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Oct 04, 2007

Jessica rated it:

Flowers for Algernon for the new millennium!!!!!

Okay, not really, no. Well, maybe a little...?

The best parts of this book were those written from the perspective of a character with severe traumatic brain injury. The rest of it was good too, but the characters were never quite convincing enough for me to suspend my disbelief and actually care what happened to them. Of course, I was helplessly distracted the entire time by the Man Behind the Curtain. Does Richard Powers do More...

5 comments like (15 people liked it)

Jun 17, 2011

Jimmy rated it:

"The issue of subjectivity is a hotly debated topic in the fields of philosophy and the cognitive sciences. But is subjectivity necessary at all? Why is it not just enough to see and react, as a robot might do? What advantage is conferred on the organism by actually experiencing something over just doing it? It is important to consider that animals may not have subjectivity but only react as if they do. Some in this field point out that because we cannot determine that animals do have More...

19 comments like (18 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Phyllis rated it:

Mr. Powers, I have no doubt in your ability to write the sappiest story ever. Not only do you manage to force a sister-brother bond over whooping cranes and frost, you also manage to force a shameful-but-safe romance between said sister and said brother's successful counterpart. I hate you. Thanks to you I will never like a crane, I will never sympathize with head trauma victims, and I will never finish your dumb book. You may have fooled Oprah, but I've got your number!

2 comments like (14 people liked it)

Apr 11, 2008

David rated it:

I've always had mixed feelings about Richard Powers. On the one hand, he is at work creating a new kind of American literary voice -- one fluent in the vocabulary of technology that anyone with a computer and a gadget fetish begins to incorporate into his or her discourse. It's a burning, living, thoroughly modern idiom that most writers -- pale and sheltered one sees them -- have ignored, maybe even with some disdain. But on the other hand, Powers has always been a writer uncomfortable with emo More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Sep 14, 2007

Mark rated it:

SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT: I'm not giving away the ending here, but the following does give away some of the plot developments.

This won the National Book Award last year, and is by an author who has received one of the MacArthur "genius awards." Did it deserve it?

In the end, I can't endorse the choice, even though there is much to commend in this book. The basic story: a Nebraska factory worker flips his truck on a cold winter night, and when he wakes up, he believe More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Apr 03, 2008

Melissa rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

17 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 24, 2011

Tempest rated it:

The Echo Maker is akin to an Oscar-winning film. Dramatic, touching, well-executed, and conventionally conservative.

The story is backdropped against a small town that hosts a spectacular bird migration once a year. The hero is involved in a near-fatal car crash, from which he emerges from with Capgras syndrome; a disease which prevents him from recognizing his sister or his dog, instead believing them to be impostors impersonating the genuine articles. The novel follows them through More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Oct 17, 2007

C(h)ristine rated it:

National Book Award winner. Story about a character with a brain injury. Given to me by a friend (thank you thank you!). All signs pointing me to read this book! And Powers does have some languid prose that creates a crisp landscape in my mind. I will, for instance, never forget the cranes that he describes throughout the book. I mean, check out the opening lines below–are they not gorgeous?

But. But! The book’s momentum (ie., plot) is very slow. Maybe it’s my mood (I LOVED the book O More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Jason rated it:

Let’s keep this short and to the point. This is about a man who suffers brain damage and afterwards recognizes everyone but his own sister. Crane migrations bookend and structure the novel. And, sadly, there’s not much else to report from such fertile ground. If you have time to read, you’d be better off reading something else. Edgar Rice Burroughs, for example. At least then, you could amuse yourself by trying to read run-on sentences out load before you run out of breath. The Echo Maker just m More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 01, 2009

Djrmel rated it:

Part medical mystery, part thriller, part (very) contemporary literature, and 100% metaphor for how much 9/11 changed the world means there is a lot going on in this book. A man is in a freak car accident that should have left him dead, instead it leaves him with Capgras Syndrom - he thinks that the people closest to him are imposters and his real loved ones are being kept from him. This includes his only sister, who gives up her attempts to break away from the small town they grew up in to tak More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 29, 2009

Sergey rated it:

The novel is a lyrical, tragic interlude into the mind, as complex as the mind itself.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 11, 2008

Robert rated it:

I’m going to try a different approach to this. I’m going to toss out words or thoughts that come to me as I recall this novel.

migratory
self
questions of self, such as are we who we think we are, and the key word here is think. Does the conscious self come from within, or is it merely an echo?
stories and narration – do humans live the story, that is, do we need to see or hear something before we incorporate it into our own self. Powers uses the mockingbird to demonstr More...

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Jul 22, 2010

HeiLi rated it:

The book was described as a "psychological thriller" on its back-cover and that's why I bought it in the first place.

I read it more than half way through (a very slow, painful experience really - and NOT because I was down with the flu at the time) and then decided that there never was a lamer story ... ever.

There is so much wrong with this book that I don't know where to begin. First of all, it is more a case-study than a thriller, and the only character of int More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2008

Kremena rated it:

I liked this book for its study of the human brain at different zoom levels; from the evolutionary scale of millions of years, our reptilian brain and deep-rooted animal instincts connecting us to the cranes, the intriguing species Powers has chosen to present his case. The narratives intertwining observations about the cranes, the water ways, and the human relationship to them (at once primevally close and irreparably distant) are beautifully woven and provide plenty of thought-provoking mater More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Sep 15, 2008

Will rated it:

Here we are again in the world of literature. Powers is a powerful writer. The length of the book (451 pps) does not really tell the length of this work. It is not a fast read. There is much content woven into the pages, a tapestry of imagery and meaning that enhances the action of the story.

Kearny Nebraska is a way station on the central flyway, a place where thousands of cranes congregate every year on their way north and south, providing an industry for the town. The descriptions of More...

