Jan 2, 2010

Three Farmers on Their Way To a Dance | Characters

Richard Powers's novels are fundamentally novels of ideas rather than novels that depend heavily upon characterization. In this novel, readers learn the history of the three young men in the Sander photograph "Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance, 1914" — Hubert, Adolphe, and Peter — but this information is incidental to the author's concern with the social and political crosscurrents that determine their lives and shape their societies.

The narration is autobiographical but only in the broadest terms. One will not learn dependably about Powers's personal life through...