Richard Powers, Plowing the Dark

Martin Kich (Wright State University)

Ed. by Sofia Ahlberg, Uppsala University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2000

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

In this, his seventh novel, Powers reworks elements of his approaches in the previous two novels. In

Galatea 2.2

, he gives multiple literary turns to the Pygmalion myth and its various adaptations, focusing on an author without much of a personal life who becomes obsessed with creating a digital reader and then fostering a futile sense of self in a sensibility--a digital memory--incapable of any physical being and the physical experiences that are necessary to create actual memories. In

Plowing the Dark

, Powers presents us with two characters whose personal lives are similarly unsatisfying and who, in provocatively obverse and subversive ways, restore their senses of self through artistic creations that are divorced from the usual public exhibition and elicitation of a public response.…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

3926 words

Citation: Kich, Martin. "Plowing the Dark". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 April 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=21620, accessed 03 May 2024.]

Save this article