Richard Powers: Playground

Playground is the third book I've read by Richard Powers. I'm somewhat of a latecomer, as he has authored 13 books over the past 33 years. But I'm sure I'm one of many people who were introduced to his work through his inimitable The Overstory, a book I found deeply affecting and mind-expanding.

He is clearly a master of his craft, but I will always judge his work by how The Overstory changed me. And unfortunately, this one just didn't rise to the same level. I was looking forward to an equally profound treatise on wonder and the loss of our ocean habitats.

For moments, it was that, which I found embedded in the brief natural history of a central island in the story:

The course of civilization is carved in ocean currents. Where sea layers mix, where rains travel or wastelands spread, where great upwellings bring deep, cold, nutrient-rich waters to the energy-bathed surface and fish go mad with fecundity, where soils turn fertile or anemic, where temperatures turn habitable or harsh, where trade routes flourish or fail: all this the global ocean engine determines. The fate of continents is written in water. And sometimes great cities owe their existence to tiny ocean islands. For a while Makatea fed millions.

There were beautiful passages and profound learnings to be had through the eyes of Evie Beaulieu, a pioneering oceanographer based on a real-life scientist. Reading her story really made me wonder if I am truly making the most of my short life on this planet, and whether I have been making enough room for wonder and connection to the natural world.

But she was merely a side character: the main storyline involved the friendship and rivalry between two friends, and how their childhood traumas shaped their relationships. These friends are close and inseparable, until one day they aren't, but the event that drove them apart seemed so minor to me that it was hard to offer the characters much grace or empathy. My main feeling was "Really, that was it?"

One becomes a tech CEO creating a product, Playground, which seems to be a fictional representation of Reddit, and how it evolved into a hyper-advanced LLM. I'm just tired of hearing about AI, and having so much of the book dedicated to that less interesting topic was a letdown for me.

Richard Powers is known for juggling multiple tangential storylines and bringing them together either narratively or thematically, which he can handle with virtuosity. Without giving spoilers, I felt as though the storylines were brought together in only the most superficial of ways, and the payoff wasn't particularly compelling.

It's not a bad book by any means. His writing is great, and he has a unique ability to embody a huge diversity of characters in a believable and empathetic way. And it's probably not fair of me to judge a book for not being... a different book. But it may have just arrived for me at the wrong time, and I can't imagine recommending it unless you're already a fan.