Tripping in the ocean
"I'm not smart enough for this novel," I bemoaned to my dear friend and literary mentor. "What did you think about the ending?" I asked her, hoping for clarity as we sat down to talk about Richard Powers' 2024 novel, Playground.
Playground astounded me with its beauty, its depth, and its complexity. I got involved with the characters, their backstories, and their emotions. I was excited to see how it all came together when all the major characters connected on Makatea, a small island in French Polynesia.
To preserve the pleasure for you, I promise not to give the ending away, but let me tell you this: It will blow you away!
Boyhood Buddies
Rafi Young is a black kid with a father who is driven to make Rafi succeed in a world where black boys without money are overlooked. To even the scales, Rafi's dad makes Rafi read, pushing him to absorb hundreds of books and novels, constantly reading everything he can put his hands on.
The results?
Rafi is brilliant, and his knowledge of the world acquired through books earns him scholarships to exclusive white private schools.
It's at one of those exclusive schools that Rafi meets Todd Keane, a lonely boy from an affluent Chicago family. Todd's dad is a stock trader. On the occasions when he is home, he is too busy fighting with Todd's mother to pay attention to his son. Todd grows up lonely, a boy who reads and tinkers with electronics to fill his hours.
As a young boy, Todd reads a book by Evelyne Beaulieu’s book, Clearly It Is Ocean. He is so moved by the beautiful stories about the ocean and its creatures that he vows to become an oceanographer.
Rafi's vast exposure to literature leads him to pursue Literature and Creative Writing in college. Todd, the once wanna-be oceanographer, started fiddling with computers and electronics has declared computer science as his major. The two boys collide at the University of Illinois where they form deep bonds of friendship because of chess games, an addiction to the ancient Chinese game of "GO," and recognition of the other's brilliance.
A third person comes into the friendship when an art student, Ina Aroita, a woman with Pacific islander roots, connects with Rafi and Todd.
Oceanographer Extraordinaire
My favorite character is the French Canadian woman named Evelyne Beaulieu. As a young child, Evie learned to dive because her father helped create the world's first aqualung. She feels comfortable under the water and begins a lifelong quest to break gender barriers and become a woman oceanographer in the 1950s.
She wrote the book that made Todd Keane want to be an oceanographer, but she does so much more than that. She becomes a champion of the ocean and all its organisms. Evie records the stunning beauty of underwater creatures, chronicling their "dancing" and "playing." She writes of their glorious flashing colors and graceful movements, in awe of their power and abilities.
The ocean scenes are magnificent. I have been a landlocked Midwesterner all my life, but I have always loved the ocean. Some of the descriptions in Playground made me suck in my breath, in awe of their beauty. One reviewer said this:
Some of the underwater scenes are so limpid and sensorially rich, it’s like watching an oceanic feature in Imax.
I agree! Richard Powers crafted gorgeous prose that made me want to immerse myself in the great blue sea and frolic with manta rays!
What Comes Next in Playground
Over the years, Rafi and Ina have lost touch with Todd who has become a billionaire tech mogul by developing a software platform called Playground.
Evelyne Beaulieu, late in life, has gone to the tiny Polynesia island of Makatea to research another book.
Rafi and Ina are on Makatea with two adopted children. Ina is a practicing artist, creating sculptures from the pieces of plastic and non-biodegradable materials that wash up on their beach every day.
Todd Keane is on his way to Makatea to urge the islanders to vote on a proposition that would create a floating "seasteading" colony off the island, a way to generate both jobs and revenue for the island. Todd is financing the project, but the islanders are wary since their economy crashed once before when big industry established a phosphate business that went bust there.
Keane is using all his resources to convince the people to vote for the seasteading colony including a powerful AI program that answers all their questions.
The Narration
Todd Keane narrates most of the story. In the beginning of the book, we learn that Todd is suffering from a neurological brain disease that is taking away both his physical and mental abilities. It's dementia with Lewy-Bodies. Whatever you feel about the character of Todd Keane, you will probably be moved by his struggle with the disease. Losing your ability ito think and move is poignant and painful, and all the money in the world can't change it.
Are You Smart Enough?
Maybe you will have caught clues I didn't catch. Perhaps you put all the pieces together faster than I did. Possibly, you understood the ending on the first pass.
One reviewer called it "mind-bending."
For sure!
I freely admit I was "gob-smacked" by the ending and reread the last section to make sure I understood the big picture of Playground.
Big Themes
Richard Powers' novel, Playground, is not playing around with trivial ideas. It deals with intellect, friendship, wealth, health, the constant war between conservation and commercialization, the danger to the ocean from development, and the ever-more powerful encroachment of AI into our lives.
The Overstory
I loved the novel, The Overstory, that won Powers the Pulitzer for Fiction in 2019. It, too, was a tale of caution about what our world is doing to harm our environment, specifically, the trees.
The Overstory and Playground have similar themes.
In Playground, Powers highlights the plights of an ocean in a changing world.
"As always, Powers is amazed by human creativity and appalled by the careless ways it’s deployed."
I have thought about Playground over and over in the past two months since I've read it. Try it and you might feel what I do: a haunting fear of what man can do to destroy our beautiful natural world.
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Buy Playground from Amazon (online retailer)
Buy Playground from Bookshop.org (supports independent bookstores)
Buy The Overstory from Amazon (online retailer)
Buy The Overstory from Bookshop.org (supports independent bookstores)
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