Operation Wandering Soul | Richard Powers

Operation Wandering Soul | Richard Powers | Grim but Powerful

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Operation Wanderin...

	Operation Wandering Soul Richard Powers Harper Perennial, 1994 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 11 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Highly imaginative and emotionally powerful, this stunning novel about childhood innocence amid the nightmarish disease and deterioration at the heart of modern Los Angeles was nominated for a National Book Award.

Operation Wandering Soul

Richard Powers: Operation Wandering Soul (1993) 7/15/07

This is one hell of a novel, not surprisingly a National Book Award Finalist. And hellish it is too, for it depicts the inner (and outer) life of surgeon Richard Kraft as he works day and night in the emergency ward of an inner-city hospital within Los Angeles. From time to time he makes humane contact with therapist Linda Espera, too bedraggled a mutual experience to be called love (carnal or otherwise).

Of course their names carry symbolism. The author's namesake by translation represents the quick surgical fix, and at worst the "surgical strike" we hear about in the world news concerning our military conquests to spread our notion of civilization abroad. And Linda does represent some humanoid hope, which is also embodied by a dying little patient named Joy, a boat girl maimed by us saviors somewhere around Cambodia and somehow spirited here with her hopelessly anxious parents.

In the course of this novel, and through its amazingly skillful use of language, we become more deeply aware, not only of folkloristic tales and actual history concerning the victimization of innocent children through the ages (the Pied Piper, the Children's Crusade, etc.), but of how this has continued during our own lives - both abroad (with our help) and here at home, where we dare not look. Through magisterial story telling, all this failure of our flawed human experiment is interwoven with retold biographical reminiscences of the aforementioned protagonists of this deeply saddening reenactment of imagination and hope against a tide bigger than all of us.

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Grim but Powerful

In his next, semi-autobiographical novel, Powers' persona says that "[Opereation Wandering Soul] was fast becoming a bleak, baroque fairy tale about wandering and disappearing children." A few pages later he describes mailing in the MS and wonders, "who in their right mind would want to read an ornate, suffocating allegory about dying pedes at the end of history." We all should. Operation Wandering Soul is one of Powers' most powerful novels, both for its representation of those lost and wandering children and for a gut-wrenching portrayal of the emotional collapse of Dr. Richard Kraft, the central adult character. His title comes from the Vietnam War. Google it to see the relevance to Powers' novel.

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Like a fine wine

It was amazed by the power of the writing. I slowed down reading it to savor the words, trying to make it last. Like the period of time just before you go to sleep and you are in a dream like state yet not dreaming. That's what this book is like.

Child-friendly policies

The wandering soul is a floater resident in pediatric surgery, but in a book by Richard Powers he is so much more. He is metaphysician, but sleepless, overworked, seemingly burdened with hopeless tasks. In only a month Richard Kraft has acquired a persona. A persona can vary greatly from service to service. He does not tell the head of surgery that this career is merely a career holding pattern for him.

In pediatric surgery themes of child rescue predominate. The author veers off to recount sending young London children off to Canterbury at the time of the blitz. The story then returns to the charity hospital in the City of Angels where a therapist called Linda is encountered by Kraft and a [...]Asian girl requiring foot surgery. Every child who shuffles up the ramp to the therapist is, it would seem, a shattered hierarchy.

Kraft knows how he will end up, the misanthrope volunteer. He played the horn and was studying music in college until one day he withdrew to return later to study science in preparation for medical school. A prematurely aged child, Nico, manages to organize the children to the extent that everyone goes out to a ball game, and everyone goes out to go dancing.

Interspersed with current affairs are other stories from the past such as the children's crusade and the piper of Hamelin. Children's books such as PETER PAN and THE SECRET GARDEN are scissored into the plot. The childhood of Kraft himself, called Ricky in the tale, finds a place in this work. Ricky was the child of presumably someone who worked in intelligence. Intelligence work, those off the wall assignments, would probably account for the fact that Ricky and his father and his mother moved frequently throughout his childhood. One scene is set in an American school in Vietnam.

Five stars to Richard Powers for this strange work. It bears rereading.

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Operation Wandering Soul

Extremely talented writers walk a fine line between loyalty to plot and characters and inspired word play. No one who reads this novel can deny Mr. Powers's intelligence or his talent. Nimble phrases and clever insights fairly lift off every page. However, this novel seems to be more about writing than about the characters cast adrift in the miasma of modern life. What might have been a satisfying mix of emotional engagement and brilliant writing remained an intellectual exercise for this reader. Impressive? Yes. Engaging? Unfortunately, no.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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