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The Echo Maker | 
 enlarge | Author: Richard Powers
Publisher: Large Print Press
Category: Book
List Price: £7.79
Buy New: £4.94
You Save: £2.85 (37%)
New (19) Used (6) from £4.93
Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 333197
Format: Large Print
Media: Paperback
Edition: Lrg
Pages: 763
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.6
ISBN: 1594132089
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781594132087
ASIN: 1594132089
Publication Date: August 2, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
Nonfiction Book About Brain Injuries and Consciousness Wrapped into a Fiction Format May 14, 2008
Donald Mitchell (Boston)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
It's hard for me to know who would like this book. It contains a great deal of information about how the brain works, consciousness is created, and the quirks of various mental disorders . . . but someone interested in those subjects would typically read a nonfiction book on the subject instead.
At the same time, those who like novels generally are looking for a story that moves through actions rather faster than the repeated ramblings in the characters' minds on the same subjects. With three narrators, you get to read about three sets of repetitive ramblings.
I must agree that I've never read a book quite like this, and I enjoy learning more about the latest in the neurosciences and how unusual conditions arise. Much of the book, however, reminded me of the paranoid ravings of a schizophrenic I knew once. Realizing the similarity to what a schizophrenic would say and do . . . and what the treatments are, I became skeptical about how accurate this book's fiction is for this particular brain injury.
There's some poetic material tying our common genetic heritages together between the human and animal worlds, but that's clearly secondary to the main messages.
I felt, too, that the book took too long to develop: Seemingly trying to make us suffer along with some of the characters by having to bear up with the problems for a long time.
I certainly agree with those who are impressed by the scope of the book's vision . . . I just don't agree with how well that vision was implemented. There are instances of fine writing in the book, but the overall plan didn't satisfy me as a way to communicate those points.
Unless you feel compelled to read this book because of the disagreements about it, I suggest you skip it.
 A fascinating and intelligent story, tackling many big themes February 18, 2008
J. Aitcheson (Wiltshire, England)
"The Echo Maker" is the ninth and latest novel by American author Richard Powers. One winter's night in Nebraska, Karin Schluter receives a call: her brother Mark has been involved in a near-fatal road accident and is in hospital, critically injured and possibly brain-damaged. When finally he awakes from his coma, he seems to have made a full recovery except for one detail: he believes that Karin is not his real sister but in fact a near-identical impostor. Mark is suffering from an extremely rare recognition disorder known as Capgras Syndrome. Devastated by her brother's insistent denial of her, Karin calls on renowned neurologist Gerald Weber in a desperate plea for help. Meanwhile, Mark struggles to understand why and how his world appears suddenly changed. With the sole clue available to him - an anonymous note left by his hospital bedside - he slowly begins to discover what actually happened on the night of his accident.
This is a novel full of grand themes, namely the relationship of mind, soul, brain and body, and the very nature of memory, reality and identity. What is the essence that makes us who we are? Does it matter how other people perceive us, and how are we ourselves shaped by their actions? This is by no means a dry read, however, since Powers fills his narrative with a cast of interesting and brilliantly realised characters, from the at-times neurotic Karin to the rational but increasingly depressive Weber, from Mark's beer-guzzling buddies to the mysterious care worker Barbara. All of these characters, too, have their problems, which are only exacerbated as they respond to the pressures of assisting Mark's recovery.
At the same time there are some elements of a detective story, or a psychological thriller, and indeed Powers does remarkably well to maintain the suspense over the course of the book. For the most part his prose flows very well, and is not impeded either by the gravity of the issues at hand or by an excess of neurobiological information or language. Unfortunately, it is let down in the closing twenty to thirty pages of the book, where the narrative degenerates to the point where it is almost unintelligible, and the dialogue becomes a mess of cryptic half-sentences. Indeed the resolution as a whole feels somewhat rushed and chaotic, and ultimately unsatisfying for a novel of this length.
This aside, however, "The Echo Maker" is a fascinating - and in many places unsettling - journey through the manifold quirks of the human mind. On the whole it remains a stimulating and engaging read, and one that I can recommend.