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 26, 2008

Nathan rated it:

A scattershot review:

As a nascent cognitive neuroscientist, I'll have to admit that the name dropping of a slew of well-known neurological conditions gave me plenty of recognizable material -- much more than is normally included in a fictitious account. You can see that Powers has done his research, he covers all of the big findings in research in the sense of Self. Tying these cases together to show how essentially formless the Self is led to a couple short passages of insight exten More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 21, 2008

Rita rated it:

Eh. It was all right. No spoilers (none more than what’s on the jacket flap).

Mark Schluter crashes his truck off of a highway in rural Nebraska and ends up in a coma for 14 days. His sister, Karin, leaves everything behind to rush to his side and care for him. When he emerges from his coma, he doesn’t acknowledge her as his sister. He suffers from Capgras syndrome, a rare condition where a person misidentifies someone closest to him—believes that person has been replaced by an More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 20, 2008

Sara rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 16, 2008

Ben rated it:

Plot and formula won out over characters in this Powers effort. Although the description sounds quite intriguing, the execution was flat and undeveloped. To me, it seems as if Powers stumbled upon this concept of the Capgras Syndrome and decided to write about it. How interesting that a person could have this focused paranoia, where he believes everything in the world save one person or thing, whom he believes to be an impostor? Now, to write the book, it seems that Powers researched the disorde More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 28, 2008

Ryan rated it:

I will look back on this and see it as a mistake. I should not pass judgment on a book that I haven't finished, and should keep quiet about my displeasure with a novel that seems to be universally loved. I know (because it always happens) that I will look back and realize how dumb I am.

Even so, I am fighting my way through Powers's writing. Is there anyone out there who feels the same? Is there no one who also feels that the writing comes off as amateurish and sentimental, and who More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Lindsay rated it:

This is the best Richard Powers I've read so far possibly because it continues to explore ideas that his other novels bring up. The Echo Maker is a great post-9/11 story about finding meaning in contemporary American Life and about what it means to be human when neuroscience increasingly sees the brain as a computer and the "mind" as nonexistent. But that's just what I think the Echo Maker is about because those messages resonate with me right now; you might find its other themes (the More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Feb 24, 2008

Kate rated it:

This book stunk so badly that I left it on the seat of the train as I was leaving.

A woman behind me said, "Excuse me, I think you left your book."

And I said, "Yeah, I kind of wanted to leave my book, in hopes that someone else would come along and not hate it as much as I did."

This book was long, boring, rambling and had one plot twist that was moderately interesting, but didn't show up until about page 400 (out of 450).

Skip i More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Sep 30, 2008

John rated it:

I actually debated with myself whether to give this book three stars or four stars. What made the book really interesting to me was the window into Capgras and the potential psychological effects an both the sufferers and their families. I have to say, though, that without those elements, there wouldn't have been a whole lot left to keep me reading.

The characters were OK, but I found Karin, Weber, and Daniel a bit annoying at times. Mark was the only character I really liked.

More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 05, 2011

Shani rated it:

I must agree with another reviewer that this book is richly written and complex and laborious to read. I like the subject of the book but not Dr. Webber's personality or the underlying critism of those who write books about neurological patients like Oliver Sacks. I didn't think Dr. Webber 'lossing himself' had anythnig to do with Mike's syndrome, but with his failed book. I wish the book had focused less on the doc and more on Mike. And I think by the end of the book, I *GOT* the fact the doc d More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 31, 2008

Bill rated it:

Karin returns to her small town in Nebraska to care for her brother Mark, almost killed in a mysterious highway accident. When Mark regains consciousness, he insists that Karin is not his real sister and treats her as an impostor. In an attempt to cure Mark of his delusion, Karin contacts Dr. Weber--a neurologist modeled on writer Oliver Sacks--and asks him to examine her brother.

This is a fine novel with considerable narrative drive and a not unsatisfying conclusion. Its deeply p More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 09, 2009

Kristin rated it:

This is a wonderful book. The structure of the sentences is poetic, vibrant, and rich. You will see colors as you read. Characters are well-developed and complex.

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jun 10, 2008

Natalie rated it:

This book was a lightweight human drama trying desperately to be esoteric and intellectual. If it was also trying to incorporate mystery, it failed miserably. JMO. That said, it does make you think about the nature of human relationships and perception vs reality and there was some fascinating information about how much we do and do not understand about the human brain. I wouldn't say that I'm really sorry I read this book and perhaps it is me who is not intellectual enough. Perhaps trying More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 04, 2011

Deb rated it:

Karin Schluter is awakend one night by a phone call informing her that her brother was severely injured in a one car accident along a lonely strech of Nebraska road. Karin rushes back home to help her brother Mark through his recovery from his injuries, which include a brain injury that ends up making him unable to recognize her as his sister. Karin sticks with him, fulfilling a childhood promise to always be there for her, though it costs her a lot. She has to stay in their hometown, a place More...

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Jan 27, 2009

Alan rated it:

A strong and powerful novel which, like most of Powers' work, skirts the edges of science fiction - in this case, the science of mind. The central character, Mark Schluter, suffers brain damage as a result of a mysterious accident in his truck, on a lonely road in central Nebraska.

Mark comes out of coma with a particular disorder that should be at least somewhat familiar to any reader of Oliver Sacks' works about the mind (Sacks is himself, by the way, never mentioned in the book): C More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 06, 2009

Diane rated it:

I chose this book to read because it takes place not far from where I used to live in Nebraska, and its subject matters are the sandhill cranes on the Platte River and the functioning of the human brain. Since others had rated it rather low, I had low expectations going into the read. But the main theme (How does one know who they really are?) was engrossing. With all the new information discovered on how the brain really works, and because of my personal situation, I can't help but realize h More...

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