Status Updates From The Gold Bug Variations

Slowly making progress.

So far so good, but I get the sense that Richard Powers really needs a wedgie and/or swirlie

Slow but good. Finally found out Gold Bug refers to an Edgar Allan Poe short story, and there's also a reference to Bach's Goldberg Variations

Words words words! The book's narrator is an insane librarian in the midst of a midlife crisis. Someone please hide her thesaurus.

This book is full of gobbledygook like "How can blind unplan produce a string thick with desire to reveal its own fundament?" that is - trust me - deep and profound and moving in context, and no, not quite as insufferable as it seems.

Or maybe the opposite: surface profundity and brilliant language-play hides a vacuous core?

Is that the mystery? Either way, it's taking me a while to get through this. Good luck.

I am clutching my head and screaming at this book HELP

I am a firework and this book is the Fourth of July

This book is like if someone paid a PI to follow me for the last 7 years and then wrote an alarmingly detailed book based on what he thought my most profound thoughts had been

You could literally take a bite out of some of these sentences. I’m in love

Richard will have you crying over words you don’t even know the definition of

Insopportabile
DNF

Literally narrated by a librarian, I haven't decided yet if the obsession with words and references is brilliant or obnoxious, but leaning latter. Powering through for the so-far-so-good character development and sleuthing.

“Stravinsky once called Verdi the Puccini of music. I know exactly what he means but could not say it any other way.”

“You may find it as hopeful as I did when I found out that the dutch for ‘weather’ and ‘again’ are the same.”

“You’d be surprised at how little Racine contributes to an exchange in a basic Wallonia pâtisserie.” 😂

“Procreation is not innovative per se. Sex is easily accomplished by anyone with a high school equivalence certificate. I did it myself once, with help. The resulting product, except in exceptional cases, is a rearrangement of existing qualities.” 😅

🎼He touches the needle down on the Goldberg aria. The first sound of the octave, the simplicity of unfolding triad initiates a process that will mutate his insides for life. The transparent tones suggest a concealed message of immense importance. What he fails to learn from these notes tonight will lodge in his lungs until they stop pumping.🎶

“[To him] the purpose of science was the purpose of being alive: not efficiency or mastery but the revival of appropriate surprise.”

“The language of life is not only laced with luck, it refuses to say what it means.”

“The passage of time with nothing specific to accomplish makes me feel a little more blessedly, acutely free.”

Libro di una leziosità vomitevole. Onore a me che sono giunto quasi alla fine senza cedere alla tentazione di abbandonarlo.

Che barba che noia :-/

Che fatica! :-\

page 1 and my favorite author is starting off with the connection of numbers to lives and our universe. im in heaven

La perdita di una grande biblioteca a causa di un incendio è una tragedia. Ma la subdola introduzione di migliaia di errori non rintracciabili in libri affidabili e distribuiti da ricercatori instancabili, è un incubo incalcolabile.

Come dal vecchio campo che si ara
germoglia il gran,
così dai vecchi libri
esce la nuova scienza che s'impara.

Allora imparai quanto fosse accortamente solida la settimana lavorativa di quaranta ore. Se fosse più lunga, il tempo in azienda soffocherebbe la ore libere. Se fosse più corta, potremmo in verità sostenere un'idea, soddisfare noi stessi. Entrmbe sarebbero fatali per la società.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hkw4...

Se l'universo fosse incentrato sulla comodità come lei, non avrebbe mai proposto un complesso così inefficiente come la vita.

Qualunque cosa di abbastanza complesso da creare la coscienza dev'essere troppo complesso perchè la coscienza lo comprenda.

It’s never taken me this long to read a book but I’m still chugging along….It’s probably because the science is sort of over my head and I have to read and reread so much of it. Good book though… as usual I’m awed by Richard Powers and what he chooses to write about.