The Echo Maker: Richard Powers

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I found many fascinating topics in every level of this examination, from discussions about empathy and our connection to other people, to the deeply personal perception of ourselves, seemingly continuous and stable yet scattered, fragile and mind-bogglingly complex underneath the surface.

But when he emerges from a protracted coma, Mark believes that this woman — who looks, acts, and sounds just like his sister — is really an impostor. As Mark struggles with with this delusion, one brought on by a physical brain state (usually damage to the prefrontal cortex), a number of characters, the first and foremost being his sister, Karin, Powers meditates on how human beings deal with the suggestion that they are merely physical mechanisms responding in kind to the biological sublimity of the natural world. If you spent a week reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat while watching the Hallmark Channel, you might end up writing this novel. Un romanzo ambizioso, questo di Richard Powers, forse ancor più ambizioso del precedente, "Il tempo di una canzone", ma che non è stato in grado di rapirmi ed emozionarmi allo stesso modo, con una scrittura e una storia che alternano momenti di rara bellezza a momenti in cui la storia sembra perdere il ritmo, smarrirsi anch'essa fra i meandri della mente umana, o fra il reticolo delle strade di Kearney, in cui il romanzo, da psiconeurologico drammatico e intimista, cambia natura per diventare quasi un giallo, prima, un'inchiesta e una denuncia ambientalista, poi, per tornare, infine, al suo centro. Who left the note by Mark’s hospital bed the night of the accident, the one that sends him questing through town?But rather than “telling” you to read this gem of a book, I’ll rely on the examples above to “show” you glimpses of the phrenic delights you’d be missing if you don’t. The book charts the long journey of the accident victim trying to make sense of his surreal world, and carries a couple relationship subplots along with it, along with a growing fight between preservationists who want to save the sand crane nesting area nearby and developers who have other plans. Karin Schluter rushes back to her hometown to see her brother and discovers a strange handwritten note by his bedside: “I am No One / but Tonight on North Line Road / GOD led me to you / so You could Live / and bring back someone else. Usually found only in schizophrenics, Mark's case is an extremely rare example of Capgras caused by injury. The opening pages show us cranes arriving at a site they visit every year as part of their annual migration.

After a near-death experience on a wintery rural road in Nebraska, he now struggles with Capgras syndrome: post-traumatic affliction leading him to believe that his sister, Karin, is an imposter. No romantic relationship of her own has succeeded, nor have any of her attempts to run away from Nebraska. This man comes from New England to take a look and diagnoses Mark with Capgras syndrome; the delusion that people in one's life are doubles standing in for the real person.Powers takes an aerial view of the life of an individual, the loneliness and solitude, while the characters strive to bridge the gap and explore the gap of connectedness. Even Karin, to a certain degree, could be seen as the sort of woman who - because she felt so alienated by her peers growing up - did everything in her power to escape the stultifying ignorance of her midwestern roots. When he lights upon something interesting, he'll stay awhile (often too long), pressing into the depths with occasionally gorgeous sentences.