Bewilderment
Richard Powers proved in his Pulitzer-Prize-winning The Overstory, that he could tell a powerful story about human experience, particularly as it relates to trees and the natural world. His most recent book, Bewilderment (2021), continues to dive into themes related to the natural world (and the myriad ways we humans are destroying so much of it). In Bewilderment, however, Powers doesn’t limit the reader to life on planet earth; rather, through the first-person voice of his protagonist, astrobiologist Theo Byrne, Powers’ writing wanders the universe in search of life, but always returns home. Layering astronomy, biology, and neuroscience, this novel challenges its reader to think more broadly, to consider alternative truths, and to recognize how little we know about ourselves, our planet, and our universe.
Bewilderment is a slender book that early on in the narrative seems certain to leave the reader utterly heartbroken. Amidst Powers’ eloquent prose, sadness lingers. The very form of his writing—dialogue formed through a mixture of italics and traditional quotation marks—feels somehow foreboding from the start. After the first few pages, I felt certain I had boarded a fast-moving train bolting toward a trackless chasm. And yet, I didn’t jump off, I let the novel propel me through the intensity of its characters’ experiences and I reminded myself several times that fiction is the safest of places to experience heartbreak. By the final chapter, as I dried my cheeks and soothed my heart ache for the loss and grief and difficulty encompassed in this slight novel, I was thankful and yes, bewildered, by its story. Months later its themes and ideas stay with me, just as The Overstory haunts me years after reading.
Needless to say, Bewilderment is not a gentle read. In the first few pages the reader meets narrator and astrobiologist, Theo Byrne, his nine-year-old son, Robin, and the sadness of their lives: their wife/mother has died and Robin’s struggles worsen into the space many would term neurodivergence. Theo attempts to solo parent his son, grieve his wife, and continue to pursue the work he loves. The bond between Theo and Robin is beautiful, as is Theo’s willingness to explore alternative options for Robin in terms of schooling and cutting-edge neuroscience. This novel includes ample themes and elements that are mind-expanding, paradigm-bending. Even as things improve for Robin and Theo, a melancholy haze hangs heavy over the narrative. The question that surfaces time and again throughout Bewilderment demands an answer: Can science save us?
As the reader winds her way through Bewilderment there are plenty of elements that are bewildering, both in terms of awe-inspiring beauty, and in terms of ideas and concepts that are baffling, confusing, and utterly perplexing. Theo and Robin bond over faraway planets that Theo’s research has identified as suitable to host lifeforms and together they tell stories about how those beings may have emerged. Young Robin continues the work of his late mother in environmental activism as he attempts to respond to the knowledge that we are losing species all the time. Theo turns to a neuroscientist and friend of his late wife for help with Robin as he struggles to fit into traditional school without being medicated. As our planet faces mass extinctions at an alarming rate, and more and more individuals cope with behavioral and sensory disorders, our scientific knowledge grows exponentially; it is therein that Powers’ Bewilderment finds hope and promise.
In May, I attended a Reading and Conversation with Richard Powers hosted by The Cabin in Boise, Idaho. He spoke about his process of writing Bewilderment through pandemic, essentially sequestered in the Great Smoky Mountains with Theo and Robin as his only companions. Through an inspiring and winding talk titled “Easy Travel to Other Planets,” Powers led those of us in attendance on the journey through his childhood love of sci-fi fiction and the 20th-century obsession with moon-walking and space travel, then on to his 21st-century realization that at the hardest of times nothing soothes like a walk in the woods. Ultimately, in Bewilderment, Powers sought to tell the stories all around us in our own backyards, and hoped to show, not ‘you can go to the moon’ (the narrative on which he was raised), but ‘you can land on earth.’ By interweaving the fascinating possibilities of brand new science—decoded neurofeedback and the emerging field of astrobiology—Powers’ Bewilderment takes on vast questions of meaning, existence, and life itself. He examines scientific innovation, economy, and ecology as he tells the intimate story of a father and his son as they grieve the loss of their wife and mother.
This lean novel, then, blends sci-fi and contemporary science with family loss and tenderness. It follows through on the promise of its title, to bewilder its reader, and Powers includes no shortage of heartache, but he also inserts hope in the form of innovation and possibility. If, Powers suggests, a growing number of humans could simply land back on earth and revel in the beauty of this place, we might shift our economy to value life, we might find ways to heal ourselves and perhaps we might avoid some of the anguish. One thing is certain; we will find peace when we allow ourselves to truly be here, on planet earth, teeming with life. Bewilderment will leave you a bit breathless, heart sore and teary-eyed, but it will also challenge and perhaps inspire. I certainly found it a book well-worth the heartbreak; it is the sort of book we doubtless need more of as human economy threatens life on our planet.
Bibliograhy:
Powers, Richard. Bewilderment. W. W. Norton & Co.: 2021.
A Few Great Passages:
“Nobody’s perfect, she liked to say. But, man, we all fall short so beautifully” (5).
“There are four good things worth practicing. Being kind toward everything alive. Staying level and steady. Feeling happy for any creature anywhere that is happy. And remembering that any suffering is also yours” (24).
“Every belief will be outgrown, in time. The first lesson of the universe is to never reason from only a single instance. Unless you only have one instance. In which case: find another” (37).
“Nine is the age of great turning. Maybe humanity was a nine-year-old, not yet grown up, not a little kid anymore. Seemingly in control, but always on the verge of rage” (56).
“They share a lot, astronomy and childhood. Both are voyages beyond their grasp. Both theorize wildly and let possibilities multiply without limits. Both are humbled every few weeks. Both operate out of ignorance. Both are mystified by time. Both are forever starting out” (64).
“Teaching is like photosynthesis: making food from air and light. It tilts the prospects for life a little” (66).
“[I]f some small but critical mass of people recovered a sense of kinship, economics would become ecology. We’d want different things. We’d find our meaning out there” (177).
