Galatea 2.2: A Novel
by Richard Powers
List Price:
Our Price: $3.85
You Save: $12.15 (76%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Richard PowersEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-01-01
ISBN: 0312423136
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Picador
Book Reviews of Galatea 2.2: A Novel
Book Review: Well worth reading
Summary: 5 Stars
Richard Powers' Galatea 2.2 is, I trust, a semi-autobiographical novel since it features the author as first person with his name intact. Stylistically, the novel takes some risks with its wording, though its creative use of technical vocabulary to create poetic metaphor generally succeeds with brilliance. The title itself, referring back to the legend of Pygmalion, concerns the education of a computer network whose growth of intelligence takes on increasingly human features, including even some female identity named Helen. Richard Powers, as research assistant, teaches the computer network through literary input via microphone, using audiovisual addenda where appropriate.
Parallel to this, we are presented with the story of his own human relationship with his girlfriend, C., a needy woman with whom he shares his life, first as his student, and later as his almost wife, and he acts as her mentor and protector as well as her lover. As this bond disintegrates, he returns to the USA from Belgium to take up his research role in an artificial intelligence experiment. There was a time when he himself was inspired by his own professor to enter into doctorate studies in English literature rather than physics, against his father's wishes, and finally into becoming a novelist in his own right - within a culture that reads less and less.
He has a curious love-hate relationship with the scientist who acts as his technical mentor (and who has a wife institutionalized with Alzheimer's disease) and intellectual foil between two worlds: the literary/humanistic and the scientific/materialistic. His relationship with his scientific colleagues is somewhat as an outsider, then, though that role is true in both of his worlds, in which he is clearly more than just a competent intellect. In passing, he raises issues concerning the humanities in academia losing their soul in recent scholarly fads. In all of his relationships, his own humanity is put to the test, and many moments of reflective sadness touch our own sensibilities as we read on.
When Helen gives up because of deep disappointment with the destructiveness of humankind, we find ourselves thrust upon the central thesis of our author: the human soul is a chance miracle that is unlikely ever to recur in nature; as a corollary, the lack of appreciation of that happenstance is already a degradation along the path of senseless destruction. Against this cosmic disappointment, the failures of his romantic life seem a pale theme in comparison, painful as they are in their inexorability. Are both themes to be subsumed under something greater still, or are they meant to be irreducible? For, imperfect as life on this planet is, it is still (painfully) preferable to any of the alternatives.
Summary of Galatea 2.2: A Novel
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 exisiting.
Cognitive neurologist and well-known writer team up to produce a machine that can pass a comprehensive exam in English literature, with predictably unpredictable results. Like The Gold Bug Variations, this is another of Powers' wild, unforgettable novels encompassing science, philosophy, and the frailty of mankind.
Genre Fiction Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Genre Fiction Books
Children of the Stormby Elizabeth Peters
WmMorrow; Published: 2003-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.49
Price in other shops:
Innocenceby Kathleen Tessaro
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 2006-05-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
Little Altars Everywhere: A Novelby Rebecca Wells
HarperTorch; Published: 2003-02-25; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.99
Price in other shops:
Breakheart Passby Alistair Maclean
Harpercollinspublishers; Published: 1994-05-01; Paperback; Book
Here Be Dragonsby Sharon Kay Penman
Holt, Rinhart and Winston; Published: 1985-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $356.38
The Killing Groundby JACK HIGGINS
HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS LTD; Published: 2007; Hardcover; Book
Life Expectancyby Dean Koontz
Harpercollins Pb; Published: 2005-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.00
Constant Princessby Philippa Gregory
Touchstone/Simon & Schuster; Published: 2005; Hardcover; Book
Wolf of the Plains (Conqueror, Book 1)by Conn Iggulden
Harper; Published: 2007; Paperback; Book
Saharaby Clive Cussler
Harper Collins Pb; Published: 2005-03-21; Paperback; Book
Similar Books and other products
Zone One: A Novelby Colson Whitehead
Doubleday; Published: 2011-10-18; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.50
Price in other shops:
The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self & Soulby Douglas R. Hofstadter, Daniel C. Dennett, Daniel C. Dennett
Basic Books; Published: 2001-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.44
Price in other shops:
Dawn (Xenogenesis, Bk. 1)by Octavia E. Butler
Aspect; Published: 1997-04-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.39
Price in other shops:
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?by Philip K. Dick
Del Rey; Published: 1996-05-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.42
Price in other shops:
The Corrections: A Novelby Jonathan Franzen
Picador; Published: 2002-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.60
Price in other shops:
The Reluctant Fundamentalistby Mohsin Hamid
Harvest Books; Published: 2008-04-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.82
Price in other shops:
City of Glass (New York Trilogy)by Paul Auster
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1987-04-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.20
Price in other shops:
Tropic of Orangeby Karen Tei Yamashita
Coffee House Press; Published: 1997-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.22
Price in other shops:
White Noise: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)by Don DeLillo
Penguin Classics; Published: 2009-12-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.10
Price in other shops:
Gold Bug Variationsby Richard Powers
Harper Perennial; Published: 1992-07-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.95
Price in other shops: