So since all I can do is write about things that suddenly pop out at me as interesting in this book I’m going to do just that. After yesterday class, I was really thinking about Lentz and Audrey. We were talking about how Lentz was talking about Audrey to Powers right in front of her. What I thought was interesting was the strange attachment that was there, but at the same time lacking. I got the feeling he became defensive when Constance tried to help, “‘I’ll do that,’ Constance offered. ‘No you won’t.’ Lentz told her. ‘Come on, Audrey. Let’s eat some Lunch’” (167). Lentz gives me the impression that his wifes illness is hard for him to cope with and he struggles wishing she were better. He has to have some sort of connection with her because he has a natural intimacy with her as he puts his arms around her waist. But at the same time he has absolutely no objections to turning her illness into scientific rambling. On page 168, he’s going on and on to Powers and says,
Increasing control over all the variables. Divide and conquer. Max out the activity or do away with it. Future tech. That’s what science is all about, Marcel. Efficiency. Productivity. Total immunity. Regeneration of lost parts. Eternal, ripple-free life, frozen in our early twenties. Or die trying.
It’s as if he finds comfort in bringing up something scientific in one way or another. If it gets his mind off of his wifes condition and loosens Powers focus then they can all feel better. But what was also really interesting about the connection to Audrey is a comment Powers makes later on. Because he closed the office door and got a look at the pictures, he immediately had some connection to her, but seeing her in person only heightened it. As hes training and reading to the machine he thinks of Audrey,
Sometimes now, during the training, I imagined I read aloud to that woman, locked out of her own home. Audrey had smell, taste, touch, sight, hearing, but no new memory. Her long-term reservoirs were drying up, through want of reiteration. Imp H, on the other hand, could link any set of things into a vast, standing constellation. But it had no nose, mouth, fingers, and only the most rudimentary eyes and ears (172).
I thought it was interesting that Audrey was so essential to the machine. Perhaps, Lentz needed Powers to meet Audrey in order to complete the bet, or maybe not. What really is Audrey’s importance in this novel? I’m interested in the fact that there is such a connection and insistence on connection her to the machine. Audrey has what the machine doesnt physically but the machine is capable of storing more new knowledge. Audrey can’t even remember her own husband. I must say I thought it was really comical, in a sick way I guess, that she was yelling “Oh, Nurse. Thank God you’re here. This man…was trying to rape me” (167). I immediately thought this jerk Lentz who always has something snippy to say isn’t remember by his own wife and shes quick to say that he has tried to rape her of all things. It really made me wish I knew what he looked like because maybe he has that naughty look in his eye. Or maybe I’m just rambling on for no reason.
I agree that the relationship between Lentz and Audrey is really interesting, specifically for its contradictions. Although he seems like an idiot (and that’s being kind of nice) most of the time, it appears to me that Lentz does, or at least did, care about Audrey at some point or another. I also wonder if Lentz uses the scientific explanation about what is happening to his wife so that he can detach a bit from it — almost as if he’s less emotionally involved, Audrey’s deterioration will be easier on him because the science will keep him from the humanist side that may feel completely lost without her. (Am I giving him too much credit? Not sure…)