- Track every order
- Save books to your wishlist
- Earn rewards on every order
- All Available Copies
- Overview
- About the Author
- Awards
- Professional Reviews
- Reader Reviews
- Table Of Contents
- Borrow
Overview
"Mention Richard Powers' name to other writers and see them get that faraway look in their eyes: They are calculating the eventual reach of his influence."--Sven Birkerts, Esquire In a digital laboratory on the shores of Puget Sound, a band of virtual reality researchers race to complete the Cavern, an empty white room that can become a jungle, a painting, or a vast Byzantine cathedral. In a war-torn Mediterranean city, an American is held hostage, chained to a radiator in another empty white room. What can possibly join two such remote places? Only the shared imagination, a room that these people unwittingly build in common, where they are all about to meet, where the dual frames of this inventive novel to coalesce. Adie Klarpol, a skilled but disillusioned artist, comes back to life, revived by the thrill of working with the Cavern's cutting-edge technology. Against the collapse of Cold War empires and the fall of the Berlin Wall, she retreats dangerously into the cyber-realities she has been hired to create. As her ex-husband lies dying and the outbreak of computerized war fills her with a sense of guilty complicity, Adie is thrown deeper into building a place of beauty and unknown power, were she might fend off the incursions of the real world gone wrong. On the other side of the globe, Taimur Martin, an English teacher retreating from a failed love affair, is picked up off the streets in Beirut by Islamic fundamentalists and held in solitary captivity. Without distraction or hope of release, he must keep himself whole by the force of his memory alone. Each infinite, empty day moves him closer to insanity, and only the surprising arrival of sanctuary sustains him for the shattering conclusion. Plowing the Dark is fiction that explores the imagination's power to both destroy and save.
Richard Powers
Richard Powers was born on June 18, 1957 in Evanston, Illinois. He received bachelor's and master's degrees in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After graduation, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts and worked as a computer programmer and freelance data processor. One day he saw August Sander's 1914 black-and-white photograph of three Westerwald farm boys heading to a dance at the Museum of Fine Arts. This photograph inspired Powers to quit his job and try writing a novel. Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance was published in 1985. His other works include Prisoner's Dilemma, The Gold Bug Variations, Operation Wandering Soul, Galatea 2.2, Plowing the Dark, The Time of Our Singing, and Generosity: An Enhancement. He received numerous awards including the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction for Gain, the National Book Award for The Echo Maker, and Pulitzer Prize in fiction for The Overstory: A Novel.
Categories
All Available Copies Find out more about shipping times from these sellers.
| Condition | Price | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Used Very Good (1 available)
|
$5.78 USD | Add To Cart |
Ships directly from Better World Books
|
|
|
New (242 available)
Ships Separately |
$22.78 USD | Add To Cart | Ships separately from Better World Books suppliers | |
|
eBook Obtain a digital book from our friends at eBooks.com.
|
{{ebooksDotComPrice}} {{ebooksDotComCurrency}} | eBooks.com | Digital edition from eBooks.com | |
|
Audio Book Obtain a digital book from our friends at AudiobooksNow.com.
|
{{audioBooksNowPrice}} {{audioBooksNowCurrency}} | AudiobooksNow.com | Digital edition from AudiobooksNow.com |
Professional Reviews
"A fiercely visual book . . . the effect is spectacular . . . The most visceral prose Powers has ever written." -- Daniel Zalewski, The New York Times Book Review
"America's most ambitious novelist . . . Plowing The Dark is virtual reality composed in a language that will never go obsolete. No one who becomes immersed in its poetry will walk out the way he or she came in." -- Kevin Berger, The San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
" Plowing The Dark may be [Powers's] most finely executed story yet . . . Relentless and mesmerizing . . . a beautiful homage to the sine qua non of consciousness itself . . . the final triumph of art over pain." -- Gail Caldwell, The Boston Globe
"Powers has an inventive, virtuosic writing style that reserves him a special category in today's fiction . . . I don't have the space to do justice to all the wonders of craftsmanship in Plowing The Dark . . . This is the first emblematic novel of the 21st century, a lesson and an inspiration." -- Judy Doenges, The Seattle Times
"[A] tour de force. It has overwhelming inventiveness and fun moments as well." -- Donald Newlove, The Philadelphia Inquirer
"This is, ultimately, a novel of ideas, but one with a soul . . . There is much to admire in this novel, particularly the ingenious way in which reality is captured." -- Scott Leibs, The San Diego Union-Tribune
"Full of intelligence, exacting analysis and supple prose . . . [a] magisterial storybook." -- Corey Mesler, The Commercial Appeal
"Powers' twin tales are rife with echoes and allusions that reinforce their shared concern with the ways in which we reinvent our worlds." -- Ralph Rugoff, LA Weekly
"Superb . . . perhaps [Powers'] greatest novel . . . Nearly every page of Powers' astonishing book has stunning ideas that will force you to re-evaluate everything you thought you knew about these subjects, and the implications you never imagined." -- Steven Moore, The Newark Star-Ledger
"Powers displays his trademark intellectual richness . . . His prose makes technology sing and music compute." -- Michael Harris, The Los Angeles Times
Reader Reviews for Plowing the Dark : A Novel
| Find at your local library from our friends at WorldCat | Find Libraries |
Overview
"Mention Richard Powers' name to other writers and see them get that faraway look in their eyes: They are calculating the eventual reach of his influence."--Sven Birkerts, Esquire In a digital laboratory on the shores of Puget Sound, a band of virtua ...
