Ever read anything by Richard Powers? Even know the name? For someone like me whose research domaine is memory, who is deeply interested in music and who is probably more defined by “head than heart” (as he is often accused of) he is a favorite author.

 

I chanced into my first encounter with his work at the library: The Goldbug Variations in 1991, during a difficult pregnancy, a full teaching load and the demands of a lovely, temperamental toddler. Science with a science fiction slant, composed in the form of a Bach fugue, call and response through generations, rich with philosophical questions, fun literary and musical references – all a welcome focus and distraction. Burying my head in a book when life got overwhelming did the trick, once again.

I have been a fan ever since. I admire someone digging deep to learn new science and facts that he then weaves into his narratives; I am grateful for someone who is willing to write difficult books – which they undoubtedly are – in the age of beach reading. I can even take excursions into spirituality  –The Echo Maker (Memory, Ornithology!), Orféo (Music), Generosity (Gene manipulation)- when they come packaged within the larger philosophical issues of determinism. My enthusiasm, however, is not universally shared. He won prizes, yes, but a lot of the smart critics over the years have really torn into him, with snarky reviews found in the New Yorker and elsewhere.

And now he has a new book out, (84 holds in front of me at the Multnomah County Library….) that I can’t wait to read: The Overstory (Environmental issues anchored around trees.) Below is a NYT review by Barbara Ehrenreich that glows.

First I thought, maybe this time the review is positive since it is written by a woman – and Powers always struck me as a writer who could be a woman – but that speculation was shot down when I saw Tim Martin’s admiring review in The Independent.

https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/book-reviews/deep-roots-36801794.html

James Wood from the New Yorker, some years back, judged the work to be too cerebral, focussed on larger issues rather than making the characters come alive for the reader. Does not strike me as true.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/10/05/brain-drain

 

For reviewers looking at Orféo, a story about DNA research, Mahler and Messiaen, not necessarily in that order, the verdict was: too gooey! Did not strike me as true, either.

“It seems that the Powers Problem — producing novels that are more head than heart — has here turned into its opposite.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/books/review/orfeo-by-richard-

So: contradictions, unsolved.  I’ll report back on the new book once I get my hands on it.