The Gold Bug Variations
by Richard Powers
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 413)
Read in June, 2008
I didn't like this book. I'm surprised I didn't like it more because I loved the only other book I've read by Powers, The Echo Maker. Both deal with similar kinds of people. Powers is adept at getting inside the mind of the academic, which is probably because they, professors and other intellectual types, are the people Powers hangs out with. But this book lacked something that the Echo Maker didn't: mystery.
Yes, there is a literal mystery in the novel. Why did Stuart Ressler, one...more
Yes, there is a literal mystery in the novel. Why did Stuart Ressler, one...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommended to The_markus by:
tangentially, jody robertsrecommends it for: anyone interested in genetics, library science, art history, bach's goldberg variations
this book really struck some cords with me, mostly due to the overlap between several technical/scientific subject areas that are used throughout the book as metaphors and also as mind-opening lessons in how the lived world has been changing as we have access to more information than ever.
these subject areas are (a) the growth of genetics after the discovery of DNA in the 1950s, (b) the early history of on-line information sharing in large financial institutions using mainframe computers an...more
these subject areas are (a) the growth of genetics after the discovery of DNA in the 1950s, (b) the early history of on-line information sharing in large financial institutions using mainframe computers an...more
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Read in February, 2008
I actually didn't finish this book. I got 1/3 of the way through it, when I suddenly realized that I didn't like any of the characters. This is a book about socially awkward and introverted people for whom mundane occurrences are wrought with brooding revelation and significance. It is well written, with prose that at times can be as disjointed and cryptic--yet feelingly flowing--as its subject matter. But this is a problem I have had with some other of the author's books (which I finished)--it'...more
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Dear Richard Powers,
I'm sorry I gave up on your book about a third of the way into it. I don't normally do that. Even if I'm trapped in an airport newsstand without a book, and end up buying "The Hunt for Red October", or some Neil Gaiman jerk-off dorkfest, I'll usually see it through to the end out of what I can only guess to be some misplaced romantic loyalty to the printed word, or possibly a mild to medium case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. "The Gold Bug Vari...more
I'm sorry I gave up on your book about a third of the way into it. I don't normally do that. Even if I'm trapped in an airport newsstand without a book, and end up buying "The Hunt for Red October", or some Neil Gaiman jerk-off dorkfest, I'll usually see it through to the end out of what I can only guess to be some misplaced romantic loyalty to the printed word, or possibly a mild to medium case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. "The Gold Bug Vari...more
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If you don't get the title's allusive pun (to Robbins's Goldberg Variations), you won't get far into this long, densely textured, multi-referential, and brilliant novel. It demands that a reader make connections between such diversities as the genetic code and musical notation, Flemish art and biological nomenclature, the logic of computer systems and the Dewey decimal classification, cartography and chemistry. Making such connections--deciphering the encrypted messages of our world--is the grea...more
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Read in January, 1990
Oh, how I loved this book when I first read it. I remember savoring every page and wanting to start over again as soon as I finished. It's on my "desert island" (most favorite/influential) list because it meant so much to me at a time in my life when everything was changing. I was a young adult who for the first time had figured out (some) of what I wanted to do with myself, and I was stretching myself in every way I could. It was a time of great growth, an exciting time, and this book...more
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Read in January, 1998
More people who love fiction need to discover Richard Powers. His work isn't the most poetic or character-driven, but they offer so much else. I've Gold Bug and Three Farmers on their Way to a Dance are among my all-time favorite books (but avoid Operation Wandering Soul).
