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megea 's review for:
Gold Bug Variations
by Richard Powers
I've been conflicted about whether or not to read any Richard Powers for a long time. I was attracted to The Gold Bug Variations because I like novels about scientists and academic settings. It also has going for it that it's the only book I know of with a postdoc protagonist. (Happy Postdoc Appreciation Week, by the way.) But the reviews I've read of Powers' work have always turned me off. This skepticism was overpowered by my discovery of The Gold Bug Variations for $1 at a charity book sale. Would that it hadn't.
Two of the plot lines (the two "historical" ones: Dr. Ressler as a hotshot molecular geneticist in the 1950s and the narrator's telling of her life at the time she came to know him) are all right. But the third, in which we follow the narrator in the present, desperately trying to teach herself genetics so that she can come to an understanding of and regain a connection to the late Dr. Ressler, is just wretched. For one thing, the premise just doesn't make sense. For another, her metaphoric understanding of genetics is really no understanding at all, and the butchery of science made me cringe repeatedly. I'm no expert of molecular genetics, which, in this situation, I consider a good thing. I'm sure that Powers put in a lot of research and probably, on the whole, got things right enough for the purposes of fiction. But he still makes stupid mistakes. For example, any student of high school biology knows that ANIMALS DON'T HAVE CELL WALLS! But most of the characters, multiple times, made allusions to their own. Ok. So apparently we're reading about hotshot geneticist and librarian plants or fungi?? Super. That would probably have been less painful to read.
On top of this, the prose is just ridiculously annoying. It hops around, playing with itself, proceeding through as many similes, metaphors, and puns as could possibly be imagined. It is also very repetitive. Most unfortunately, it especially belabors the shakiest logic, the parts that most make you want to shout at the book. (Usually I try to resist shouting at inanimate objects - I have shared walls with other people, you see - so I don't appreciate the extra temptation to shout at this book.)
More than anything, The Gold Bug Variations comes off as show-offy. Look at my grasp of genetics, of music, of computer programming, of the english language, it says. No thanks. Not me. Never again.
Two of the plot lines (the two "historical" ones: Dr. Ressler as a hotshot molecular geneticist in the 1950s and the narrator's telling of her life at the time she came to know him) are all right. But the third, in which we follow the narrator in the present, desperately trying to teach herself genetics so that she can come to an understanding of and regain a connection to the late Dr. Ressler, is just wretched. For one thing, the premise just doesn't make sense. For another, her metaphoric understanding of genetics is really no understanding at all, and the butchery of science made me cringe repeatedly. I'm no expert of molecular genetics, which, in this situation, I consider a good thing. I'm sure that Powers put in a lot of research and probably, on the whole, got things right enough for the purposes of fiction. But he still makes stupid mistakes. For example, any student of high school biology knows that ANIMALS DON'T HAVE CELL WALLS! But most of the characters, multiple times, made allusions to their own. Ok. So apparently we're reading about hotshot geneticist and librarian plants or fungi?? Super. That would probably have been less painful to read.
On top of this, the prose is just ridiculously annoying. It hops around, playing with itself, proceeding through as many similes, metaphors, and puns as could possibly be imagined. It is also very repetitive. Most unfortunately, it especially belabors the shakiest logic, the parts that most make you want to shout at the book. (Usually I try to resist shouting at inanimate objects - I have shared walls with other people, you see - so I don't appreciate the extra temptation to shout at this book.)
More than anything, The Gold Bug Variations comes off as show-offy. Look at my grasp of genetics, of music, of computer programming, of the english language, it says. No thanks. Not me. Never again.