To get a good look at the author/character of this novel, Richard Powers himself (which by the way reminds me of an old soap opera shot!)! So this novel is really interesting…I don’t even know where to begin with this because I had to reread the first 48 pages just to gain a basic understanding of all the scientific, computer mumbo jumbo! However, what I did find really interesting, after reading a little bit about him from wikipedia after class yesterday, is how much his actual life reflects through his writing. Not only is he the character and author at the same time in this novel, but he uses his life as his main source for this novel. To actually think about the way he’s writing this novel is so interesting. To imagine an author as a character that is essentially making a connection between the world of fiction and reality. I’m curious to see how this works for the rest of the novel because I can’t help but wonder if the author will start to comment on his own writing but through the character of himself. That may seem really scrambled but it makes sense in my mind.
So moving on, I also found it interesting how he uses abbreviation for what seems to be the things he likes most. He seems fascinated with the college he went to and the town it was in, yet he uses abbreviations for them, and along those same lines, he abbreviates the woman he seems to have some connection to as C. Clearly we know C. is a woman and that there was a point in his life when they were together, but I’m confused on what exactly their relationship consists of. He often thinks about her because she randomly appears in between all the computer programming talk, but I’m not really sure what to make of it.
I’m not so sure I feel confident enough to talk about anything else as of yet, but I’m hoping that this novel will turn around for me and I will begin to like it. There has to be something under all of this computer stuff that will start to interest me!
I’ve been thinking about his usage of abbreviations and I wondered it was tied to the author/narrator connection. Or maybe I should say disconnection. The author is private about his life and yet he seems to use autobiographical details in his novel(s). I wonder if the abbreviations are a way for him to add to the distance between author/narrator, not just for him but for the readers as well. By keeping the names secret, they still belong to just Powers (the author) only.
Also in response to the abbreviations, I can’t figure out exactly why Powers the author chooses to use them. I know they were used in Victorian novels to make the story seem more “authentic” so is Powers commenting on that somehow? Additionally, because Powers the author is modeling Powers the character after himself, we can easily look at websites and find biographical information that will give us possibilities for what the abbreviations stand for in the novel. If we do this, what’s the point of having abbreviations in the first place?