Part One about Daniel Mendelsohn

My second American hero is a genius whom it's difficult not to admire. I've been marathon-reading Richard Powers' s work for about a year now, starting with the widely and rightly acclaimed The Time Of Our Singing –I reread it after Obama won the American elections, which added to the emotions the story and the characters convey, and I've failed to post about it since then but I will some day because it deserves a post of its own–going on last Autumn with the wonderful The Eko Maker that convinced me that Richard Powers was one of a kind, and perhaps the best American writer alive. So I've decided to explore Powers' s bibliography before.

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No this entry was not prompted by a documentary about WWII GI's; it has nothing to do with movie stars and I am not particularly into those superheroes born in comics of which Americans are so fond either. Actually I guess it goes against a lot of clichés but my American heroes are writers.The more I read Daniel Mendelsohn and Richard Powers the more I adore them.

Perhaps you remember how I fell in love with the former while reading his The Lost. I have read two other books of his since then, and I'm still under Daniel Mendelsohn's spell.

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PS: I'm spamming(yes there's a Part Two coming soon) today but since the History & Geography test took place yesterday morning and given that this afternoon I went to Saint-Cloud to picked the Baccalauréat papers, that I'm supposed to mark in the 7 upcoming days, these entries are probably my latest "big posts" for a while. Marking Hell begins tomorrow morning so you won't see a lot of me until I'm done, unless I need a place to rant and whine from time to time...which might happen.

A few days ago, I heard about Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles' fate as I was finishing Richard Powers' Galatea 2.2, and I watched Caprica pilot thanks to the Internet fairy.

When I first heard that there would be a the spin-off, I was rather skeptical. I didn't really see the point of telling the story of what happened some fifty years before the Cylons destroyed the colonies, so I wasn't sure I would watch the 82 minute movie, less alone like it, but I thought I could give it a try, and honestly I did enjoy Caprica. It is quite different from BSG even though there are connections through Bear McCreary's music, the Adama family (William isn't Bill yet but he's there as a young boy) and the "birth" of the first "cybernetic life-form node" that is a CYLON. The line "A Cylon? Interesting." was a killer.
I spotted flaws here and there, and yes there was some stuff that bothered me but I was left wanting more, wanting to know what would be going to happen next. I guess it's a good thing given that Caprica is a prequel! The Greystones are really intriguing and touching, especially Daniel. Eric Stoltz was simply amazing.

Also looks like Ron Moore and Joss Whedon keep giving nods to each other's work. I couldn't help noticing that two characters have names that connect them to Buffy: Cyrus Xander and Clarisse Willow! It can't be a coincidence! Or was it Jane Espenson's wink at her former boss?

So I recommend Caprica to anyone who likes intelligent Sci-Fi. You don't even need to have seen BSG in order to understand it. But it's better to see to pilot, unspoiled!


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Richard Powers' Galatea 2.2  is terrific. I loved it. I can't believe that there isn't a lot more fans of Powers out there. He is a genius and manages to move me every time (I cried reading certain pieces from The Time of Our Singing!). For anyone interested, Galatea 2.2 tells the story of a writer anmed Richard Powers, who's going through a life crisis and gets involved by acognitive neurologist in a crazy project: building an intelligent machine, a machine who can read and comment on the readings in question. Here is what I wrote about the novel on my Goodreads account.

I don't know if I should be punished but, instead of marking papers in the afternoon I downloaded the last episode of Lost, "Dead is Dead" and then I watched it...

Here comes a long review with a lot of Egyptian stuff.

( I love that show  )


In other news I really hope that Fox isn't going to cancel Terminator:The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It has flaws but I'm hooked, and it's funny to watch the birth of A.I on that show especially since I'm reading Richard Powers' Galatea 2.2 .

Did I say how much I love Richard Powers? He's really becoming my favourite American writer, along with Daniel Mendelsohn.