Everything you need to understand or teach Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance by Richard Powers.
Powers's themes are intimately connected with the social concerns mentioned above. His obvious quest in this novel is to understand the structure of human existence. As in all his other writing, Powers is concerned with ideas and with their conjoining parts, their necessary connections. His conflicts cannot be stated in simple terms — man against nature, man against man, man against himself. These terms imply divisions; Powers quests after connections.
In two of...