Playground by Richard Powers

I just completed reading Richard Powers’ latest novel Playground. For those who read his Pulitzer-winning novel The Overstory, Playground is yet another step in creating what might seem a confusing plot from the beginning as very different characters are introduced willy-nilly in the first 75 pages or so. As Overstory brings a wild and wide variety of humans to the mission of tree conservation, Playground finds as varied a group that end up on a Pacific Island, one that had been ravaged by phosphate mining and is left bereft for its 89 inhabitants. We get the background of each of the four (maybe only four since some of the island’s inhabitants become major characters eventually) main characters in third person narrative form, and then revert to first person when an AI bot, Profunda, takes over and completes the story. The three closest characters, Todd, Rafi, and Ina have a falling out that remains a blot on their relationship until the end where a (sort of) reconciliation takes place. We essentially cover a large swath of their lives. A nonagenarian oceanographer, based on a real person, may be a seemingly side story but Powers uses her life to map out the ocean and its limitless inhabitants as an understated call for conservation.

The prose is excellent, as one would expect, and reading is a joy. There are parts of the novel where Powers’ effusive listing of marine life and its endless varieties, all presented at his high speed, sometimes dizzying pace, is a challenge to keep up with. But that goes to the point of the importance of supporting conservation of the oceans. And his writing of facts and oceanic beings is much more entertaining than the middle sections of Moby Dick where Melville describes the actual intricacies and tools and uses of the tools of whaling.

Suffice it to say that whenever I read Richard Powers, I feel some sort of urgency, often not well defined, but there in the way he describes most anything. Playground’s urgency may spurn others to action. As for me, I thoroughly enjoyed the book, learned some tricks of writing, highly recommend it, but am not likely to jump in a Green Peace raft very soon. Does that make me bad??