An oratorio-like brain episode

Margaret Atwood has a fabulously good piece about Richard Powers in this week's New York Review of Books; the best piece I've read, I think, on his new novel. I do love that Margaret Atwood--she's as smart as any critic you'll ever read, but she's funny on top of it, which is rarer than you might think, a slightly ridiculous aura of the sacred hovers over even much of the best criticism...