Galatea 2.2, Richard Powers, Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1995, 329 pp
Summary from Goodreads: After four novels and several years living abroad, the fictional protagonist of Galatea 2.2
— Richard Powers — returns to the United States as
Humanist-in-Residence at the enormous Center for the Study of Advanced
Sciences. There he runs afoul of Philip Lentz, an outspoken cognitive
neurologist intent upon modeling the human brain by means of
computer-based neural networks. Lentz involves Powers in an outlandish
and irresistible project: to train a neural net on a canonical list of
Great Books. Through repeated tutorials, the device grows gradually more
worldly, until it demands to know its own name, sex, race, and reason
for existing.
My Review:
More autofiction! Richard Powers is the main character in his own novel, living through a year of personal crisis. He is looking back over his life so far. In the present he is helping the annoying Philip build a model of the human brain.
The Richard Powers character reconstructs the writing of his four previous novels which are the actual four first novels by Richard Powers, the author. Since I am reading his novels in reverse order of publication, I have yet to read those earlier novels, but when I do I will know what he was living through as he wrote them.
The other main character in Galatea 2.2 is Helen, the computer-based neural network brain, who comes to life under Richard's tutorials like his own personal female Frankenstein. They kind of fall in love, or at least Richard falls in love with his creation.
As usual, I skimmed over the technical computer stuff but any computer nerd would love those parts. The story had a claustrophobic effect on me. I was in Richard's mind and memory as well as in Helen's "mind" and circuits.
Despite Power's usual cerebral storytelling though, I was gifted with many realizations about memory, love, reading, regret, perception of others and life itself. The engine of it all is love.
I would skip over the technical computer parts myself lol. It'd be like trying to read a foreign language!
ReplyDeleteIt is! I have tried many times to learn some of it but it just doesn't sink in.
DeleteThe book sounds wildly creative. It sounds like it pushes boundaries. I tend to like experimental books and I like science fiction so I think that I would like this.
ReplyDeleteIt is all those things!
Deletethis sounds confusing. if Richard Powers is the author and the character, which one is doing the writing? oh... Phillip Lentz it must be.. no?
ReplyDeleteRichard Powers wrote a novel about himself writing novels. It was confusing at first but I got used to it.
DeleteSounds actually interesting, I do consider myself a computer nerd, lol, but sounds like I would get more from it if I first read his other books. And following our advice on an another comment, I'll start by The Overstory.
ReplyDeleteI have read other novels with the author as character, it can be brilliant like Anthony Horowitz in The Sentence is Death
The Overstory is the book that got me reading Powers. In every novel I have read so far I like the way he brings scientific concepts into a relation with other aspects of life.
DeletePowers is just brilliant at presenting scientific concepts in understandable and relatable and always entertaining ways. I can see how computerspeak would be a particular challenge though.
ReplyDeleteI usually try hard to follow the scientific stuff but for some reason computer lingo just goes right over my head. It did not, however, detract from my enjoyment one bit.
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