The No1 Ethical retailer for Books, CD’s, DVD’s & Games
30 Day Refund Guarantee

Orfeo

Orfeo

by RichardPowers (Author)

  • Used

    Paperback 2014

    $6.65
Synopsis

"If Powers were an American writer of the nineteenth century...he'd probably be the Herman Melville of Moby-Dick. His picture is that big," wrote Margaret Atwood (New York Review of Books). Indeed, since his debut in 1985 with Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance, Richard Powers has been astonishing readers with novels that are sweeping in range, dazzling in technique, and rich in their explorations of music, art, literature, and technology. In Orfeo, Powers tells the story of a man journeying into his past as he desperately flees the present. Composer Peter Els opens the door one evening to find the police on his doorstep. His home microbiology lab-the latest experiment in his lifelong attempt to find music in surprising patterns-has aroused the suspicions of Homeland Security. Panicked by the raid, Els turns fugitive. As an Internet-fueled hysteria erupts, Els-the "Bioterrorist Bach"-pays a final visit to the people he loves, those who shaped his musical journey. Through the help of his ex-wife, his daughter, and his longtime collaborator, Els hatches a plan to turn this disastrous collision with the security state into a work of art that will reawaken its audience to the sounds all around them. The result is a novel that soars in spirit and language by a writer who "may be America's most ambitious novelist" (Kevin Berger, San Francisco Chronicle).

$6.65

Save:$4.75 (42%)

Quantity

1 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 400
 Edition: Reprint
 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 22 Aug 2014
ISBN 10: 0393349845
ISBN 13: 9780393349849

Media Reviews
Powers is prodigiously talented...He writes lyrical prose, has a seductive sense of wonder and is an acute observer of social life...I [was] unable to resist the emotional pull of Orfeo. -- Jim Holt - New York Times Book Review
Powers proves, once again, that he's a master of the novel with Orfeo, an engrossing and expansive read that is just as much a profile of a creative, obsessive man as it is an escape narrative. -- Elizabeth Sile - Esquire
Orfeo is that rare novel truly deserving of the label 'lyrical.'...Powers offers a profound story whose delights are many and lasting. -- Harvey Freedenberg - Minneapolis Star Tribune
Orfeo is a first-class American road novel. -- Scott Korb - Slate
Orfeo benefits from the deep sympathy Powers seems to feel for the brilliant and troubled protagonist he has created...[It] establishes beyond any doubt that the novel is very much alive. -- Troy Jollimore - Chicago Tribune
Magnificent and moving. -- David Ulin - Los Angeles Times
Extraordinary...his evocations of music, let alone lost love, simply soar off the page...Once again, Richard Powers proves himself to be one of our finest novelists. -- Dan Cryer - Newsday
Of novelists in Powers's generation with whom he is often compared-Franzen, Vollmann, Wallace-none equals Powers's combination of consistent production, intellectual range, formal ingenuity, and emotional effect. -- Tom LeClair - Christian Science Monitor
Part of the fun of reading [Powers] is to see how he wriggles out of his own snares. But a greater thrill is to join with him in untangling the most urgent and confounding puzzles of our age. -- Nathaniel Rich - New York Review of Books
For sheer bravado in constructing sentences, few authors of contemporary fiction can surpass Powers...One of his finest yet. -- Ted Gioia - San Francisco Chronicle
Powers' writing is complex and heady without being headachy, and his synesthetic descriptions of finding melodies in the mundane are full of their own kind of music. -- Entertainment Weekly
Biology and music, past and present, come together in a clever, explosive resolution. -- Adam Kirsch - Boston Globe
One long express-train ride to the gorgeous. And the scenery is as sublime as ever. -- Laura Miller - Salon
Author Bio
Richard Powers is the author of twelve novels, most recently The Overstory. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the National Book Award, and he has been a Pulitzer Prize and four-time National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. He lives in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.