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A review by wellworn_soles
Orfeo by Richard Powers
2.0
I was really anticipating to enjoy Orfeo more than I did. The central conceit or thesis connects music with biology, with side rumination on the post 9/11 surveillance state. Sounds really cool, right? Unfortunately, we don’t get much. Although the work is littered with artful turns of phrase throughout, Powers doesn’t really explore these themes in any meaningful way. Commentary is very surface level: nothing is said about what the parallels between music and DNA could mean, or what it means for our society to have mega corporations that tamper with dangerous biohazards daily while independent garage science is viewed as terrorism. I appreciate Powers acknowledging that the growth of surveillance is a bad thing, but I already know that. Just stating facts or slightly interesting parallels isn’t enough for me.
What’s more, our protagonist is not very likeable. Peter Els is a washed up old avant-garde composer who ruined his marriage and his daughter’s childhood chasing an ephemeral, frustratingly bad dream. I felt little sympathy for the man, who oscillated between pretentiousness and a hollowness of personality for most of the story. I felt closest to him in the brief interlude when he and his wife are married and he is opening up his young daughter’s mind to the possibility of music and collaborative creation - but again, he ends up separating from his wife and all but destroying his relationship with his daughter for decades.
The story unfolds non-linearly, which I feel hampers any mounting tension the novel may have had rather than augmenting its pacing. It was jarring to go from 70 year old Els fleeing Homeland Security in the present to 30 pages of Els experimenting with music as a grad student. And despite some beautiful turns of phrase as mentioned above, much of Power’s writing feels long-winded, blocky and stilted. This is not assisted by the fact that much of his waxing poetic on music employs terminology that a layperson will not know and therefore cannot resonate with. This happened so much that it sometimes undermined his good passages, making the writing feel affected and self-absorbed.
There is a good novel in here, I think. While I did lament a lot of the novel above, there were moments where I caught glimpses of why the book would win the National Book Award. Its expansive, the themes are compelling and Powers clearly knows how to write artfully. But it feels vague and directionless, like this would be better as an essay or think piece instead of a novel. Characters and setting feel like tacked on additions to an intriguing idea that is covered in flowery diction but never exhumed and investigated. I plan to read at least one other novel, The Overstory, by Powers, and I really hope it is better than this one.
What’s more, our protagonist is not very likeable. Peter Els is a washed up old avant-garde composer who ruined his marriage and his daughter’s childhood chasing an ephemeral, frustratingly bad dream. I felt little sympathy for the man, who oscillated between pretentiousness and a hollowness of personality for most of the story. I felt closest to him in the brief interlude when he and his wife are married and he is opening up his young daughter’s mind to the possibility of music and collaborative creation - but again, he ends up separating from his wife and all but destroying his relationship with his daughter for decades.
The story unfolds non-linearly, which I feel hampers any mounting tension the novel may have had rather than augmenting its pacing. It was jarring to go from 70 year old Els fleeing Homeland Security in the present to 30 pages of Els experimenting with music as a grad student. And despite some beautiful turns of phrase as mentioned above, much of Power’s writing feels long-winded, blocky and stilted. This is not assisted by the fact that much of his waxing poetic on music employs terminology that a layperson will not know and therefore cannot resonate with. This happened so much that it sometimes undermined his good passages, making the writing feel affected and self-absorbed.
There is a good novel in here, I think. While I did lament a lot of the novel above, there were moments where I caught glimpses of why the book would win the National Book Award. Its expansive, the themes are compelling and Powers clearly knows how to write artfully. But it feels vague and directionless, like this would be better as an essay or think piece instead of a novel. Characters and setting feel like tacked on additions to an intriguing idea that is covered in flowery diction but never exhumed and investigated. I plan to read at least one other novel, The Overstory, by Powers, and I really hope it is better than this one.