“Playground” is a futuristic story about the wonders of the ocean, the possibilities of artificial intelligence, mankind’s insatiable desire to monetize nature and the barriers of race and poverty in interpersonal relations. And more than all of that, Playground is a compelling, hard to put town novel!
Todd Keane is a technology genius and is writing his story at the age of 57 while his mind is deteriorating from dementia with Lewy bodies. Todd was born into a well to do family in Chicago. His father was a trader at the Chicago Board of Trade and his parents fought constantly. Todd spent his childhood taking apart electronics and figuring out how they worked. At the age of 10 Todd beats his father at backgammon and as a reward his father takes him to a bookstore and lets him pick any book he wants. He chooses a book called “Clearly it is Ocean”. The author is Evelyne Beaulieu and Todd falls in love with her based on her picture on the jacket cover. He reads the book every day for two weeks and “When I finished, I started it again from the beginning.” Todd attends St. Ignatius College Prep, a prestigious private school.
Rafi Young, an African American from a working class background, gets admitted to St. Ignatius College Prep, where he meets Todd Keane. They become friends over chess and in their sophomore year, Rafi wins the “Keane Fellowship,” endowed by Todd’s father. Although the two go to school together and are friends, their lives are worlds apart. Todd comes from parents of privilege and Ravi’s father is a firefighter and his mother a bus driver. They live in very different neighborhoods. Their relationship revolves around games, starting with chess and evolving to GO!. Rafi is very bookish, while Todd becomes interested in computers.
Rafi becomes obsessed with a book entitled “The Philosophy of the Common Task”, by Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov. The book is about the future of evolution and suggests that it is possible to engineer immortality. Todd and Rafi both decide to go to the University of Illinois for college, where Todd focuses on computers and Artificial Intelligence and Rafi focuses on literature. At the University Rafi meets the love of his life, Ina Aroita. Ina has an interesting and unique background, having been raised on a variety of islands. The relationship among the three of them is complex.
Meanwhile, the novel also focuses on Evelyne Beaulieu, the author of “Clearly it is Ocean”. Through her father, Evelyne learns to dive and is focused on becoming an oceanographer. The time period is the mid-1950s and the world is not supportive of women explorers. Evelyne presses on and is able to become quite expert and famous for her explorations of the sea. She also marries and has two children. Her observations of the ocean and its inhabitants is an absolutely fascinating part of the book.
The novel then moves to a more current time period on the island of Makatea, where Ina and Rafi and their two adopted children are four of the island’s 82 inhabitants. Evelyne Beaulieu is also spending time on the island. By this time, Rafi and Todd have not spoken to each other for decades. Life on the island is simple, but a proposal from an American company to develop the island and build sea based communities is threatening its beauty and quiet. It is this proposal that brings everyone in the novel back together.
The novel is in part an environmental warning, as well as a mystery, and a fantasy about the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence, with a little magical realism thrown in. The novel is fabulous and was long listed for the 2024 Booker Prize. You can reserve “Playground” at the Cuyahoga County Public Library by clicking on: https://discover.cuyahogalibrary.org/Record/295502