Richard Powers revealed that he read one hundred and twenty books on trees while researching his now bestselling Overstory. I know not how many books on oceans and marine life Powers read in researching for Playground, but the result is electric. The damage caused by the Anthropocene on marine ecosystems is now common knowledge. Powers centres his focus on Makatea, a non-descript atoll comprising the Tuamotu Archipelago in French Polynesia to highlight the unstoppable reach of omnipresent capitalism that envelopes within its influence even the most isolated and secluded corners of our planet.
The narrator of Playground, Todd Keane has been diagnosed with Lewy Body dementia. Multimillionaire entrepreneur, tech magnate and founder of playground, a behemoth of a social media platform and knowledge-sharing site that enjoys a privileged status which are not the prerogatives of some countries even, has grandiose plans to bring the fruits of development to Makatea in the form of a mega sea steading project. The 80 inhabitants of Makatea must vote on whether to hand over their atoll to industrial scale exploitation or to preserve the pristine sanctity of an idyllic existence. Keane has truly little time left to bring his vision to fruition as his rare disease progresses relentlessly.
92-year-old Evelyne Beaulieu (Evie) is one of the 80 people calling Makatea home. A true daughter of the ocean, Evelyne is a living, breathing aquatic body. Her book, Clearly it is Ocean, leaves an impression on a 10-year-old Todd, before the latter goes on to leave his own lasting imprint on the world. The daughter of an engineer responsible for the success of the first Aqua-Lung prototype (first experimented using Evie as a guinea pig), Evie shatters the glass ceiling to become the first woman to be accepted by Duke University’s Ocean studies department, in 1953, before attaining the status of an unparalleled underwater diver and marine researcher. Through the eyes of Evie, Powers gives his readers a magical and magisterial peek into the mysteries and magnificence of a throbbing and teeming microcosm that thrives many miles beneath every ocean.
The son of a Chicago firefighter, whose unrelenting motto in life reads “A black man’s gotta read twice as good as any white, just to get half the recognition,” Rafi more than lives up to his father’s expectations, bagging a seat at the prestigious Saint Ignatius College. He even receives a scholarship instituted by Tood’s Father. Todd and Rafi meet at Saint Ignatius setting into motion a bout of intense competition over chess and the two-thousand-year-old board game, “Go.” Interspersed with the competitive streak is also a fierce friendship characterised by respect and mutual admiration. Rafi is a romantic who chooses to spend his time buried in abstract literature and obscure philosophies.
Ina, the result of a union between a US naval officer and a former hotel chambermaid from Tahiti, manifests herself at the Ignatius University’s School of Art and expresses her resolve, reservations, resilience and reticence in the form of sculptures that are testimony to the unrivalled breadth of human imagination and creativity. Both Ina smites Todd and Rafi. Todd voluntarily cedes his spot to Rafi and the trio begin leading lives of constant contemplation.
Rafi and Ina find themselves on Makatea under circumstances representing a contrivance of fate and choice, and in the process find themselves to be an integral part of the arbiters of Makatea’s future.
Richard Powers has in interviews confessed that he is an impossible fan of Solaris, a science fiction by Polish author Stanislaw Lem. The book trails a group of scientists trying to comprehend extra terrestrial intelligence. Lem’s own playground in the book is a great ocean on the alien planet, Solaris. The ocean is a mass of gelatinous material and is surmised by the explorers to represent a single, sentient and planet-encompassing entity.
Power’s Playground has unmissable shades of Lem. It is an unabashed and stirring paean to the marvels of ocean life. A particular passage where a cuttlefish puts on a colourful show of splendour in a virtuoso performance solely for Evie’s viewing pleasure infuses into the reader a true sense of joie de vivre. “His entire body blanched as white as Antarctica, and he knotted himself into a wild warrior pose. Spiky goosebumps erupted all over his skin, which then burst into flame. The arms turned into swords, a saber dance for no one. He thrust his blades out everywhere, the spitting image of Kali, the goddess of time, change, destruction and creation.”
Playground – more than just an isolated cuttlefish at play.