“Thumb-nail review of Orfeo,” appears in Daniel Goode’s blog. I did find it a little spooky that such a good novelist seems to know our world from the inside. Was he “spying” on us? Or was he one of us, once, not so long ago?
Review of Orfeo by Rebecca Foster, The Bookbag, April 22, 2104. A highly cerebral satire on the surveillance society, yet still witty and full of heart. Strongly recommended.
“Book review: Orfeo by Richard Powers,” by James Kidd, The Independent, April 16, 2014. Orfeo is extraordinary and confounding, mind-spinning and wonderful. Just what a proper novel should be.
“Orfeo by Richard Powers review – Mahler, Messiaen and DNA,” by Steven Poole, The Guardian, April 11, 2014. Very often, this novel makes you want to scurry to CD player or iPod to listen along. In that infectious enthusiasm, Orfeo is the equivalent in fiction of Alex Ross’s history of 20th-century music, The Rest Is Noise. … Powers supplies a galloping finale that, Read More
“Orfeo by Richard Powers, book review: Music, germs and a touch of genius,” by Jonathan Gibbs, The Independent, April 10, 2014. [T]his is the best novel about classical music that I’ve read since Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus. … The book is full of incident, both then and now, and there are sections of pages at a time, Read More
Review of Orfeo by Aaron Thier, The Nation, April 7, 2014. … Orfeo is wide and deep, concerned ultimately not with privacy or bioterrorism or unlawful detention but rather with the bigger thing, the real thing—the soul, or even The Soul.
Review of Orfeo by Laura Wadley, Daily Herald (Utah), March 23, 2014. Orfeo is a profound and beautiful work, challenging, maddening, deeply memorable.
Orfeo reviewed by Bill Brody for MostlyFiction, March 20, 2014. [A] a learned and passionate discourse on western music … evocative as all get out.
Review of Orfeo by Raging Biblio-holism, March 17, 2014. The novel itself is a speedy, well-constructed concerto for a mixed ensemble – but it is in the writing about the songs that it transcends the written word to become something else entirely. … It’s absolutely astonishing. Powers has done something remarkable here.
Review of Orfeo by T. S. Miller, Strange Horizons, March 17, 2014. Richard Powers’s new novel draws its inspiration and emotional power more from the history of Western music than the tale of Orpheus itself. Orfeo is far from a straight retelling of the myth in a new setting … Every era has produced its own ample crop, Read More
Review of Orfeo by Brett Josef Grubisic, The Rumpus, March 17, 2014. [E]nthralling—elegiac, funny, pensive, anxious … Despite the explicit musicality, readers will likely pick up the unmistakably cinematic qualities of these pages. … each of the novel’s elements proves intriguing. Although it’s erudite and whimsical, the author gives his layered story an effective immediacy.
“Editor’s Corner – March 2014 – Twin Passions,” a review of Orfeo by David Olds, The WholeNote, February 26, 2014. Powers is a master at describing and giving context to the examples of great music he chooses to include, and his insights are enlightening. … As always, Powers’ blending of fact and fiction keeps us on the, Read More