Read full overview
Overview
"Mention Richard Powers' name to other writers and see them get that faraway look in their eyes: They are calculating the eventual reach of his influence."--Sven Birkerts, Esquire In a digital laboratory on the shores of Puget Sound, a band of virtual reality researchers race to complete the Cavern, an empty white room that can become a jungle, a painting, or a vast Byzantine cathedral. In a war-torn Mediterranean city, an American is held hostage, chained to a radiator in another empty white room. What can possibly join two such remote places? Only the shared imagination, a room that these people unwittingly build in common, where they are all about to meet, where the dual frames of this inventive novel to coalesce. Adie Klarpol, a skilled but disillusioned artist, comes back to life, revived by the thrill of working with the Cavern's cutting-edge technology. Against the collapse of Cold War empires and the fall of the Berlin Wall, she retreats dangerously into the cyber-realities she has been hired to create. As her ex-husband lies dying and the outbreak of computerized war fills her with a sense of guilty complicity, Adie is thrown deeper into building a place of beauty and unknown power, were she might fend off the incursions of the real world gone wrong. On the other side of the globe, Taimur Martin, an English teacher retreating from a failed love affair, is picked up off the streets in Beirut by Islamic fundamentalists and held in solitary captivity. Without distraction or hope of release, he must keep himself whole by the force of his memory alone. Each infinite, empty day moves him closer to insanity, and only the surprising arrival of sanctuary sustains him for the shattering conclusion. Plowing the Dark is fiction that explores the imagination's power to both destroy and save.
Product Details
About the Author
Richard Powers
Richard Powers was born on June 18, 1957 in Evanston, Illinois. He received bachelor's and master's degrees in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After graduation, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts and worked as a computer programmer and freelance data processor. One day he saw August Sander's 1914 black-and-white photograph of three Westerwald farm boys heading to a dance at the Museum of Fine Arts. This photograph inspired Powers to quit his job and try writing a novel. Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance was published in 1985. His other works include Prisoner's Dilemma, The Gold Bug Variations, Operation Wandering Soul, Galatea 2.2, Plowing the Dark, The Time of Our Singing, and Generosity: An Enhancement. He received numerous awards including the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction for Gain, the National Book Award for The Echo Maker, and Pulitzer Prize in fiction for The Overstory: A Novel.
Reviews
Professional Reviews
"A fiercely visual book . . . the effect is spectacular . . . The most visceral prose Powers has ever written." -- Daniel Zalewski, The New York Times Book Review
"America's most ambitious novelist . . . Plowing The Dark is virtual reality composed in a language that will never go obsolete. No one who becomes immersed in its poetry will walk out the way he or she came in." -- Kevin Berger, The San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
" Plowing The Dark may be [Powers's] most finely executed story yet . . . Relentless and mesmerizing . . . a beautiful homage to the sine qua non of consciousness itself . . . the final triumph of art over pain." -- Gail Caldwell, The Boston Globe
"Powers has an inventive, virtuosic writing style that reserves him a special category in today's fiction . . . I don't have the space to do justice to all the wonders of craftsmanship in Plowing The Dark . . . This is the first emblematic novel of the 21st century, a lesson and an inspiration." -- Judy Doenges, The Seattle Times
"[A] tour de force. It has overwhelming inventiveness and fun moments as well." -- Donald Newlove, The Philadelphia Inquirer
"This is, ultimately, a novel of ideas, but one with a soul . . . There is much to admire in this novel, particularly the ingenious way in which reality is captured." -- Scott Leibs, The San Diego Union-Tribune
"Full of intelligence, exacting analysis and supple prose . . . [a] magisterial storybook." -- Corey Mesler, The Commercial Appeal
"Powers' twin tales are rife with echoes and allusions that reinforce their shared concern with the ways in which we reinvent our worlds." -- Ralph Rugoff, LA Weekly
"Superb . . . perhaps [Powers'] greatest novel . . . Nearly every page of Powers' astonishing book has stunning ideas that will force you to re-evaluate everything you thought you knew about these subjects, and the implications you never imagined." -- Steven Moore, The Newark Star-Ledger
"Powers displays his trademark intellectual richness . . . His prose makes technology sing and music compute." -- Michael Harris, The Los Angeles Times
Borrow
All Available Copies
| Condition | Source | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Used Very Good (1 available)
Ships from |
Ships directly from Better World Books
|
$5.78 USD | Add To Cart |
|
New (242 available)
Ships Separately |
Ships separately from Better World Books suppliers | $22.78 USD | Add To Cart |
|
eBook Obtain a digital book from our friends at eBooks.com.
|
Digital edition from eBooks.com | {{ebooksDotComPrice}} {{ebooksDotComCurrency}} | eBooks.com |
|
Audio Book Obtain a digital book from our friends at AudiobooksNow.com.
|
|
{{audioBooksNowPrice}} {{audioBooksNowCurrency}} | Audiobook |
Limited Preview for 'Plowing the Dark : A Novel' provided by Archive.org
*This is a limited preview of the contents of this book and does not directly represent the item available for sale.*
A preview for 'Plowing the Dark : A Novel' is unavailable.
You are now leaving the Better World Books website to complete your transaction. Your eBook download will be facilitated by our friends at eBooks.com. Thank you for your support and for shopping with Better World Books!
You are now leaving the Better World Books website to complete your transaction. Your audio book download will be facilitated by our friends at AudiobooksNow.com. Thank you for your support and for shopping with Better World Books!
You are now leaving the Better World Books website. Thank you for your support and for shopping with Better World Books!