Review of The Echo Maker, by Richard Powers

[This is cobbled together rather shamelessly from my comments in the Wikifray book club.]

Grade: A-

On a deserted highway in Nebraska, without apparent cause, a young man overturns his truck and nearly ends his life. His very survival is almost miraculous, but he doesn't escape trauma. The centers of his brain that navigate familiarity and facial recognition, and he finds himself under a delusion in which he can not identify his closest relationships. His sister particularly, who gives up the independent life she has worked for, he sees as an imposter. Powers spends the pages of this novel exploring how this condition is symptomatic of all our relationships, the many ways the brain forever creates the illusion of self and of the selves of others.

The text of this novel is presented unreliably through the two siblings, and to help show off all the homework he has done, Powers elevates a cognitive scientist to real character status. Doctor Weber is drawn to help the boy, Mark, and finds his famous life entwined with the handful of unremarkable midwesterners. Weber becomes a valuable tool for presenting background research and (perhaps a little too often) standing in as the author's own voice. Centered around Weber are a lot of self-conscious novelist's quips about presenting science as anecdote, the ethics of creating character, and that sort of thing. Given that Powers is so strongly given to circuitous musings on the mind and the environment, he does a good job of keeping it fresh, and an impressive job of keeping the mysteries of the story alive through the course of the novel. The tension between Mark and his sisister is surprisingly effective at sustainging the drama (I couldn't put the book down), and it helps that the writing is excellent, moving easily between humor (sitcom-like barbs, but smart) and deep existential dread. Powers certainly taps a nerve in asking how we know we're who we think we are.

Adding the knowedgable doctor to the cast is one of several of the author's indulgences, but Weber is a good vehicle to develop most of the books themes. Powers takes a lot of effort to point out that there's a continuum of conditions between psychological and physiological trauma (the character argues about this a lot), and also a continuum of experience between defective and healthy brains. All of the characters occupy some intermdiate position in the mental health universe (the existential universe too), with only the injured Mark obviously so.

Plot-wise, the novel catches itself up in the local water politics of suburban Nebraska. The novel takes place at a point on the Platte river where migrating cranes gather, all the more dramatically for the human encroachment. He establishes a good sense of place, getting deeply into the emptiness of the prairie and the ways it can infect character. I found his effort to establish a sense of historical place more troubled. Dropping 9/11 on anything is unearned pathos, and Powers didn't really do anything with it.

The author plays the migrating birds for all they're worth (Mark and his sister even share physical attributes with them) and finally, towards the end of the book, he pushes teh ecological significance of them together with his ideas on cognition. I found the conclusion of the novel satisfying, but the marriage of environmental and mental themes seemed to be a little forced. In all, I found glitches like these easier to endure than the indulgences, but both were minor prices for admission into a deeply clever and enjoyable read.

[You can also find a discussion of The Echo Maker here.]

Obligorati
Author: Richard Powers
Title: The Echo Maker
Genre: fiction, contemporary fiction

Book Review Index

Since I bother to rate my enthusiasm for the books I review, it will be helpful to both of my readers to get a feel of my tastes. Here's the index since 2004, when I started keeping it. I omitted books that I either couldn't remember well enough or reviewed too poorly to re-grade. I also omitted most of anthologized shorts, and all of the world-events and opinion stuff I read when I am supposed to be working (and of course the technical stuff I read when I actually am working).

The grades reflect my subjective enjoyment more than any objective evaluation. (How else to explain how Conrad did so poorly? Tuan Jim just didn't have the snappy move-along plot I needed at the beach that summer.) The grades may seem to be on a curve, but I think that's less due to inflation and more to my care in choosing reading material.

Anderson, Poul Operation Chaos (B)

Bellairs, John, The Face in the Frost (B+)

Benford, Gregory Cosm (A)

Blake, Katharine The Interior Life (B)

Blish, James A Case of Conscience (A)

Bourdain, Anthony, Kitchen Confidential (B)

Brown, Dan Angels and Demons (C+)

Bujold, Lois McMaster Diplomatic Immunity (A-)

Carroll, Jonathon After Silence (A)

Carroll, Jonathon Sleeping in Flame (B+)

Chabon, Michael The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (A+)

Clarke, Arthur C. Childhood's End (B)

Clarke, Arthur C. Rendezvous with Rama (B)

Coatzee, J. M., Elizabeth Costello (A)

Conrad, Joseph Lord Jim (B)

Dahl, Roald The Roald Dahl Omnibus (B-)

Davies, Robertson, The Rebel Angels (A)

Daniel, Tony Superluminal (B+)

