The Gold Bug Variations

Two moving and mobile plotlines, a clever high-level structure, and more affectionate science nerdery than you could reasonably hope for. The novel's title works in Edgar Allan Poe's The Gold Bug and Johann Sebastian Bach's The Goldberg Variations, in a clever nod to the main thematic material, but in addition to those motifs of codebreaking and music, Powers also works strains of genetics, knowledge, and information into the mix, in addition to more human subjects like love, fidelity, and responsibility. Much like in Gain, the only other book of his I've read, he manages a deft admixture of somewhat quotidian plots with high-level concepts (in Gain, the fictional history of a soap company is overlaid onto a woman's struggle with show more cancer; here, it's genetics and Bach over two interrelated love affairs), and I think he succeeded even better in this earlier work at unifying ideas and messages he wanted to get across with the action. In fact, the scaffolding tricks he used to unfold the story were so clever that it's even more impressive that the main narratives were as compelling as they were in comparison.

There are two separate but inter-related narratives. The earlier one is set in the 1950s, the quest of biologist Stuart Ressler to determine how DNA translates genotypes into phenotypes while simultaneously struggling with his love affair with a married fellow biologist. The later one is set in the 1980s, the contemporary journey of reference librarian Jan O'Deigh to dig up more information on Ressler's failure and retreat into doing IT drudge work for a bank, along with her love affair with his coworker Franklin Todd. In the past, Ressler is the classic archetype of a science junkie, near-monastically devoted to his work until he falls in love with one of his co-researchers, who's inconveniently happily married even as she more than returns his feelings. In the present, Jan has been drifting along in her career as a librarian until Franklin asks her to help him indulge his curiosity about why his genius coworker abandoned his field in his prime, and she subsequently becomes much closer to both of them as she retraces Ressler's research steps. While each plot can move somewhat slowly at times, as each main character periodically pauses to ponder for a bit too long, their stories are quite compelling and relatable, especially the way that each struggles with big questions about life, responsibility, and parenthood.

However, the book gets even better once it's accepted that the slow parts are there for a reason. Powers decided to use Bach's famous Goldberg Variations as a template for the structure of the novel. This is obvious from the very first chapter, a brief poem laying out the major themes and goals of the novel under the heading of Aria, but the true import of that doesn't sink in for a while - each chunk of the story has its part to play in the overall piece. What seems like a slower, more contemplative part is just fulfilling the role of a quieter spot in the Goldberg Variations. Additionally, the main characters bond to their love interests and then peel away like complementary strands of DNA (though not identically in each timeline), so the genetics angle gets worked into the structure as well, and also into the narrative as Ressler attempts to follow in Crick's footsteps and Jan tries to follow in his. It's still written very humanistically in spite of all the high level science content, with long runs of great descriptive writing that's always on the edge of being self-indulgent while never quite going over. And while I preferred the science chat to the human narrative most of the time, much like with Gain, Powers managed to deliver a touching resolution that emphasized the themes without feeling forced. "Virtuosic" is a strong word, but it fits here. show less

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.

Just when you start to think you are smart, a guy like Richard Powers comes along and reveals how little you know about so many things. The raw candle-power of this man is stunning, but what I like best about all of his books is the genuine compassion he has for his characters.

This novel is basically a love story set against the backdrop of the quest to solve the mysteries of genetic coding. Music also plays a prominent theme; in fact, the blueprint of the novel itself is patterned after the structure of Bach’s Goldberg Variations for piano. Reading this one is unlikely to be a relaxing experience--in fact, it might feel a whole lot more like investment than consumption--but it is well worth the effort.

