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Here we are again in the world of literature. Powers is a powerful writer. The length of the book (451 pps) does not really tell the length of this work. It is not a fast read. There is much content woven into the pages, a tapestry of imagery and meaning that enhances the action of the story.Kearny, Nebraska is a way station on the central flyway, a place where thousands of cranes congregate every year on their way north and south, providing an industry for the town. The descriptions of the migr...
This is my fourth Richard Powers book in as many weeks. When the Austin paper reviewed The Echo Maker prior to its release, I was intrigued and drawn to this author with an immediate urgency to read him. First I read the beautiful and opera-like The Time of our Singing and followed with the tender Galatea 2.2, two very different stories that demonstrate Powers' narrative alacrity. (Now add to that The Gold Bug Variations, which I plan on reviewing as an equally powerful novel. )Then I read The E...
This book stunk so badly that I left it on the seat of the train as I was leaving. A woman behind me said, "Excuse me, I think you left your book."And I said, "Yeah, I kind of wanted to leave my book, in hopes that someone else would come along and not hate it as much as I did."This book was long, boring, rambling and had one plot twist that was moderately interesting, but didn't show up until about page 400 (out of 450). Skip it. Seriously. Spend time reading a neurobiology book, or a book abou...
I couldn't finish this slow, overly descriptive, not-at-all intriguing, boring novel. It was a book-club pick and only two people finished it, one kicking and screaming.The book is about a man in his mid-20s who's in a car accident and spends two weeks in a coma. When he wakes up and begins his recovery, he accuses his sister – the two have always been very close – of being an impostor. It's a disorder called Capgras syndrome, and it's very rare.The neuroscience and psychology in the book are fa...
SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT: I'm not giving away the ending here, but the following does give away some of the plot developments.This won the National Book Award last year, and is by an author who has received one of the MacArthur "genius awards." Did it deserve it? In the end, I can't endorse the choice, even though there is much to commend in this book. The basic story: a Nebraska factory worker flips his truck on a cold winter night, and when he wakes up, he believes that his sister has been swapped...
This was my second time through this book, this time as part of a “project” to re-read all of Powers’ books in publication order, one per month for a year. As this is book number 9, there is a good body of work behind this that I have now read at least twice, plus some foreknowledge of what Powers will write after this one (I have read Generosity once and both Orfeo and The Overstory twice).I’m a bit conflicted after completing this re-read of The Echo Maker. Somehow, it was simultaneously bette...
My guess is that Powers, an erudite fellow, learned a lot about the human brain from pouring through neuroscience literature, and then tried to write a novel (since he's an novelist) where he could forward what he learned to his audience. He adds to the plot with an intersection of more things he learned about migrating cranes in Nebraska. Pitting commercial developers (the bad guys) against environmentalists (saintly vegans), he manages through liberal logic (cf: God is love; love is blind; the...
I cannot believe this won the National Book Award. What kind of crap was it up against? I finished it because, well, that's what I do, and because there was a bit of mystery, but I found the relationships and dialogue utterly unbelievable, the characters less sympathetic with every chapter, and the supposedly deep, intimate struggles simply dull. The stuff about the brain and brain injury was interesting; I probably should have read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat instead.Seriously, how d...
Alright, I'm convinced. Richard Powers is a rambler. He rambles, extensively, through characters, plot, images. On and on. When he lights upon something interesting, he'll stay awhile (often too long), pressing into the depths with occasionally gorgeous sentences. But it's never really clear why he pauses, or why he keeps going -- it's just kinda the drawn-out, barely-coherent stories of some pretentious middle-aged white guy.So in The Echo Maker, some of the sentences (and images) are certainly...
Mark Schluter flips his truck on a cold winter night. Amazingly he survives, but he suffers brain trama. He thinks his sister, Karin, is an imposter, as well as his dog. He thinks his house has been replaced with a replica. Mark’s personal tragedy is somehow connected with efforts to preserve the natural habitat of the Sandhill Crane, in the vicinity of Kearney, Nebraska. There is mystery here, although relatively low-key, as you don’t know how much of the unknown is actual versus just perceived...