Dean, Pamela The Secret Country (B+)

Dean, Pamela The Hidden Land (B)

Dean, Pamela The Whim of the Dragon (B+)

DeLillo, Don Underworld (B+)

Eco, Umberto Baudolino (C)

Friesner, Esther Wishing Season (C+)

Gaiman, Neil Anansi Boys (A)

Gibson, William Idoru (B+)

Gibson, William Pattern Recognition (B+)

Gibson, William Neuromancer (B)

Goldman, Willian, The Princess Bride

Greene, Brian The Elegant Universe (B)

Greene, Graham The Power and the Glory (A)

Harris, Bob Prisoner of Trebekistan (B+)

Helprin, Mark Winter's Tale (A-)

Holman, Sheri The Dress Lodger (A-)

Juster, Norton The Phantom Tollbooth (A+)

Kay, Guy Gavriel The Last Light of the Sun (A+)

King, Stephen Wolves of the Calla (A-)

King, Stephen Song of Susannah (B+)

King, Stephen The Dark Tower (B+)

Kushner, Ellen Swordspoint (B+)

LeGuin, Ursula K. The Dispossessed (A)

LeGuin, Ursula K. The Left Hand of Darkness (A)

LeGuin, Ursula K. The Telling (A-)

Levitt, Steven and Stephen Dubner Freakonomics (B+)

Lieber, Fritz The Big Time (B+)

McCarthy, Cormac The Road (A)

McEwan, Ian Saturday (B)

Mirrlees, Hope Lud in the Mist (A-)

Morrow, JamesTowing Jehovah (B+)

Nafisi, Azar Reading Lolita in Tehran (A-)

Noon, Jeff Vurt (B+)

O'Connor, Edwin The Last Hurrah (A)

Park, Paul Celestis (B+)

Park, Paul Soldiers of Paradise (A)

Patterson, James and Andrew Gross The Jester (C)

Powers, Richard, The Echo Maker (A-)

Powers, Tim The Drawing of the Dark (B)

Powers, Tim Declare (A)

Powers, Tim Last Call (A+)

Pratchett, Terry Maskerade (B)

Pratchett, Terry Soul Music (B-)

Pratchett, Terry The Wee Free Men

Pressfield, Steven, Gates of Fire (B)

Priest, Christopher The Separation (A)

Robbins, Tom Jitterbug Perfume (B+)

Roberts, Keith Pavane (B+)

Ryman, Geoff Air (A)

Saberhagen, Fred The Berserker Throne (B)

Stephenson, Neal Zodiac (A-)

Stephenson, Neal Snow Crash (A)

Stephenson, Neal Cryptonomicon (A)

Stephenson, Neal The Diamond Age (A-)

Stewart, Jon Naked Pictures of Famous People (B)

Stewart, Sean The Night Watch (B+)

Swanwick, Michael Bones of the Earth (B)

Tolstoy, Leo War and Peace (A)

Twain, Mark Letters from the Earth (B)

Varley, John The Golden Globe (A+)

Varley, John Millenium (B-)

Vinge, Vernor Across Realtime (A-)

Vinge, Vernor Rainbows End (B+)

Vinge, Vernor Tatja Grimm's World (C+)

Vonnegut, Kurt Cat's Cradle (A-)

Vonnegut, Kurt Jailbird (A-)

Westlake, Donald E. Bad News (B+)

Westlake, Donald E. Drowned Hopes (B)

Williams, Walter Jon City on Fire (B+)

Wilson, Robert Charles Blind Lake (A)

Wilson, Robert Charles The Harvest (B+)

Wilson, Robert Charles Spin (A+)

Wolfe, Gene The Knight (A-)

Wolfe, Gene The Wizard (A)

Wolfe, Gene Nightside of the Long Sun (A)

Wolfe, Gene Lake of the Long Sun (A)

Wolfe, Gene Calde of the Long Sun (B+)

Wolfe, Gene Exodus from the Long Sun (A)

Wolfe, Gene On Blue's Waters (A)

Wolfe, Gene In Green's Jungles (B)

Wolfe, Gene Return to the Whorl (A)

Wolfe, Gene Soldier of Sidon (A)

Zelazney, Roger Changeling (D)

Zelazney, Roger Damnation Alley (C-)

Duuude, it's all connected

Science fiction can open some doors to exploration that the typical stuff leaves closed. It's easy enough to the remove parameters of known physics to avoid honesty, to jam in more gods than the machine can bear (and to be fair, this is a reputation SF has often earned), but when it's done well, it can create conditions to laser in on deep human constructs that are hard to see by conventual illumination. Branding can be tough on the critical praise I suppose, but then authors tend to segregate themselves by market too, even if the lines are finer than the distance between the shelves would indicate. When J. M. Coatzee dug into a bizarre fantastic afterlife to note on the human condition, he was treading established ground (hell, that one's been established for as long as people have talked about death). When Richard Powers made up a disease as a tool to peer into the way we connect to each other, he made a scientific extrapolation too. The science fiction genre expects some ballsier risks than these, but on the other hand, you can sometimes get a bigger payoff.

