Playground: A Book That Shifted My Perspective
I've been knitting like crazy this week, but I can't show you any photos because the current project is a commissioned design. I can only tell you that I'm nearly ready to needle-felt some steeks, which is a major milestone on the road to finishing.
As usual, audiobooks have been my knitting companions. But I just finished reading a hardcover book that I'm excited to tell you about. It's Playground by Richard Powers.
Powers has a rare ability to blend hard science with imaginative fiction in an interlocking swirl of themes and storylines. I first encountered Powers through his 2019 Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Overstory.
On one level, Powers' novels are cautionary tales about the dangers of climate change and the impact of modern human society on the health of the planet. On a deeper level, they are stories of passionate people who work and love and flounder and make mistakes. While Playground focuses on the ocean, and The Overstory centers on trees and forests, both are populated with characters about whom I came to care deeply.
Playground follows four main characters. We meet Evie Beaulieu at the age of 12 when her father, one of the inventors of the first aqualung, throws her into a pool as part of an early test. She goes on to become a pioneering marine biologist and author. Ina Aroita is an artist who grows up on Pacific island naval bases. She doesn't step foot on a continent until she goes to college in Illinois. There she meets two high-school friends from Chicago who bonded over playing games. Rafi Young, the son of a black firefighter, devotes himself to poetry and literature. Todd Keane, the son of a high-flying options trader, is drawn to computer science. He goes on to develop an early social network and make breakthroughs in artificial intelligence.
These four come together on the Polynesian atoll of Makatea. The 82 residents of the island, with memories of the toll taken by phosphate mining operations in the early 20th century, are considering a proposal to become the home base for a project to launch autonomous floating cities into the open sea. Will they vote to preserve their remote and materially impoverished but spiritually and environmentally rich way of life? Or will the prospect of steady jobs and modern infrastructure be enough for them to endanger their island and the reefs and waters that sustain it?
I was entranced by the vivid descriptions of the undersea world as seen through Evie's eyes. I did a little scuba diving in the early 1990s, and Playground took me right back to swimming with sea turtles in the warm waters off the coast of Belize.
Powers does as excellent job of illustrating the growth and evolution of technology. He shows us how one thing leads to the next and the next until unintended consequences start to erupt. He points out how the gamer mindset of finding all the moves nobody thought to outlaw pervades the development of social networks and the use of all the personal data we willingly, if unwittingly, give away every day.
Playground changed the way I think about the world, which is the very best sign of a book worth reading.
If you've read Playground and The Overstory and can't get enough of Richard Powers, I recommend you read his 2021 novel Bewilderment. In this beautiful, devastating book, Powers tackles the question: How can we tell our children the truth about the state of the planet without destroying their hopes for the future?
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Things that caught my eye…
The New York Times featured Eva Joan, a small business bringing high-end clothing repair, refashioning, and embellishment to New York.
Deborah Rutter was dismissed from her position as President of the Kennedy Center (America's National Performing Arts Center) when Trump's hand-picked board of directors installed him as the new Chairman. Her interview with Mary Louise Kelly of NPR is an inspiring example of dignity, grace, and truth-telling.
As always, I’m grateful for your attention and your support. Continue the conversation: Is there a book that changed the way you think about the world? Tell me about it in the comments. I’m always happy to hear your recommendations.
Thank you for the recommendation of Playground. I have a copy of The Overstory (bought a few years ago) which sits as yet unread. It seems that when I’m sitting still, I need to be doing something with my hands so I might try out the audio versions of these books 🙂 And, yes, too sad about the Kennedy Center. It will be “interesting” to see who he can get to perform there … Ted Nugent, maybe? (🤢)
I watched the interview with Deborah Rutter formerly of the Kennedy center with sadness.
I watch Kennedy Center performances while in my studio weaving, knitting and designing. The expressive dance, music and intertwining of styles and cultures is uplifting and inspiring.
This is such a loss.