Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2

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 1995

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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This novel is a convenient starting point for discussing Powers’ work in mid-career because it features a focal character named Richard Powers, whose background is remarkably similar to the author’s, and who has reached a point in his literary career at which he is struggling with writer’s block. So, on the surface, it may appear that Powers, whose first four novels were structurally intricate, linguistically dense, polymathically erudite, and thematically complex, has been reduced to exploiting the sudden exhaustion of his own resources as a novelist. In a review for

The Times

of London, Gordon Chivers remarks on this point: “Unpromisingly, the hero of the piece is called Richard Powers, a newly successful novelist in early middle age.”

Reinforcing this impression, the novel’s

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3182 words

Citation: Kich, Martin. "Galatea 2.2". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 March 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=21622, accessed 29 April 2024.]

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