Mangled Powers

[OUTRSPACIA at aol.com]

Sometime back -- it always takes me a while to catch up with you folks -- you
were talking about Richard Powers' book, Galatea 2.2 and George Mangels'
book, Frank's World. Well I snatched them up and have finished 2.2 and am
well into Frank. 

Reading Powers, I was far from willing to put him in league with TRP, in
spite of the glowing blurbs. But the closer I got to finishing, the more I
became  comfortable with the comparison, particularly as I finally connected
with the idea of being caught in a world where we are unwitting participants
in a great scheme or cover up, a place where we all somehow agree to ignore
everything's that isn't what it seems. (Although I have to say the paranoia
isn't so prevalent as one reviewer suggests.)

Helen discovers this dysfunction after being fed literature with a topping of
the daily news. Frank on the other hand discovers it right away, fed by
massive quantities of tv.

Not so far from Pynchon, really. Frank is the 90's version of Pig Bodine.
Frank just got fifty more years worth of the boob tube.

Mangels is hard to swallow because unlike all the literature that preceded
him, he doesn't pull any punches. There are no euphemisms at all. It's all
right there, listed for you. It's hard to read, but in small chunks.
Thankfully, it's only 200 pages or so.

Of course, I don't know yet if there is any redemption for Frank. Or for us.
I trust I'll find out if I keep reading. Helen chose not to play it out at
all, which may be an easy option for a man-made neural net, but isn't much of
one for the biological among us.

P.S. I found it interesting to have the Kasparov/Deep Blue chess game going
on while I read Galatea 2.2. It gave even more credence to the novel.