Category Archives: Favourite Books

Published in 1995, Richard Power’s Galatea 2.2 isn’t exactly a recent read of mine. It is, however, the only book I reread as often as Lolita (which is to say, it’s one of only two books I read so often that the pages are permanently bowed – every other book I own is in nearly pristine condition).

Coincidentally, Powers was also introduced to me by the same professor who put Lolita on my first year Lit. syllabus and pretty much changed my life forever. Not to be dramatic or anything.

Galatea 2.2 is the pseudo-autobiographical story of Richard Powers himself; it’s uncertain which specific events of the novel are based in reality and which are altered to further plot, but it’s clearly a story meant to write away some of Powers’ personal demons. In the novel, Powers returns to his alma mater – simply known as “U” – after ending a beautiful but volatile, doomed relationship with a women referred to as “C”.  While spending the year as an in-house author at U, Powers meets a cognitive neurologist named Philip Lentz, who convinces him to participate in an experiment involving artificial intelligence. Lentz bets his fellow scientists that he can build a computer that can produce an analysis of a literary text that is indistinguishable from one produced by a human – thus proving that the human brain can be mapped by means of computer-based neural networks. It falls to Powers to “teach” this machine.

What follows is equal parts computer theory, cognitive science and soaring, heartbreaking prose. Powers manages to make every incarnation of “Imp[lementation] A”  (of which there are eight, from A to H) feel less about the technology and more about biology – each attempt to create a machine that thinks for itself is viewed as a birth. Every time the system stops or stalls, it’s like watching a toddler learn to walk.

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. It was like some caterpillar trapped by sadistic children in a coffee can, a token breathing hole punched in its prison lid. What monstrous intelligence would fly off from such a creature’s chrysalis?

Powers’ greatest skill is his ability to perfectly balance intellectually engaging facts with emotionally wrenching story-telling; every scientific statement is well-researched and accompanied by a mini-tutorial, yet so prosaically written that you rarely notice the science. If textbooks were this beautifully written, I’d have been a neurologist instead of a starving artist.

Woven throughout the scientific story arc is the fictional Powers’ own love story, told to the final incarnation of the machine, Imp H. Doomed almost from the start, the romance spans years and continents before ultimately burning out, as most supernovas do. In its ashes, Powers is left isolated and struggling with a profound case of writer’s block:

The moment the manuscript left my hands, I went slack… instead of catharsis, I felt nothing. Anaesthesia.

What was I supposed to do for the rest of my life? The rest of the afternoon alone seemed unfillable. I went shopping. As always, retail left me with an ice-cream headache.

I figured I might write again, at least one, if the thing could start with that magic first line. But the train – that train I asked the reader to picture – was hung at departure.

Galatea 2.2 is a novel whose themes clash and clatter; philosophy wars with technology, science with the sheer power of emotion and human connection. And in the end, there’s so much carnage on either side, nobody knows who wins.

“What makes Iago evil? Some people ask. I never ask.”

As with most of my favourite books, Play It As It Lays found it way onto my bookshelf through a series of random and seemingly fated coincidences. I’ve a tendency to periodically Google my favourite authors (Coupland, Danielewski, Bret Easton Ellis, etc.), and one day happened upon this little gem on the Chapters/Indigo website. Yup, that’s right; a list of Douglas Coupland’s Top Ten Reads.

Needless to say, I immediately ran out to get a copy of the very first book on that list: Play It As It Lays.

From first sentence to last, I fell in love with Didion’s writing style. It’s the sort of bare, minimalistic fiction that means every sentence, every word is meticulously chosen: there’s little to Play It As It Lays that is extraneous or unessential. It seems nothing ever happens, nobody really cares. Conversations consist of quips and disinterested half-sentences. And yet, the novel’s protagonist, Maria  (pronounced Mar-eye-uh), navigates through the most devastating of life’s moments:  her marriage is doomed, toxic; her career at a standstill. She has an abortion, holds the hand of a close friend as he commits suicide.

Carter pulled her to her feet and kissed her.  She stood without moving and after awhile he let his arms drop.

“What’s the matter now,” he said.

“Nothing.”

“It’s all gone with you,” he said. “It used to be there but it’s gone.”

“Listen,” she said as if by rote. “I love you.”

Admittedly, it’s a very cold story. For pages upon pages, you’re convinced Maria suffers some sort of factory defect – she just doesn’t have the emotional capacity of a normal person. It’s a stunning, deeply unsettling portrayal of modernity and the entertainment industry. And it’s completely brilliant.

Which is probably why it, like Lolita, was named one of TIME’s 100 Best English-Language Novels.