The Gold Bug Variations: A Novel [B2069]

2021 PB in nice clean condition. National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee. From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Overstory and the forthcoming Bewilderment, a magnificent double love story of two young couples separated by a distance of twenty-five years. "The most lavishly ambitious American novel since Gravity's Rainbow . . . An outright marvel." --Washington Post Stuart Ressler, a brilliant young molecular biologist, sets out in 1957 to crack the genetic code. His efforts are sidetracked by other, more intractable codes--social, moral, musical, spiritual--and he falls in love with a member of his research team. Years later, another young man and woman team up to investigate a different scientific mystery: Why did the eminently promising Ressler suddenly disappear from the world of science? Strand by strand, these two love stories twist about each other in a double helix of desire. Richard Powers' critically acclaimed third novel is an intellectual tour-de-force that probes the meaning of love, science, music, and art.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "An absolutely brilliant and astonishing novel in which characters obsessed with music and language intersect, revealing the power of codes (genetic, aesthetic, mathematic) and the powers of the human heart and mind obsessed with finding truth (and freedom). Richard Powers is a giant among American authors, and this, one of his early novels, is a testament to his vision and ambition, and his genius for thematically linking erotic and intellectual themes spanning science, nature and art."; "The central theme of this novel is the discovery of DNA. Richard Powers invests this quest with complexity of action, character, and ideas. On this journey he brings to life a diverse cast of people who interact with science and are impacted by its power and challenges in different ways."; "Richard Powers does not shy away from tackling really big ideas (in this case the discovery of genetic coding) and describing complex natural and artistic processes in luxurious language."; "This book. This book. Not for everyone but if it is for you, you will be challenged, amazed, awed, moved to tears, and you will realize the ultimate craziness of the fact that you-every little particle of you-is random, unique, and one tiny step from having never existed at all. You'll realize that love makes no sense and is essential. That music can tell us everything. And you will learn more about genetics, chemistry, physics, evolution, and the scientific method and the politics of academic science than you knew even existed. Oh, and a lot about information science and coding. The book is a puzzle inside a puzzle with a few enigmas thrown in. Pay attention. Learn. Read. Listen to music. Allow yourself to love."