First let me begin with summing up how I felt about Powers and this book by the end. This wonderful clip from Family Guy just really did it for me:
So to really talk about the end of this novel. What stuck with me most was the twist on the “real” bet with Powers and Lentz. The first one sounded fine to me and I think that when the actual bet is revealed I begin to dislike Lentz just a little bit more. The whole importance of the bet was basically to trick Powers into making meaning from the things the machine was spitting out; meaning that didn’t really exist. This brought me back to what I wrote in another post about how personal it seemed Powers was getting with the machine. It got so bad that he had actual feelings of dislike towards the machine as if it were another human. I guess it all makes sense now as to how Lentz really wanted Powers to relate to the building of a machine that was supposedly supposed to be able to read and interpret literature. A machine that had something in common with Powers almost like a friend he desperately needed because it was supposed to be able to do all of the things English majors can do; read and interpret literature.
What struck me most was the point at which Powers begins to realize. On page 320 he says,
“But first, I needed to hear things for myself. ‘ Lentz. Tell me something. Was this…?’ He saw my little hand-muscle spasm, a flinch that passed itself off as a wave at the hardware. He decoded me. I could accept being set up. All I wanted to know was whether she was a setup, too. His face clouded. ‘Nobody expected Helen. She surprised everyone.’ As close to humility as a temperament would take him”.
I can’t help but sense how crushed Powers seems at this point. I must say I didn’t expect it just as much as he didn’t, but this part in the novel seems so strong to me. It’s almost as if he doesn’t know what to do next. This is where I begin to get frustrated because as we discussed in class yesterday, this whole scam is even coming back at the reader. This book definitely still leaves me curious, but I feel like I need to give it one more shot.
