrobiologist, consumed with finding signs of life in the cosmos and raising Robbie alone after the tragic death of his wife, Aly. As Robbie's behaviour grows more unmanageable, Theo seeks out an experimental treatment conducted by Dr Martin Currier involving neurofeedback that enables Robbie to pattern his emotional responses on the recorded brainwave activity of his late mother. But as government funding is pulled from the study, Robbie suffers a precipitous decline with heart-breaking consequences. With its soaring descriptions of the natural world, tantalising vision of life beyond it and the ferocious love of a father for his young son, Bewilderment marks Richard Powers' most emotionally powerful novel to date. At its heart is the question: What is the world, at once perilous and imperilled, we've left for our children to inhabit, and can Theo save Robbie from it?