“Some seeds need fire to sprout. What if you’re that seed?�
Oh, The Seed Keeper! What an absolute gem of a book—Diane Wilson's storytelling is nothing “Some seeds need fire to sprout. What if you’re that seed?�
Oh, The Seed Keeper! What an absolute gem of a book—Diane Wilson's storytelling is nothing short of magic. This novel captivated me with its lyrical prose and deeply resonant themes. The way it braids together past and present, weaving Rosalie Iron Wing’s personal journey with the generational trauma and resilience of the Dakota people, is just masterful.
Rosalie’s story hit me right in the feels—her childhood in the woods with her father, her heart-breaking foster care years, and her complex, bittersweet life with John on their farm. The contrast between the Dakhóta way of life, rooted in harmony with nature, and the destruction wrought by corporate farming (looking at you, Monsanto!) and colonisation is so beautifully and painfully rendered. And that twist? When the truth about Rosalie's early life was revealed, my jaw literally dropped. It made me want to go back and reread everything with fresh eyes.
Wilson doesn’t shy away from the hard truths—about American Indian residential schools, the commodification of seeds, and the erasure of indigenous knowledge—but she tells these stories with such tenderness and care. The seeds, both literal and symbolic, are the heartbeat of the novel. They represent so much: history, survival, identity, hope. The ending left me a blubbering mess.
If you loved Braiding Sweetgrass or enjoy books that honour indigenous traditions while challenging modern environmental and social injustices, this one’s for you. Highly, highly recommend! ...more
Richard Powers doesn’t just write books; he crafts emotional and intellectual landscapes so immersive that by the time you emerge, you’re not quite thRichard Powers doesn’t just write books; he crafts emotional and intellectual landscapes so immersive that by the time you emerge, you’re not quite the same person who began reading. Bewilderment is a novel of staggering beauty and quiet devastation, a book that shattered me completely.
Powers excels at balancing the grand and the intimate, interweaving environmental urgency with the deeply personal, and here, he does it through the relationship between Theo, an astrobiologist, and his son, Robin—a boy brimming with empathy, wonder, and the kind of raw intensity that the world has little patience for. The novel is a loose retelling of Flowers for Algernon, though instead of intelligence enhancement, Robin undergoes a neurological treatment that amplifies his mother’s essence within him. Watching him transform, blossom, and eventually break is heart-breaking in the way only the best literature can be.
Powers� prose is as breath-taking as ever, his sentences shimmering with poetic grace: "They share a lot, astronomy and childhood. Both are voyages across huge distances. Both search for facts beyond their grasp." There is a childlike wonder at the heart of this book, even as it stares unflinchingly at our species' self-destructive trajectory. Theo and Robin’s imaginary planetary excursions—each a thought experiment about what life could be—are some of the most affecting passages, dreamlike in their philosophical implications.
But what hit me the hardest was how much Bewilderment understands what it is to feel out of step with the world, to be too sensitive, too attuned to beauty and pain. It captures the loneliness of high intelligence, the ache of being surrounded by people who never question, never wonder, never care enough. And it does all this while being, on the surface, a father-son story wrapped in a planetary elegy.
I could quibble about how Powers sometimes leans too much into his themes, but the truth is, I didn’t care. I was too busy feeling—something this novel demands, in all its breathtaking, heart-wrenching brilliance.
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