Let this be a lesson to a father of two: Never take on novels that are described on the back cover as "one of the most ambitious novels of our time!" unless one can be fully committed to the experience. Powers' achievement here is mind-boggling, but I was not in the best circumstances to fully engross myself in the experience. One of the key climaxes came and went, and I'm STILL not sure what happened ... only because I was not cognizant enough to follow. Still, I slogged on, promising myself at least 10 pages a day, and keeping a list of the glorious new words that Powers introduced to me in his prose. And I have to say, the climactic "hack" at the end of the book was worth the whole trip for this quasi-geek -- it was simultaneously show more geeky and heart-warming. Highly recommended to anyone who can put themselves up to the task! show less

"What could be simpler?" scientist Stuart Ressler asks. The four bases making up DNA, the four bases making up Bach's Goldberg Variations: the phenotypes revealed by these bases in the spiraling helices of life and music comprise the double-stranded metaphor that drives the four characters in this Joycean epic. The stories of Jan O'Deigh and Franklin Todd, and Stuart Ressler and Jeannette Koss parallel one another as all four struggle to bridge the gap between signified and signifier. How does life start from only four notes to end up as butterflies, flowers, birds, humans, emotions? The exploration of this mystery by the characters affords Powers the opportunity to go off on many riffs about molecular biology, evolution, physics, and show more emergence. In working out the relationship between noise and sound, the characters discover the serendipitous correspondence of The Goldberg Variations, with its dazzling virtuousity moving from four notes to sixty-four and back, to the elements of life itself. "Ultimately," Powers writes, "the Goldbergs are about the paradox of variation, preserved divergence, the transition effect inherent in terraced unfolding, the change in nature attendant upon a change in degree. ... how variation might ultimately free itself from the instruction that underwrites it, sets it in motion, but nowhere anticipates what might come from experience's trial run."

This book is an intellectual challenge that can impart joy from its uses of language as well as its uses of science . A snowstorm produces "spectral trees glazed with lapidary." A pianist shows "less than gershwinning ways." Evolutionary selection can be summarized as "weed it and reap." Thanksgiving offers "a plenitude of pies, pride of drop-in guests, brace of hams, corsage of table settings, parliament of mashed potatoes, supplication of network sports, clatch of conversation, covey of vacation days, school of parades, volume of preserves, brood of read-alouds, keepsake of snapshots: everything running at glut, at glorious surplus." Like the helix itself: poetic, recursive, emergent, capable of inspiring wonder. Highly recommended!

(JAF) show less

The idea behind this book, that a love story could be woven around dissertations on genetic mapping and music, turns out to be less appealing than you'd think. (That is, you might think it appealing if you had a more-than-average intellectual bent). But the result is neither fish nor fowl.

I can see why those who praise it like it. It's ambitious as hell, and sometimes the metaphors and wordplay are very apt and clever. But the book assumes that you either are a novice when it comes to the more technical material covered, and that you'll learn more about these things, or that you already have some expertise, and you're going to enjoy being lectured to. Neither is the case. The more you know, the more you're going to find the pages-long show more expositions tedious. And the less you know, the more you'll be lost in a less-than-clear literary muddle of fact, metaphor, and speculation. If you're in the latter camp, and you want to learn more about these subjects, I recommend the "...For Dummies" books.

However, I've heard Powers criticized for his characters being cyphers. I think that's a bit unfair. For me, the book flew along nicely when it dealt with the non-technical aspects of the lives of Jan, Todd, and Dr. Ressler, none of whom is in any way average, and none is indistinguishable from another, personality-wise.

I enjoyed the Q and A part of Jan's job. Trivia lovers will find a lot to enjoy in those segments. And it must be said that, when you finally get to them, there are a couple of very sexy set-pieces, although this book is by no means a bodice-ripper. This book was a literary sensation when it came out in 1992. I appreciate the ambition behind it, but its notoriety, I can't help but think, was only because there was little going on that year. show less

The title is a warning to the casual reader:

"If you don't get the title, or

if you don't want to get the title,

beware."

In The Gold Bug Variations, author Richard Powers perspicaciously composes a novel with themes of puzzles (Edgar Allen Poe's The Gold Bug), music structure (Bach's Goldberg Variations), romance (two love stories that intertwine across twenty-five years), computer technology, art history, and DNA genetic codes. I remember reading this book when it was first published, maybe twenty years ago, feeling like I'd plunged into the deepest and most bewitching lake on earth, hopelessly unable to surface for 638 pages, desperate for a breath of air, powerless to return to the top of the water, smitten with the sparkle of the show more words all around me, bewildered by the enigmatic story, in awe of the intelligence of the writing. show less