Although the assigned reading was admittedly difficult, one idea seemed to resonate throughout the text. Two opposite characters seem to encapsulate the confrontation between science and the arts. With this novel, a writer and a computer engineer butt heads. Both seem to believe that it is their field of study that is more important than the others. But what I have yet to understand is why this feeling of disdain exists between the two. One passage from the novel could provide a clue.
People tend to fear what they can’t understand, and this could be the case between Philip Lentz and the narrator. Although neither the narrator or Lentz have come out to express their ignorance, the passage on page 16 gives an image of this idea. It states, “The man who had been sitting in his office after midnight, playing the same five minutes of Mozart again again to an otherwise empty building. To a bank of machines”(Powers, 16). This image of a musical loop being played repeatedly to a computer seems to show how technology is unable to understand art. The computer is repeatedly fed the same song because it is attempting to understand it. What is interesting is that it isn’t fed the whole song, only a single snippet. This idea proves that the computer is so confused by music that it can only attempt to comprehend it one piece at a time.
Although the scene between Mozart and the computer symbolize the confusion between the two, it also could prove to foreshadow the relationship between Lentz and the narrator. The computers are programmed to try to understand the music, showing that the relationship between art and technology could thaw. Lentz could possibly attempt to do the same to the narrator, trying to understand him and his profession piece by piece.
The technical aspects of Power’s writing is confusing, but interesting nonetheless. The passage on page 16 is a powerful image that exemplifies the bewilderment that art and technology see in each other. But this is confusion that may end with the novel.
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October 25, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Christine
I agree with you that the polar opposites (or what we assume to be) of the arts and sciences are at odds here, as represented through Powers and Lentz. What’s so interesting to me though is that Powers used to be “one of them” — one of the science people — and then he switched to the English side of it. I can’t help but wonder if Lentz would be as hard on Powers if Powers had always been studying English. What I mean is: Does Lentz view Powers’ switching from the sciences to English as a slap in the face? I’ve read up to page 260-whatever and I’m finding the dynamic between Powers and Lentz to be intriguing; it’s beginning to draw me in like the relationship between Powers and C. did at the beginning. It seems as though Powers and Lentz are coming to a better understanding of each other, or at least are better able to tolerate how the other one operates. I’m starting to get into this novel a bit more now so I’m looking forward to seeing what their relationship is like at the end of the novel — whether it seems that the arts and sciences can coexist together or if the author Powers plays it off as if the two can never meet.