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Astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the universe and teaches at a university in Wisconsin. He creates countless scenarios for types of worlds that could exist, with all kinds of potential life forms. He’s raising his 9-year-old son on his own, since his wife died in a car accident two years earlier. His son, Robin, is a sweet and thoughtful boy who cares deeply about the world around him, much like his father and his late mother, an avid birdwatcher, lawyer and environmental/animal-rights activist.
But Robin is troubled and has a difficult time regulating his behavior. The latest issue at school is that he’s thrown an item into the face of a friend, breaking a bone. He’s on the verge of being expelled, and the school’s principal indicates to Theo that he needs to take the advice of various doctors and specialists who have been consulted: Robin has ADHD or autism, and he should be medicated. If not, Theo may be found to be a negligent parent.
Theo and his wife had participated a few years earlier in an experimental neurofeedback technique being developed by one of her friends at the university, and Theo consults this colleague to ask for help: Can this fMRI neurofeedback treatment help Robin? He would prefer not to medicate his son.
So Robin does start using the treatment, and it progresses to where the researcher decides to see if Robin may particularly benefit from being trained on a recording of his mother’s brain as she imagined the feeling of ecstasy. And it is a success: Robin is calmer and happier and able to regulate his behavior. Robin then also becomes ever more focused on all the living things surrounding him on earth: plants and animals, especially birds. He wants to become an activist and do his part to save the planet.
Father and son throughout the book take some trips to be out in nature; they often venture into their backyard to analyze all the living things just within a stone’s throw of their home. Theo gives his son all the tools he can to learn and to commune with nature. He even allows him to hold a one-boy protest at their state capitol.
At the same time, Theo is all too aware of the reality of what’s going on in the world, politically and economically. The U.S. government is led by a president and Congress who won’t allocate funds for important scientific research. Most people willfully ignore the drastic ecological disasters occurring and the need to make changes to slow them down. Robin is young and innocent and doesn’t understand why more people don’t care about the environment and all living things.
While the treatment is proving a miracle for Robin, it does seem fated that somehow it won’t last, for whatever reasons. Too much in the world at large and in the small world father and son inhabit seems to be crumbling down. I loved how Bewilderment layers in an allusion and parallel plot line to a popular novel from years ago; I won’t mention what it is so as to leave that a surprise. It’s really beautiful.
Bewilderment is a thoughtful fiction book that brings readers along on an eye-opening look at the miracle of the universe, all its stars and planets and potential life forms, and then flips to a guided tour of the miracles all around us on this planet, from the smallest living things to the ecosystems in which they live. It’s often quiet and introspective but sad, as it seems not too hopeful that humanity at large will change its ways.
This was an Oprah book club pick in 2021, and it definitely would make an excellent stepping-off point for discussion.
Rated: Moderate. Profanity includes one use of strong language, about 10 instances of moderate profanity, around 10 uses of mild language, and about 10 instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes a few brief memories of the narrator having sex with his late wife but no details at all. Violence includes a few spots where the narrator’s young son gets into fights or lashes out in some way.
