Like all novels, this one is about the representation of reality. But not like all novels, this one takes that question head on. This is another of Richard Powers’s novel where the main narrative is interpolated by a secondary narrative with mostly thematic connections to the story. The novel is about the creation of a simulated space called the “Cavern” in which users are surrounded by elaborately LCD screen, wear augmented eyewear, haptic gloves, and other features and in habit vividly drawn and rendered rooms. […]

  I don’t think I intended to read this book in April, but the fact that it seemed to be calling from my ever-growing TBR pile (and the library began sending notices that I was out of renewals for this one). It’s length is a little intimidating – at 500 pages, it had the potential to create a bottleneck in moving through that TBR pile. While for me, April is not an ideal month for reading (especially not this year, as more people and events […]

Like a lot of Richard Powers novels, this one has a lot going on. It’s not even so much that, as he’s applying a narrative lens to many different things and then putting them into the novel. This novel like others of his, focuses on telling multiple threads and stories all together, tying them through a thematic lens more than a plot one. So what’s our lens here? Specifically it’s “Operation Wandering Soul”, which was a propaganda program during the US-Vietnam War designed to cause […]