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Powers' novels are never about one thing--as a reader you have to take the two or three narratives and twine them together to see the shape he has constructed. in this novel, we watch a corporation grow and a woman wither in twinned narrative.Clare Soap starts out in 1802 with the first Clare arriving on the US' eastern shore. Laura starts out in May of an unspecified but 1980s-ish year, planting her spring garden. Clare is about to begin a business which will lead his sons to start Clare Soap.
In this novel, painfully and tentatively, two worlds entwine: the idiosyncratic fabric of an individual’s life and the managed, efficiency-driven footprint of a global company. But the entanglement is more than a mere conflict between powerless consumers and machiavellian corporations. Because, ultimately, we live in a world that is populated by fallible humans. Also globe-spanning businesses emerge from the entrepreneurial impulse of an individual, or a small group of individuals, with a partic...
This was alright. Definitely a dense read that takes a lot of effort to get into. Powers uses a corporation to work as main protagonist, but it gave the novel a stale voice. It is a history lesson paired with a sad story of a woman struggling to beat ovarian cancer. Laura’s story WAS very sad and really scared me - paired side by side with a story of a company’s growth, we see how anything small can affect a wider population. It was an interesting concept to write, but felt unnecessary. I would
This was a bit of a departure from what I have previously read from Richard Powers and that proved my interest in this book. The book has a dual plot line which Powers has successfully used before, but instead of pairing science and romance, he has melded a human interest story of a woman being treated for cancer with a fictional corporate history of a large chemical conglomerate with roots as a soap and candle manufacturer. This works surprisingly well with the cancer patient's story drawing on...
mega depressing, dnf
Book number six in my chronological re-read of Richard Powers’ novels (i.e. I am now halfway). For anyone who has read Powers’ books in publication order, this one comes as a bit of a surprise: his first five novels gained him a reputation for complexity and difficulty. Here we have just two story strands that weave around one another and the writing style seems to be deliberately dialled back. The first five novels from Powers make it very clear that he is interested in connections, in cause an...
One more book for our summer reading program, Read Green, Live Green!Let me begin by stating that a novel by Richard Powers is not a beach read. That having been said, it probably should not be recommended for a summer reading program. This is a dense and slow novel, and it is not for amateurs!In Gain, Powers tells two stories: the story of the Clare family and their soap business and the story of Laura Bodey, a woman who has just found out that she has ovarian cancer. As the stories move along
I hesitate to say this, but to be honest I found large chunks of this book rather boring. Once again there are two alternating storylines that converge towards the end.The first follows the history of a chemicals corporation from its start as a local soap and candle manufacturer in early 19th century Boston through to the modern day, and a midwestern town where it is the dominant employer. Powers attempts to liven this account up, with a brother who joins an ill-fated Antarctic expedition and co...
This book put me in a really really really bad mood.
a tale told from both ends. somewhere in the middle we see how innocuous steps up can result in the creation of monstrosities, and how the machine will devour us all if we are not careful.
UGH THIS BOOK IS THE WORST.
