Author | Richard Powers |
---|---|
Cover artist | Neil Stuart, based on Pieter Bruegel the Elder Massacre of the Innocents |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Published | 1993 (William Morrow and Company) |
Media type | Print (hardback) |
Pages | 352 |
ISBN | 0-688-11548-9 |
Operation Wandering Soul is a novel by American author Richard Powers. It was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Operation Wandering Soul tells the story of a children's ward in "Carver Hospital" from the point of view of Richard Kraft, an overworked surgical resident, and therapist Linda Espera. It is set in "Angel City".
The title comes from the Vietnam War psychological warfare operation of the same name, which Kraft's father was involved in.
The novel includes extensive material based on his teenage years growing up in Bangkok.
The novel does not have a plot as such. Kraft and Espera treat a desperate range of children, including an Asian boat girl Joy Stepaneevong from Thailand, a progeria victim, a boy with no face, and numerous accident and crime victims. Joy turns out to own a good luck charm that Kraft recognizes as once being owned by his father, a necklace angel that his father lost in a helicopter while engaging in "Operation Wandering Soul", broadcasting alleged spirit messages.
The narrative is frequently interrupted with retellings of classic stories and histories of mistreated children, including the Children's Crusade, the Pied Piper, the evacuation of children from London during the Blitz, Anne Frank and the Holocaust, and the Münster Rebellion. The story of Peter Pan is told in counterpoint.
The children in the hospital stage their own version of the Pied Piper.
Critics of Powers' fiction commonly find parallels between Richard Powers and his main character. In Operation Wandering Soul, similar biographical details include their teenage years in Thailand. The name "Kraft" is German for "strength" or "force", suggestive of "powers". [1]
This book is not easy to love. It isn't seductive, and its characters don't spring quickly to life. Instead, Mr. Powers offers a devastating phantasmagoria of words and images.
The Children's Crusade was a failed popular crusade by European Christians to establish a second Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Holy Land, said to have taken place in 1212. The traditional narrative is likely conflated from a mix of factual and mythical events, which include the preaching of visions by a French boy and a German boy, an intention to peacefully convert Muslims in the Holy Land to Christianity, bands of children marching to Italy, and children being sold into slavery in Tunis. The crusaders of the real events on which the story is based left areas of Germany, led by Nicholas of Cologne, and Northern France, led by Stephen of Cloyes.
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Soul Trade is an original novel based on the U.S. television series Angel. Tagline: "The black market is trading on humanity."
Ex-Mutants was a comic book series created by writer David Lawrence and artist Ron Lim along with editor David Campiti in 1986. It was first published by Eternity Comics and then Pied Piper Comics' black-and-white imprint, Amazing Comics. A legal dispute followed, and after running out of money for the struggle, Lawence and Lim surrendered; the title returned to Eternity Comics and was later published in a revamped version by Malibu Comics. Malibu created a shared universe called Shattered Earth with the characters. In 1992, Malibu comics rebooted the franchise with a new continuity. A video game for the Sega Genesis based on the rebooted version was released in 1992, being developed by Malibu Interactive and published by Sega of America, Inc.
Charles Howard Schmid, Jr., also known as the Pied Piper of Tucson, was an American serial killer whose crimes were detailed by journalist Don Moser in an article featured in the March 4, 1966, issue of Life magazine. Schmid's criminal career later formed the basis for "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", a short story by Joyce Carol Oates. In 2008, The Library of America selected Moser's article for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American true crime literature.
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Hilma Wolitzer is an American novelist.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin has appeared many times in popular culture.
The Solitudes is a 1987 fantasy novel by John Crowley. It is Crowley's fifth published novel and the first novel in the Ægypt tetralogy. Titled after Luis de Góngora's Las Soledades, the novel follows Pierce Moffett, a college history professor in his retreat from ordinary, academic life to pastoral life of Faraway Hills. While in the area, Pierce comes up with a plan to write a book about Hermeticism, in the process finding several parallels with his own project and that of the nearly-forgotten local novelist Fellowes Kraft.
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The Wife is a 2003 novel by American writer Meg Wolitzer. The book was adapted into a film released in 2017, directed by Björn L. Runge, written by Jane Anderson, and starring Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce, and Christian Slater.