When Raphael Carter came out with The Fortunate Fall ten years ago, it hit the fanboy circles pretty hard. Carter finally accomplished what writers like William Gibson promised to: she used the interconnectedness of computer networks as a tool to get into people's heads. This author lost the cyberpunk attitude and found some of the tender spots hidden deeply in there. Fun as it may be to imagine inhabiting machine bodies and machine minds, the more interesting questions get at the essence of who we already are and how we already relate. The Fortunate Fall is a lot of things--it's too many damn things actually--but stripped down, it's the life story of a woman who has lived through a technological revolution that brought wireless into the cranium. The story is brought out through confusing flashbacks, through plot exposition, through returning conversations between the protagonist and the world's villain, the complex architect of much of it, a war criminal, a visionary. Mankind is presented as animal that aspires to reason, riffing heavily on the Biblical tragedy of that idea, but Carter has the figurative balls to put us talking apes in a continuum of thinking beasts. What is animal intelligence like? What are bigger intelligences like? What are we together, and together with whom? The ending dramatically breaks open all three queries.

This business with dogfighting in the news brings into focus our relationships with minds more similar to ours than we usually like to acknowledge. Why are dogs and cats special? Why do we treat pigs and rats so badly? I'm not talking unnecessary cruelty here, I'm just saying that it takes a little cognitive dissonance to eat a ham sandwich while cat-blogging. Archaeopteryx makes a point that there is a physiological similarity we have with the animals we bond with, and IOZ (the bastard beat me to tying Coatzee into this one) takes the similar approach, but stressing a conceptual similarity rather than an anatomical one(that is, we bond with dogs because they trust us; we don't like hurting chimps because they look like us). Hipparchia (in the first conversation) pointed to years of domestication as a cause. Arch is a biologist, IOZ is informed by philosophy, and I think hipparchia has a little farm-girl in her.

I find that last argument the most intriguing though. It's not what animals are exactly, but how the old and slowly changing habits of how we treat them have defined them. Coatzee, another philosophically minded writer, has suggested that eating animals is a crime on par with genocide, enabled by the way we're collectively accustomed to seeing them as inferior. He spends all of Elizabeth Costello exploring that moral gray space between perceptions of the self and the greater culture. Even though we're breeding selectively, people and domestic animals aren't evolving into new species anytime soon. If anything, it's the cultural catalogue of information that is changing and growing, the expectations of cow nature slowly morphing, of horse nature, dog nature, human nature. I remember a conversation on the old Slate Fray, someone had an ancestor who was a member of the Klan (maybe someone can remind me of who this was). Horrible yes, but different times, different times. There's a century of evolution of concepts of justice, of growing awareness (and a growing body) of philosophical knowledge that makes hate groups a much harder apology in today's society. To beat another tired old horse, it's a nurture argument, but on a cultural scale. Does technology spread it better and more evenly? You bet.

At birth, every creature is plopped down into the world feral and dumb, an empty little vessel knowing nothing but hunger, contentment, and the satisfaction of a bowel movement, oblivious of the finer distinctions that civilization requires. With no improvements in the hardware, the softer rules of the interactions have still mutated and changed. For every individual, the system has to be learned, our parents' faults and hopes passed down by decree and by emulation, and we incorporate and share our mental models of individuals in order to map ourselves and our relationships. So long as the frameworks exist in a lot of people, the information can be shared as in a six billion person game of telephone, and it appears this contributes to the formation of societies as sloppily stable groups. Maybe an optimal indoctrination program could even work itself out from this, some least-bad mode of mutual existence, at least until we start drilling our skulls or (more likely) miss a couple meals and go back to forming tribes and killin' pigs. It's almost enough to give me an ounce of hope for our filthy species. Certainly enough motivation to keep on writing.


Keifus

[Edited a whole bunch for clarity. And yes, I'm the guy who called "memes" ridiculous six months ago. I'll sort that out eventually.]

Author: Raphael Carter
Title: The Fortunate Fall
Genre: fiction, science fiction