Too long for the brief story December 6, 2007
Thomas Paul (Plainview, NY USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you spent a week reading "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat" while watching the Hallmark Channel, you might end up writing this novel. Mark Shluter has crashed his truck and his sister, Karin, quits her job and dumps her boyfriend to take care of him. But Mark suffered a brain injury in the accident and insists that his sister is not his sister but someone pretending to be his sister. A famous neurologist, Gerald Weber, arrives to see Mark so he can write about him in his next book. And some cranes fly through town on their way to Alaska.
The main problem with the story is that Powers does nothing with the story. His characters are uninteresting to start with and are completely unbelievable. They don't react to situations, they overreact. Everything that happens is the most important thing that has ever happened and every character reacts that way. And Powers doesn't tell a story, too often he tells us about a story. For example, when Weber goes on a television show, we only find out that he embarrasses himself during the interview but not what he said that was so terrible that it destroyed sales of his book. Weber, a crucial character in the story, is the weakest written character in the book. It is virtually impossible to justify or understand his actions. And if two people have sex in the mud, don't you think they might want to shower or at least change their clothes before going off to lunch and then on to some tourist attraction?
There are some good parts of the book. The mystery of the letter left at the hospital is interesting and is wrapped up quite nicely. In a clever and effective technique, Powers writes alternating sections from the point of view of the various characters. But the book would have been much better if Powers had reduced the length by about 200 pages. I found myself becoming bored with the characters and the story. Serious editing and the elimination of certain story threads could have kept the book short enough to make us not care that the characters are completely unlikeable and unbelievable. But at 450 pages, the holes in the characters shine through.
Posterity or literary awards? August 23, 2007
Dr. Valerie A. Curtis (London, UK)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
With his early work (particularly Goldbug and Singing) Richard Powers created muscular explorations of truth through science, love, life and music. He was writing literature that will endure. Each book was an experiment - about ways to get deep inside human experience, and to express the ineffable.
With Echomaker, my guess is he tried to make something simpler, requiring less painful engagement and imagination from the reader. Whilst the stories and people rang true, the book never reaches for the exultant heights, the miraculous prose -- of his previous works. It is his attempt to garner a larger audience, but at the price of never making the heart beat fast, or tears to flow at the uncanny accuracy of his expression. The other books made me say "How does this guy know this?" They proved that Powers has been there, felt what we feel - in short, that he KNOWS.
So what happened with Echomaker? Is Power's yearning to understand and create dimming, now he has found love and contentment in his personal life? Does the need to provide for a wife mean he's after status, recognition and riches - the literary prizes? Or perhaps this is too simple an explanation. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he dictated it, rather than carving it out of solid blocks of English.
In any case, Powers needs to get back on form, and here's my prescription. He needs to get out more -- shake up his slightly too narrow view of culture by living and taking in perspectives from outside the US. He needs to read more evolutionary psychology-incorporate what science is telling us now about human nature and human culture-a brew so heady it hardly needs fiction. Most importantly, he needs to pick a big question. Try any these, which make humans different from the rest of creation: what is morality about?, what is spirituality?, what is culture for? and run it through his intellectual mincer.
Craft us out another hot dish please Richard. Don't pander to the critics. Make it as tough as you can. Take us back to the passionate heights of ideas sent crashing at each other. 21st century culture needs you back Richard. Make us weep again.
 poor writing detracts from a reasonable storyline June 1, 2007
S. Henley
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
An interesting storyline is terribly overwritten by Richard Powers. The prose is dense and pretentious, with seemingly innocuous exchanges between characters sitting oddly next to deeply melodramatic soul-searching. The neurology is fairly sound (I was given the book because I'm a neuropsychologist) and I, like one of the other reviewers, stuck with the story in order to see what happened. Powers' desperately erudite style, though, and his efforts to weave philosophy of consciousness into almost every sentence, make for a very unsatisfying read. Although grammatically correct, his glaring use of the possessive pronoun with gerunds "It wouldn't have made any difference, *our* coming forwards", in all characters from the well-spoken neurologist to the beer-drinking, truck-racing lads, makes the speech stilted and unrealistic. Overall, a very disappointing book.
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