Bewilderment by Richard Powers

Hey everyone, this is Og Maciel from Bellwether with another book recommendation for you.

Bellwether was this crazy idea I had when my wife and I booked an Airbnb place here in North Carolina. We wanted to celebrate our upcoming wedding anniversary in advance. My wife surprised me with this place in the middle of nowhere. As we spent three days there, we started talking about some of the things we wanted to achieve in 2024. That’s when I came up with the idea of building a site where I could recommend books, write blog posts, and share my passion for books. That was the idea.

So, it’s been 26 weeks now—half a year—and I can’t believe I’ve been doing this nonstop. Every Tuesday, I release something new, and that’s Bellwether for you.

To celebrate the half-year mark, I have something slightly new for me: I’m going to recommend a book that I’m still in the process of reading. I knew nothing about it. Yes, the other day I recommended the Hamilton book by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and while I hadn’t finished reading it, I already knew about the play. I knew what the book was about because it’s really a behind-the-scenes look, plus the lyrics and special facts about the musical.

But this is about a book I haven’t finished yet. I’m about halfway through it. The book is "Bewilderment", a novel by Richard Powers. I forget exactly how I came across it, but it had been on my list for a while. Then I noticed it was available through my public library in Chapel Hill. I put a hold on it, and eventually, the book became available and I started reading it.

Let me read you part of the book’s description. It’s an Oprah’s Book Club selection. Apparently, it was published in 2021, which is also when it started being nominated for literary prizes like the Booker Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction.

Here’s the description: A heart-rending new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning and number one New York Times bestselling author of "The Overstory", which is a book that has been on my to-read list for a while. 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 is 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.

I’ll pause here—there’s more to it, but I won’t read the whole description. And I guess in a nutshell, the reason why it has been extremely enjoyable to me is the language—the way the author portrays the characters, how they think, how they see life, and how they navigate relationships.

There are two main characters: Robin and Theo. Theo is an astrobiologist and Robin’s father. The way their relationships and struggles are described—Theo as a widowed father of a child with special needs, clearly struggling to adapt to life and societal expectations—is captivating. And there's 9-year-old Robin, trying to live up to these expectations while also coming to terms with the loss of his mother.

It is so captivating. It is so heart-rending. It’s so warm. It’s beautifully written. And I think that ultimately it is about love and how hard sometimes it can be for people to express how they feel about someone, to handle the complications of marriage, of being a parent, of raising a child while still trying to have a career, balancing all these things.

So I’m only 50% through the book and I’m sure that I’m gonna finish it by the next book recommendation. But I am really enjoying this book. And I want to say that if you need something to ground you, to remind you of what really matters, what’s important in life, if you need a book recommendation to remind you of your current relationships, of your loved ones, how short life can be, and just being able to appreciate what you have, this has been a powerful book. I’m actually scared as to how the book is going to end. I’m not sure how Robin and Theo and their relationship—how this is going to pan out. I have no idea.

This book also has a touch of something modern. Robin starts undergoing a type of treatment that uses AI and the fingerprint, if you will, of his mother’s brain to help him overcome some of the challenges that he’s facing. And it’s really cool because it talks about how the AI learns how Robin’s brain reacts to certain stimulation and how he reacts to certain thoughts or experiences. And then they start using his mom's neurofeedback, who apparently was very optimistic, with a lot of grit, very determined. A strong woman full of love and caring. It turned out that her brain has also been mapped before she died. So the AI trains Robin’s brain, learning how he reacts, and then using this neurofeedback mechanism—I’m not going to go into details—but using the patterns observed from his mom to help him adapt his brain, sort of train his brain, that is also very, very interesting and intriguing.

It sounds like he’s making some progress, but like I said, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m a bit scared about how the book is going to end. You can’t help but just root for Robin and Theo to be able to come out of this strong, have a strong relationship.

This week’s book recommendation is "Bewilderment" by Richard Powers. I’ll let you know how it ends next week. Until next time, keep reading!