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| Plot Summary of The Gold Bug Variations |
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"This is NOT summer beach reading. Powers writes rich, powerful, intellectual novels and this is his masterpiece (so far). Two couples -- a pair of scientists working on the secrets of DNA in 1957 Champaign-Urbana (the woman is already married to someone else), and a reference librarian and computer programmer/art history dropout in New York circa 1982-86 -- fall in love and provide the human quartet that matches the four base constituents of DNA. Bach's "Goldberg Variations" plays a big role in the plot, and to a lesser extent Poe's classic tale of cryptography. Jan O'Deigh, the librarian, is the partial first-person narrator, and a very sharp heroine she is! This novel takes patience and concentration (I've just finished reading it for the second time and still don't get all of it -- maybe never will) but if you give it the attention it requires, it should fill you with wonder and awe at the miracle of life: "Science ... is about reverence, not mastery"; "The purpose of science was to revive and cultivate a perpetual state of wonder.""
David Loftus, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of The Gold Bug Variations |
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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
Time/era of story
- 1980's-1999
Romance/Romance Problems
Yes
Is this an adult or child's book?
- Adult or Young Adult Book
Main Character
Gender
- Female
Age:
- 20's-30's
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Physique
- average physique
Main Adversary
Identity:
- none
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 3 ()
United States
Yes
The US:
- Northeast
- Midwest
Forest?
Yes
Prairie?
Yes
City?
Yes
City:
- New York
Misc setting
- scientific labs
Style
Person
- mostly 3rd
Sex in book?
Yes
What kind of sex:
- vague references
- descript of kissing
Unusual Style:
- a lot of play on words
Amount of dialog
- significantly more descript than dialog
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Click here for more information about this book
Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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