A story of two temporally separated yet linked couples (why do I love that gimmick so?), this novel is essentially about variations on themes, codes: in music, painting, computers, and the discovery of DNA. Cerebral and ...more
A story of two temporally separated yet linked couples (why do I love that gimmick so?), this novel is essentially about variations on themes, codes: in music, painting, computers, and the discovery of DNA. Cerebral and ...more
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Read in July, 2008
recommended to Bridgit by:
my cousin
What a book! The story of 4 people, 2 different generations, and how their lives intertwine and interplay. Gold Bug as in a short story by Poe I have yet to read, and Goldberg Variation as in J.S. Bach. One character a contemporary of Glenn Gould, previously musically inept, but introduced to the Variations by a fellow scientist (of the opposite sex) who find similarities in the music and the genetic code they seek to de-cypher. The chapters jump between characters and decades and duplicate ...more
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Read in January, 2006
recommends it for:
Everyone who is a patient reader & who loves detail
THE GOLD BUG VARIATIONS is a book I have yet to recover from, lyrically written, captivating and thought-provoking tale of lovers (and researchers)then and now. A book to pair with listening to the various Goldberg recodings. Powers renews my faith that a novel can be astoundingly well crafted, attentive to its own pacing and not rushed by the contemporary world's desire for action, and downright poetic. Certainly, I have a weakness for books with librarians in them!
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I enjoyed this book for the most part, though at times it seemed to be going on way too long. I think the biggest problem here was that Powers was working so hard to create the whole double-helix structural effect (you'll see what I mean -- that's not really a spoiler) that it compromised some of the pacing.
Overall, though, I enjoyed reading it. Some people think it's dense, but it wasn't too bad. Just kind of long.
Overall, though, I enjoyed reading it. Some people think it's dense, but it wasn't too bad. Just kind of long.
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Brandon, this was one of the first post-Pynchon books I ever bought. I think while we were both working at B. Dalton. I remember having no luck with this book. I loved it and was still frustrated by it. I thought he was way too smart for me. Around 2002, I was assigned GAIN by one of our professors in Marxist Lit. I enoyed that book a bunch. I still have never managed the courage to go back to Gold Bug.
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This book is brilliant. Richard Powers is a genius, and everyone should read him.
I remember wishing as I read this book, back in the Dark Ages, that I'd learned more about genetics and music. I'm sure my lack of knowledge on those subjects means that I missed a lot of the nuance, but still: genetics and music! I love how he brings disparate subjects together like that, with seeming ease.
I remember wishing as I read this book, back in the Dark Ages, that I'd learned more about genetics and music. I'm sure my lack of knowledge on those subjects means that I missed a lot of the nuance, but still: genetics and music! I love how he brings disparate subjects together like that, with seeming ease.
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Read in January, 2007
This one was a big of a slog for me. There were two parallel connected love stories built around the love of science and music as interconnected disciplines. The characters are almost alienatingly clever - I often felt lost in the dense parts. I was tempted to drop the book during the first half, but challenged myself to stay with it and it was OK. (January 13, 2007)
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Bounces back and forth between a young scientist trying to break the code of our genes to a young librarian trying to break the code of her life (with the aid of the scientist, now old). it is unclear that either question is well-posed, but the comparisons between the unbreakable codes of genetics, music, and love are thought-provoking.
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
nobody
Overworked and overdone. Each sentence reads as though you were reading across two pages that were stuck together. There's no flow, no sense of context or storytelling at all, only a sense that the writer is trying to show off his ability to use a thesaurus. I can't get into this book. I don't think I'll be finishing it.
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Not sure how a book set in the 80s where ATMs are new and cool could seem so fresh, and I'm sure Powers isn't the first to draw parallels between musical chord theory and DNA sequencing but I love this book! Over the top intellectual but still able to pull at the emotions, much the way A.S.Byatt often does.
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Read in May, 2007
Fantastic, obsessive compulsive writing. Beautiful and tragic and uplifting and flawed and annoying and informative, it ties together themes from disparate fields (biology, computer science, music, humanity) all to support a beautiful and complicated love story.
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Read in January, 2000
I wish I liked this book - it is a favorite of one of my best friends, but I don't think I have the proper background to get interested in DNA and variations on a classic theme. I trudged through it dutifully, but it never caught my imagination.
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Read in March, 2007
I wanted to like this book more because it was so damn long. The intertwining love story of a geneticist and his colleague, and his student and a librarian, is beautiful but there is more genetics in this book than there is whales in Moby Dick.
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Read in January, 2000
recommended to Andi by:
Jennifer A.recommends it for: Lovers of science who are willing to entertain less than pure ideas
Even though this book is fiction, it picks up on a growing theory that what we produce (music, dance, art) is at least influenced and at most a necessary expression of our chemistry and biology. Starts out slow, but grabs you and keeps you.
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