Bewilderment (Powers)

[cahn]

Hmm. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book, which I read for a book club. It's about an academic astrobiologist father Theo and his nine-year-old son Robin, set in the near-and-only-kicked-up-one-notch-dystopian-compared-to-reality future. The wife/mom Alyssa has recently died, which is a major dynamic in the book. The son is cognitively brilliant and emotionally challenged (presumably exacerbated by his mother's death), so you can see the appeal for me, and there were a lot of times reading it where I flinched away from feeling like our family was kind of seen. Eventually Robin starts a kind of experimental therapeutic treatment that involves using neurofeedback based on the (much more mature and centered) emotional responses of, interestingly, his own dead mother. (This sounds kind of awful when I say it like that, but it's really quite well done in the book -- although yes, there is a sort of weird quasi-incestual subtext to it that was clearly intentional.)

It's a gorgeously written book, as one might expect from Powers (I've read another book of his, but I can't remember which one now), and the experimental treatment given to Robin sound amazing and I would sign E up for it in a moment if it existed, but there were a couple of things that just really bugged me. First, this whole bit was driven by Theo not wanting to medicate his son, and saying things like "if eight million people are on medication, doesn't that mean that something is wrong with the system?" and I'm like... maybe? Or it could mean that evolution is kind of crap? (This reminded me of the time when I felt super inadequate that my body wasn't able to provide my child with enough food for the first week of her life. How could I possibly use formula?? Before formula people coped! My sister pointed out that, well, actually, before formula a lot more babies died.) And -- of course being against medication is a view that a lot of people hold, so it's not off-the-wall that Theo thinks that too; but it's hard for me to tell whether this was an author-endorsed stance or not. (Theo's views on politics, mind you, are very clearly author-endorsed, which leads me to suspect that this might be too.) Either way, I just... really had a strong visceral negative reaction as to how Theo keeps going on and on as to how he couldn't possibly give his child any medication at all, especially as I know multiple cases where medication really really helped people. (To be fair, someone in reading group was from a place where apparently kids were over-medicated, and also someone else pointed out that in the book the school system was all but forcing medication on the parent. So this is at least somewhat a kneejerk reaction on my part, but, well, there it is.)

The other thing was the ending, starting with the part where the social workers are all, "Are you abusing your child??" (And for the B5 fans, let me just say I read this before trying to watch "Believers" and that might also explain why I hit a wall with the latter.) I spent the last five percent or so not understanding how Powers could wrap everything up by the end, how he could deal with all the roadblocks he'd put up, and then... of course Robin dies. And obviously it's all very sad and all (although I am surprised Theo wasn't in trouble with the law -- like, they were already watching him because they thought he might be abusing his kid, politically motivated though that watching might be, and then the kid actually dies? I totally think that bit about the social workers should have been left out, because it distracted me in the aftermath as to why Theo wasn't under a heck of a lot more investigation).

But honestly my main response was to roll my eyes and think, "Well, that's all very well for YOU, book author, but the rest of us don't have that tidy ending and have to navigate what happens as our kids get older..." Not, of course, that it would be at all tidy in real life, of course, I'm not saying that at all, but I did feel like for the book it was a cop-out ending that didn't engage with all the hard questions I guess I wanted it to engage in.

Since you guys have been amazing at book recs, do you know about books (fiction or memoir) about parenting kids with needs like giftedness, emotional sensitivity, ASD, ADHD, etc.? (The parent who organizes book club would prefer books about the parenting rather than about the kids, but it's not necessary.) She brought up the book The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon, also The Gifted School by Bruce Holsinger which sounds rather awesomely popcorn-y (which means I'll probably read it if I can get it from the library, and won't if I can't).

Comments

[likeadeuce]

Thanks for this review! I loved the book but also wondered what I was supposed to make of the narrator's medication views -- I thought he was meant to be a crank at first but by the end I was less sure. I definitely felt 'the school is handling this badly AND the father is not open to something that could really help his child can both be true.' So I appreciate your perspective on this as a parent. And yes, the ending made me weep but also felt manipulative and like it was just there to wrap up the story and have Robin be a martyr. It also suggested the people saying Theo didn't properly care for Robin were CORRECT and I'm not sure how to take that. Like is it a metaphor for our failure to care for the planet even if we want to or...?

I don't have a suggestion about other books but would be interested in what you figure out.

[cahn]

Yeah, I am really not sure. It does make me wonder how reliable a narrator we're expected to think the father is about e.g. the scientist guy and his relationship with the mother :P (I suppose it could go both ways, though I leaned towards thinking that we were supposed to believe Theo.)

It also suggested the people saying Theo didn't properly care for Robin were CORRECT and I'm not sure how to take that. Like is it a metaphor for our failure to care for the planet even if we want to or...?

Yeah, that's a good point! I don't think we were supposed to come away thinking that those people were correct? But you are right, that's definitely what's implied by what happens. I do wonder if it's a metaphor along the lines of "we try to do our best but our best just isn't good enough" or something like that? Which is super depressing, of course, though maybe not as depressing as "welp, we want to help but do exactly the wrong things."

[thistleingrey]

I hereby anti-rec Speed of Dark because at its heart it's a "take away the pesky mental taint" story.

ETA Sorry, that was kind of a kneejerk reaction. Perhaps it would indeed be useful to see that perspective drawn out at novel length from a parenting perspective, which was also Moon's, in writing. But I found the book itself distasteful.

[cahn]

Ahhhh, that's exactly the kind of spoiler I need, thank you! I was kind of intrigued by the book description and would have been really unhappy to have encountered that without warning.

I might still end up riffling through it if I see it at the library because it sounds like something I might have a dialogue with (even if that dialogue is rage), but I think I will not put in my vote for it as a book club book :)

[thistleingrey]

I think it's competently written!--and not only because it won the Nebula, heh. Certainly worth a skim. But I had the definite subjective experience of This is not the book I wanted anyone to write, and though that can make for lively book-club discussion :) perhaps, yes, it's better to know going in.

I notice that the Wikipedia summary doesn't say how Lou chooses, though summaries tend to spoil endings with no regard--guess the page contributors understood at least that there's potential for controversy.

[primeideal]

Two things that can simultaneously be true:

-fiction is not reality, the views of a character are not the views of the author, it is bad to consider a work of art dangerous or unacceptable because it might be "contaminated" by association with someone who has had the Bad Thoughts, a constantly-moving target of Good Thoughts ultimately means that nothing creative or enjoyable will be approved by the censors of every place and time, freedom of speech is good actually, etc etc
-I probably would not touch this with a 39-and-a-half-foot pole!

Short story rather than novel, but Mysterion (Christian speculative fiction site) just published The Remnant, which is in part about the challenge of "who will be my disabled kid's caretaker after I die"?

[cahn]

Yeah, of course depiction is not endorsement, etc. but I think... in this case, I would have felt a little better about it if everyone who suggested medication to the POV character wasn't depicted as a Bad Guy, like, the school definitely was way too forceful about it, and then near the end the one sympathetic person who suggested it had been suddenly perceived as an unsympathetic person for Plot Reasons. But I freely admit I'm super bringing my own baggage, here. :)

And, I should have been more clear in the post, I did like the book! I find that sometimes I do this thing where I will like a book and there will be one part I didn't like and that's the interesting part to talk about, so that's what I talk about and I can come across as not liking the book much more than is actually the case :)

And thank you for the rec, that sounds really interesting!

[boxofdelights]

Have you read The Last Samurai, by Helen DeWitt? I read it a long time ago and have learned a lot about parenting since then but I remember it as really good.

[cahn]

Oh! No, I haven't, thanks! I'll check it out. :)