Summary and Reviews of Playground by Richard Powers

Playground by Richard Powers

Playground

A Novel

by Richard Powers
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  • Sep 24, 2024, 400 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

A magisterial new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning and New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory and Bewilderment.

Four lives are drawn together in a sweeping, panoramic new novel from Richard Powers, showcasing the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Overstory at the height of his skills. Twelve-year-old Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the world's first aqualungs. Ina Aroita grows up on naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home. Two polar opposites at an elite Chicago high school bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game; Rafi Young will get lost in literature, while Todd Keane's work will lead to a startling AI breakthrough.

They meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, whose deposits of phosphorus once helped to feed the world. Now the tiny atoll has been chosen for humanity's next adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out onto the open sea. But first, the island's residents must vote to greenlight the project or turn the seasteaders away.

Set in the world's largest ocean, this awe-filled book explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize in a still-unfolding oceanic game, and interweaves beautiful writing, rich characterization, profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can.

Excerpt
Playground

I'M SUFFERING FROM WHAT we computer folks call latency. Retreating into the past, like my mother did in her last years. This curse doesn't always run in families, but sometimes it does. Who knows? Maybe my mother had it, too. Maybe the undiagnosed disease lay behind the accident that killed her.

As more recent months and years grow fuzzy, the bedrock events of my childhood solidify. Closing my eyes, I can see my first bedroom high up in the crow's nest of our Evanston Castle in more detail than memory should permit: the student desk cluttered with plastic sharks and rays. The shelf of deep-sea books. The globe of a fishbowl filled with guppies and swordtails. The closet piled high with masks and snorkels and dried sea fans and chunks of coral and fish fossils from the Devonian Period, bought at the Shedd Aquarium gift shop.

On the wall above my bed hung a framed article from the Trib dated January 1, 1970: "First in Line for the New Decade." I must have read that thing a...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
These are original discussion questions written for BookBrowse.

  1. What did you know about French Polynesia or Makatea before reading the book?
  2. Other than the four primary characters, who stood out for you and why?
  3. Is there a quote from the book that you found particularly meaningful?
  4. What surprised you about the book? Did you learn anything new from it?
  5. Both Todd and Rafi were inspired by books. Why do you suppose that was? Do you think the reason was the same for each? Have you had a similar experience regarding a specific book?
  6. In his essay to St. Ignatius, Rafi writes, "Without the ability to feel sad, a person could not be kind or thoughtful, because you wouldn't care or know how anybody else feels. Without sadness, you would never learn ...
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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

As the narrative jumps unpredictably back and forth through time and space, Powers explores diverse themes such as friendships gained and lost; humanity's impact on the planet, especially its oceans; neocolonialism; sexism in the sciences; the development and future of artificial intelligence; and many others. If this all makes it sound like Playground is dense and complicated, there's a reason for that. But Powers' genius is his ability to form a cohesive and absorbing narrative from what at first seems to be a disorienting, unrelated mishmash of ideas...continued

Full Review Members Only (690 words)

(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).

Media Reviews

Shelf Awareness
A novel of spectacular thematic scope and surreal drama… The author's genius shows in his formidable descriptive talents and the graceful clarity of his densely woven plot… Powers meticulously sets the stage with vivid, immersive details to ignite the reader's imagination.

Vogue
Vivid and ambitious ... a love letter to the natural world.... Playground is ravishing in its descriptions of an underwater universe as fragile as it is ancient and unyielding.

People
History unspools in this luminous journey that interweaves a 3,000-year-old board game, AI and floating cities.…all-around delightful.

The Guardian
Ambitious, rapturous… A transcendentalist deep dive of a novel… What a lush, opaque world Powers conjures… A fabulous exploration.

Booklist (starred review)
Evocatively nuanced.... Rhapsodic with wonder, electric with cautionary facts and insights, Powers' profound and involving novel illuminates the conundrums of human nature.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Compelling, with fine writing on friendship and its loss and on the awe and delight the ocean inspires.... An engaging, eloquent message for this fragile planet.

Library Journal
Glorious…a transcendent novel about love.…Powers's extraordinary novels are a rebuttal to the notion that what stirs the mind can't also stir the heart.

Publishers Weekly
An epic drama of AI, neocolonialism, and oceanography ... dazzling. ... [T]he elegance of [Powers's] prose, the scope of his ambition, and the exacting reverence with which he writes about the imperiled world serve as reminders of why he ranks among America's foremost novelists. ... Readers will be awed.

The 2024 Book Prize Judges
A characterful, capacious and engaging novel, distilling subjects as diverse as oceanography, climate change, the legacies of colonialism and the arc of a lifelong friendship into an exhilaratingly entangled narrative in which Powers' unparalleled gifts for revealing the magic and mystery of the natural world are on full display.

Author Blurb Andrea Wulf
Powers is a master of taking important topics of our times―from threats to our oceans and climate change to AI―and turning them into riveting and fiercely relevant books imbued with psychological insight and a deep awe for nature. This eloquent dance of the scientific and emotional makes him one of our finest storytellers. Playground is brilliant, captivating, and important―and the best book I've read this year.

Author Blurb Emma Donoghue
An extraordinarily immersive journey through lives linked in mysterious ways―gripping, alarming, and uplifting.

Author Blurb Percival Everett
Is there anything Richard Powers cannot write? The world here is complete, seductive, and promising. The writing feels like the ocean. Vast, mysterious, deep, and alive.

Reader Reviews

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Beyond the Book



The History of Go

In Richard Powers' novel Playground, best friends Todd and Rafi become obsessed with the board game Go (often capitalized in English to differentiate it from the common verb), and the pastime plays a large role in the narrative. According to the National Go Center, "Beyond being merely a game, Go can take on other meanings to its devotees: an analogy for life, an intense meditation, a mirror of one's personality, [an] exercise in abstract reasoning, a mental 'workout' or, when played well, a beautiful art in which black and white dance in delicate balance across the board."

A painting by Qiu Ying (1494? – 1552) of three women playing go Outwardly, Go is a relatively simple game that even young children can learn, although its endless permutations mean one might never master it. It's played on a ...

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Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

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