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A review by joakley
Orfeo by Richard Powers
1.0
They say that if you’re not enjoying a book, you should stop reading it. But you know what. Sometimes. Maybe? Reading that book all the way through the very last word is the only way to truly know how much you hate that book. Only then can you realize the full extent of its garbage-ness. If you’re lucky, at the very end you can look back and say to yourself “Wow, it really was a garbage.”
Such was the case with Richard Powers’ Orfeo.
I don’t want to spend much time on a book that I didn’t enjoy, and most of what I wanted to say about this one can be found in the first paragraph, but there were some distinct aspects of this novel that made reading it such a chore that I want to see what it’s like to put together an argument about why a book is bad, rather than just praising books I like.
A large part of Orfeo’s downfall is that it is meant to be a book about modern times, but when it references things unique to modernity, it sounds so so cheesy. For example, Peter Els, the former musician-turned-microbiologist, goes to the track and observes a young girl running and listening to music. And before you ask – yes, this scene reads very creepily. The girl is skipping through her songs every few seconds and the narrator notes that “every few dozen steps she condemned the Now Playing to the dustbin of history.” This is borderline one of the cringiest sentences I have ever read, and while minor in the grand scheme of things, this type of writing continually pops up and totally undermines any serious thought a reader is meant to give to the story. There’s no greater allusion he could be making by capitalizing “Now Playing,” it just falls flat. It reads like someone trying very hard to sound intellectual, but failing.
There are three narratives that make up the structure of this story. The present, which tells the story of Els after he has taken up microbiology and is now on the run from government agencies for the experiments he conducted. The past, which essentially tells the life story of Els as he goes through his musical education, his failed relationships, and his struggle to find meaning. Then in between those two phases are these strange interjections, which seem like some kind of confession tape, or maybe Els’ dialogue in an interrogation. The writing about the present essentially seems like filler, because not much really happens in those parts. For example, it feels like Els approaches his house with cops surrounding it multiple times, and then we take a break and tell the next chapter of his past, and make no progress in the present. It’s like he is just trying to fill more pages. I would much rather just have had a regular story about this guy going through life. The “payoff” in the present’s plot development just isn’t there, even as he drives across the country running from the authorities.
In terms of theming, the story revolves around this comparison between music and science, where Els ends up trying to compose a musical piece in the DNA of a bacteria (thus the picture with the dumpsters, the book is about germs, totally what I meant by that picture). Powers beats you to death with this comparison, and at the end of the story it is supposed to be some big reveal that his goal was to write music in DNA. Like, yeah, we knew that already. It was kinda interesting at first, but now we are bored by it. Most of the talk about music reads like showing off, and there is a lot of technical language you have to gloss over. However, the one story about how the “Quartet for the End of Time” was written is captivating. Importantly, it is an aside and has nothing to do with Els’ story. It is just a retelling of what actually happened in history.
In fact if there is a history book out there about “Quartet for the End of Time,” go find that. Read that instead.
Finally. Those little interjectory pieces that I thought were from an interrogation. They’re actually Tweets. While he is on the run from the law, his final “performance” is to Tweet out his thoughts about why he was experimenting with DNA. Tweets. And they are unbearable Tweets, he is just showing off and writing in the same style as that passage about the “Now Playing.” Els is just trying way too hard to sound “significant” and it all falls flat. That revelation about the Tweets – that cheesy, ridiculous piece of information – that was the payoff at the end of the book. Seeing how all that crap I was reading and trying to piece together was just Tweets was the sweet golden nugget that made me fully realize this book isn’t any good. I was right all along.
Also, he uses the word “bohemian” more than zero times, which is a terrible sign
Such was the case with Richard Powers’ Orfeo.
I don’t want to spend much time on a book that I didn’t enjoy, and most of what I wanted to say about this one can be found in the first paragraph, but there were some distinct aspects of this novel that made reading it such a chore that I want to see what it’s like to put together an argument about why a book is bad, rather than just praising books I like.
A large part of Orfeo’s downfall is that it is meant to be a book about modern times, but when it references things unique to modernity, it sounds so so cheesy. For example, Peter Els, the former musician-turned-microbiologist, goes to the track and observes a young girl running and listening to music. And before you ask – yes, this scene reads very creepily. The girl is skipping through her songs every few seconds and the narrator notes that “every few dozen steps she condemned the Now Playing to the dustbin of history.” This is borderline one of the cringiest sentences I have ever read, and while minor in the grand scheme of things, this type of writing continually pops up and totally undermines any serious thought a reader is meant to give to the story. There’s no greater allusion he could be making by capitalizing “Now Playing,” it just falls flat. It reads like someone trying very hard to sound intellectual, but failing.
There are three narratives that make up the structure of this story. The present, which tells the story of Els after he has taken up microbiology and is now on the run from government agencies for the experiments he conducted. The past, which essentially tells the life story of Els as he goes through his musical education, his failed relationships, and his struggle to find meaning. Then in between those two phases are these strange interjections, which seem like some kind of confession tape, or maybe Els’ dialogue in an interrogation. The writing about the present essentially seems like filler, because not much really happens in those parts. For example, it feels like Els approaches his house with cops surrounding it multiple times, and then we take a break and tell the next chapter of his past, and make no progress in the present. It’s like he is just trying to fill more pages. I would much rather just have had a regular story about this guy going through life. The “payoff” in the present’s plot development just isn’t there, even as he drives across the country running from the authorities.
In terms of theming, the story revolves around this comparison between music and science, where Els ends up trying to compose a musical piece in the DNA of a bacteria (thus the picture with the dumpsters, the book is about germs, totally what I meant by that picture). Powers beats you to death with this comparison, and at the end of the story it is supposed to be some big reveal that his goal was to write music in DNA. Like, yeah, we knew that already. It was kinda interesting at first, but now we are bored by it. Most of the talk about music reads like showing off, and there is a lot of technical language you have to gloss over. However, the one story about how the “Quartet for the End of Time” was written is captivating. Importantly, it is an aside and has nothing to do with Els’ story. It is just a retelling of what actually happened in history.
In fact if there is a history book out there about “Quartet for the End of Time,” go find that. Read that instead.
Finally. Those little interjectory pieces that I thought were from an interrogation. They’re actually Tweets. While he is on the run from the law, his final “performance” is to Tweet out his thoughts about why he was experimenting with DNA. Tweets. And they are unbearable Tweets, he is just showing off and writing in the same style as that passage about the “Now Playing.” Els is just trying way too hard to sound “significant” and it all falls flat. That revelation about the Tweets – that cheesy, ridiculous piece of information – that was the payoff at the end of the book. Seeing how all that crap I was reading and trying to piece together was just Tweets was the sweet golden nugget that made me fully realize this book isn’t any good. I was right all along.
Also, he uses the word “bohemian” more than zero times, which is a terrible sign