by Richard Powers

isbn: 006097611X
subject: Fiction and Literature
finished: 6/28/1998

This is a really bleak book; it's even darker than Galatea 2.2. The story is about the mistreatment and suffering of children, now and throughout history, told through an emotionally wasted pediatric surgeon who becomes attached to a sick young girl that he must operate on. That may sound like a recipe for a tacky book, but it very much isn't. Powers' dense, allusive prose is both wonderful and painful to read:

Kraft tries to imagine this procedure, the one underneath his hands, coming off without anesthesia. Something pupates inside this baby. They must smash their way in, violating the miniature traceries of rib cage. A few feeble attempts to explain things to the infant, a pint of whiskey forced through a funnel to deaden the surface tingling. Then the blade, so sharp that even gristle melts at its wedge. Two adults to pin the flailing creature to the table, and a prayer that the child passes out relatively quickly. A shrieking worse than any that ever wafted over the death camps, because it screams, You were my protectors; I trusted you.

Although it is darkly beautiful on a paragraph and page level, overall this book didn't work nearly as well for me as Powers' other books have. Still, it's a worthwhile read.