Bewilderment

A Novel

By: Richard Powers

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini

An Oprah's Book Club Selection

Shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize

Longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction

A heartrending new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning and number-one New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory.

I never believed the diagnoses the doctors settled on my son. When a condition gets three different names over as many decades, when it goes from non-existent to the country's most commonly diagnosed childhood disorder in one generation, when two different physicians want to prescribe three different medications, there's something wrong....

Theo Byrne is a promising young astrobiologist who has found a way to search for life on other planets dozens of light years away. He is also the widowed father of a most unusual nine-year-old. His son, Robin, is funny, loving, and filled with plans. He thinks and feels deeply, adores animals, and can spend hours painting elaborate pictures. He is also on the verge of being expelled from third grade for smashing his friend's face with a metal thermos.

What can a father do, when the only solution offered to his rare and troubled boy is to put him on psychoactive drugs? What can he say when his boy comes to him wanting an explanation for a world that is clearly in love with its own destruction? The only thing for it is to take the boy to other planets, even while fostering his son's desperate campaign to help save this one.

"Richard Powers is one of our country’s greatest living writers. He composes some of the most beautiful sentences I’ve ever read. I’m in awe of his talent." (Oprah Winfrey)

©2021 Richard Powers (P)2021 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Richard Powers is one of our country’s greatest living writers. He composes some of the most beautiful sentences I’ve ever read. I’m in awe of his talent." —Oprah Winfrey

"Extraordinary.…Powers’s insightful, often poetic prose draws us at once more deeply toward the infinitude of the imagination and more vigorously toward the urgencies of the real and familiar stakes rattling our persons and our planet." —Tracy K. Smith, New York Times Book Review (cover review)

"A heartrending tale of loss.…Powers continues to raise bold questions about the state of our world and the cumulative effects of our mistakes." —Heller McAlpin, NPR

Great start, then too much sci-fi

A great premise and great start to the book. Beautiful writing. Eventually too much science-fiction mixed amidst real science. And the ending is a foregone conclusion because Powers has painted himself into a corner.
Lastly all the characters while being interesting in the fabric of the story are as individuals, too UN-nuanced, too much like stock characters.

Amazing

Wow. This book covered several themes but it’s mostly about the love a father has for his son who is special beyond words. There’s lots of science going on in this story, space, environmental, biological, psychiatric. There’s politics too, and the father is obviously either a democrat or an independent, and there are some allusions to the 46th US President without mentioning his name, but that’s not what this story is about. Don’t stop yourself from reading this just because you love read other reviews that claim this is total liberal slant. Does that even matter? It’s about a father and his son and their relationship, their lives together, their past, their memories, their future, and the future of the human race. This narrator, as usual, is perfection. Just read it, or listen to it.

Even better than Overstory

Amazing story. Fantastic writing. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves books! I look forward to the next book by him

Science future of our failed planet

A child weeps as he sees a Garden of Eden being destroyed by his fellow citizens of earth. The experiment of life on his planet proves to be a self-destructive type among the millions of forms his father conceives as possible in the universe. What the boy sees so plainly as a shared natural beauty, his outer world increasing sees as fuel to be used in a race to overpower. Using the eyes of a special child to spotlight the workings of nature for man's benefit, author Powers slaps us with real daily news to realize we are not reading fiction but one viewpoint of how our world is slowly making its Garden gift uninhabitable. But strongest of all is the feeling that others in the universe may have done it right on their planet and no one really cares that we are losers for not being thankful for the gift we were given. Now go watch the news of a failing, bewildered world.

Loved the book

If I had to be nitpicky, the readers pacing felt rushed at times, but more often it was just right. The emotion and urgency felt incredibly well represented. The reader did very well.
The story is phenomenal, I had not yet sobbed while driving and would say that is the only major downside of this book.

Slow down your racing mind - and then listen

This was my first Richard Powers book, so I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to experience. An extremely well written (and preformed) book. Not an easy book to listen to, and to understand what exactly was going on - however, in retrospect that was the magic of the book. You had to think, you had to dream a bit, you had to question things, and you most definitely needed to use your imagination! I found if I slowed my racing mind, took a few deep breaths and prepared myself to learn some amazing, and yes - some distressing things, this book could expand my outlook and view on so many issues. It feeds and awakens your curiosity- what more could you ask for?

While reading all the reviews- I noticed there was a common thread winding through the negative reviews. It’s easy to spot. If you fall into this line of thinking and are not interested to learn or be curious (without judgment) about the different ways people are wired and how they perceive the world - this book isn’t for you.

Missed the Mark

Really interested in the premise but then author spent too much time on politics. If I wanted politics I would downloaded a book on it. All completely unnecessary to the story.

Enjoyed the performance.

Captivating

First, I look for a great narrator in an audio book. Next, I look at the author and the story they are trying to tell. This is over of those great combinations of a great narrator and s great story. I laughed, I cried, I smiled, I ooh'd and ah'd. You won't be disappointed!

Slow

Too slow for us. Didn't hold our attention. Second time we tried to listen.

80% great story

80% was a great story. The ending was abrupt and implausible I loved the first half..