Orfeo

Richard Powers

Jan 2014 · Harper Collins

About this ebook

The author of the National Book Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist The Echo Maker, Richard Powers “may well be one of the smartest novelists now writing” (LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK REVIEW)

Seventy-year-old avant-garde composer Peter Els opens the door one evening to find the police on his doorstep. His home DIY microbiology lab--the latest experiment in his lifelong attempt to extract music from rich patterns beyond the ear’s ability to hear--has come to the attention of Homeland Security. Panicked by the raid on his house, Els turns fugitive, waiting for the evidence to clear him and for the alarm surrounding his activities to blow over. His days in hiding provoke memories of a turbulent century of musical turf wars and cause Els to reflect on a life spent chasing after transcendent sounds to the bewilderment of an indifferent public.

As the national hysteria for safety erupts again in the face of this latest threat, Els--the “Bioterrorist Bach”--feeling the noose around him tighten, embarks on a cross-country trip to visit the people in his past who have most shaped his failed musical journey. Through the help of these people--his ex-wife, his daughter and his long-time artistic collaborator-- Els comes up with a plan to turn this disastrous collision with the security state into one last, resonant artwork that might reach an audience beyond his wildest dreams.

Inspired by Steve Kurtz, the bio-artist wrongly arrested for terrorism by the FBI, Orfeo probes the boundary between stifling safety and reckless, releasing danger. It explores the varieties of human hunger, in particular the desire to hear more and to make meaning where there is none. Finally, the book is a meditation on that most endangered and priceless of human resources: attention.

Ratings and reviews

Burdened with excessive detail, Orfeo drifts to a predictable, melodramatic conclusion Peter Els is a composer of new music, an old man, a adjunct professor who has been put out to pasture. When his dog, Orfeo, his only companion, dies suddenly he's so distraught he mistakenly calls 9-1-1. He abruptly ends the call which brings the police to his home only to find he's been passing his time cooking up variant biological strains in his kitchen laboratory. Is this crackpot a bioterrorist? When the authorities come to investigate, Els goes on the lam. Author Richard Powers has the narrative go back and forth between Els' past and the present until they converge. Gradually a picture emerges of the a man obsessed with music, music that sounds like noise to most people. I was never sure if Els was a genius, delusional, lazy or just stubborn, but his obsession manages to wreck every career opportunity and relationship he comes in contact with. As a protagonist Els is not sympathetic, he's frustrating. Powers burdens the story with extensive passages about experimental music and minute details on musical composition. It's excessive and redundant as are his passages of transcendence the composer feels when in the thrall of his muse. The plot seems to drift as if the author wasn't sure where to take it and the conclusion is as predictable as it is melodramatic. Throughout the book the author has inserted intrusive sentences presented in a different font and separated from the text by bold lines. I had no idea what the quotes were referring to, who they were by or what part they played in the story other than pulling me out of the reading experience.

About the author

Richard Powers is the author of thirteen novels. His most recent, The Overstory, won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. He is also the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the National Book Award, and he has been a four-time National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. He lives in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.