Plowing the Dark by Richard Powers
"Plowing the Dark" by Richard Powers intertwines themes of art, technology, and human experience through the narratives of multiple characters. The story is primarily set in Seattle, reflecting on the world of virtual reality through a project involving a character named Stevie Spiegel. He aims to transform a space called "The Cavern" into a customizable virtual environment, drawing connections to significant art throughout history. This endeavor relies on the contributions of Adie Klarpol, a New York artist who unwittingly supports Stevie's ambitious project without fully grasping its implications.
Parallel to this artistic journey, the novel follows Taimur Martin, who, after moving to Beirut to teach English, is kidnapped by extremists. His harrowing experience in captivity leads him to create his own mental landscapes to cope with the trauma and isolation he faces. Through Taimur's story, Powers delves into deeper existential inquiries, questioning the nature of reality and the human mind's resilience in the face of adversity. The novel invites readers to contemplate the impact of technological advancements on the essence of human existence while also highlighting the transformative power of personal imagination and creativity.
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Plowing the Dark by Richard Powers
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 2000
Type of work: Novel
The Work
Readers of Prisoner’s Dilemma will recall that in his earlier novel, Powers brought Walt Disney to De Kalb, Illinois, to create a virtual world, a scale reproduction of the entire United States, but Disney’s projected world is not computer-generated. The virtual reality portion of Plowing the Dark is related to the Microsoft Corporation, although the company is never named. The setting is Seattle, the home of Microsoft. Many of the concerns are ones that suggest Microsoft. Stevie Spiegel, involved in a project to turn a room, “The Cavern,” through computer engineering into anything one wishes—the Sistine Chapel, the pyramids of Egypt, Michelangelo’s David—calls upon a friend from his college days to help him, but he cannot reveal to her exactly what it is that he is attempting to achieve. Adie Klarpol, a disenchanted New York artist, has blind faith in what Stevie is doing, although she is not aware fully of the dimensions of his work. Her talent in art is vital to Stevie’s project with the TeraSys virtual reality team. She is to re-create past artistic events and to trace the lineage of art history to such artifacts as the Lescaux Cave paintings.
Meanwhile, Taimur Martin, thirty-three, has arrived in Beirut to teach English. He leaves a pregnant girlfriend behind in the United States. Shortly after getting to Beirut, he is kidnapped by Muslim fundamentalists, thrust into holding facilities, and chained to the wall. As his confinement drags on, he creates his own virtual realities to preserve his sanity, dredging up memories from the past and shaping them into realities in his mind. At one point, after months of being held hostage and seeing no hope of escape, he attempts suicide.
Powers explores the origins of being in this novel and at one point comments, “All those old dead-end ontological undergrad conundrums? They’ve now become questions of engineering.” One cannot reasonably argue that virtual reality will not change human existence perceptibly, but Powers tempers this conclusion with the virtual realities that Martin creates as a means of his own transformation during his imprisonment. His virtual realities have nothing to do with engineering.
Sources for Further Study
The Atlantic Monthly 286 (July, 2000): 95.
Booklist 96 (May 1, 2000): 1653.
Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, June 7, 2000, p. K-6466.
Library Journal 125 (April 1, 2000): 132.
The New York Times, April 22, 2000, p. A15.
The New York Times Book Review 105 (June 18, 2000): 12.
The New Yorker 76 (July 3, 2000): 83.
Publishers Weekly 247 (April 7, 2000): 48.