[Richard Powers] was not only happy to share the most recent titles on his reading list, but was willing to recommend one of them as the book most likely to shed extra light on, and perhaps even enhance, readers’ enjoyment of his “Orfeo.”
Powers brings his characters to life through vivid dialogue and language sometimes musical and always attentive to precise detail. … his evocations of music, let alone lost love, simply soar off the page. … Peter Els emerges as one of the most fascinating characters of recent fiction, yet another brainy Powers protagonist struggling to survive within a society that can’t make sense of him. “Orfeo” is a novel not only for music lovers but for readers who thrive on sophisticated fiction that still believes in stomach-churning storytelling. One again, Richard Powers proves himself to be one of our finest novelists.
Powers integrates these bits of narrative deftly, like the interweaving of a million strands of DNA. Yet it is his portrayal of Els’ inner life that gives “Orfeo” its heft. … [a] magnificent and moving novel….
Orfeo reviewed by Keith Staskiewicz, Entertainment Weekly, January 15, 2014.
Powers’ writing is complex and heady without being headachy, and his synesthetic descriptions of finding melodies in the mundane are full of their own kind of music.
“Orfeo” is ultimately about the creative impulse, which Powers suggests will always be with us. “Each historical moment has its crisis,” he says. “Human hunger is complicated. But we will always want serious things. We have a need to be stretched and to listen to dark and not always easy things. At the same time, we need spontaneous joy — and a good beat.”
“Orfeo” is beautiful, challenging, and haunting, a composition that captures a period of time while hinting at timelessness.
Review of Orfeo, by Harvey Freedenberg, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, January 11, 2014.
“Orfeo” is that rare novel truly deserving of the label “lyrical.” Powers’ gorgeous and deeply felt writing about music sent me back to Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony and introduced me to Steve Reich’s “Proverb.” This is an ambitious work of broad scope and big ideas, like most of Powers’ fiction… Richard Powers offers a profound story whose delights are many and lasting.
…Orfeo is a first-class American road novel…[In] this retelling of the Orpheus myth Powers also manages enchantment—or, re-enchantment, if you, like so many of us, believe the world today needs that…[Over] his career Powers has shown himself to be a musician with ever-changing time signatures, a time traveler who doesn’t see much value in keeping time—probably because he understands that time can’t keep us.