Bewilderment

A Novel

Livre relié, 304 pages

Publié 21 septembre 2021 par W. W. Norton & Company.

ISBN :
978-0-393-88114-1
ISBN copié !

Voir sur OpenLibrary

3 étoiles (1 critique)

The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin’s emotional control, one that involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother’s brain…

With its soaring descriptions of the natural world, its tantalizing vision of life beyond, and its account of a father and son’s ferocious love, Bewilderment marks Richard Powers’s most intimate and moving novel. At its heart lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperiled planet?

6 éditions

a publié une critique de Bewilderment par Richard Powers

Touching but needed an autistic editor

3 étoiles

Gorgeously written and heartfelt, up until the point of a major flaw, which is the inability to reconcile autism biases and ableist tropes.

The son is pretty aware that the dad also has autism but the dad repeatedly denies his son’s condition and doesn’t get him any autistic community support — you can tell the dad is projecting his autistic tendencies on his son, as the dad is often passive and unfeeling in his grief yet accuses his emotionally explosive and very feeling son of doing this

This could’ve been a great autistic parent coming to realize they’re autistic and helping their kid separate natural trauma from grief for climate change and personal loss from autistic issues, but it fell through (please hire autistic editors like me! We can help)

Overwhelming this book left off vibing that autistic people (kids especially) won’t be able to cope with or survive climate …