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| Plot Summary of Plowing the Dark |
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"At the turn of the 1990s, a team of young hotshots and middle-aged artists and teachers work for an R&D spinoff of a Microsoft-like corporation in the Seattle area. Their project involves computer-generated virtual realities. At roughly the same time, a 33-year-old American teaching English in Beirut is taken hostage by Arab terrorists and remains in their grip for more than 2 years. Their stories cross in the end, in a somewhat mystical way. In this, his seventh novel, Powers once again offers clashes and collaborations between art and science (the VR team works on, among other things, recreations of the environments of Henri Rousseau's jungle-like "The Dream," Van Gogh's bedroom in Arles, and the great mosque of Istanbul, Hagia Sofia), a multicultural cast of characters, passing and deep references to Shakespeare, Yeats, Dickens and Bach, and the joyous play of words and ideas. After the hostage pleads for a book and finally receives one from his captors, the narration says: "Gorgeous human thoughts detonate in space all around you, extending their subordinate clauses, flinging their nouns around like burgeoning tracts of starter homes airlifted into arid wastes." Reading Powers is a lot like that. More than any other author I have read, he conveys the FEEL of ideas when they strike you."
David Loftus, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of Plowing the Dark |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book?
- thoughtful
Time/era of story
- 1980's-1999
Romance/Romance Problems
Yes
Kind of romance:
- GENERAL--no other subplots apply
- seduction (yum!)
Political/social activism
Yes
Plotlet:
- general liberal/left wing activism
- religious issues
Is this an adult or child's book?
- Adult or Young Adult Book
Main Character
How sensitive is this character?
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
Physique
- average physique
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 6 (an above average amount)
United States
Yes
The US:
- Midwest
- Pacific NW
Asia/Pacific
Yes
Asian country:
- Arabia
Desert?
Yes
Desert:
- hostile arabs
Forest?
Yes
Misc setting
- prison
- scientific labs
Style
Person
- mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death?
- generic/vague references to death/punishment
Sex in book?
Yes
What kind of sex:
- vague references
Unusual Style:
- No single main character?
Amount of dialog
- significantly more descript than dialog
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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