Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
minds us of this with a suitably flowery, cod-Victorian explanation of his
chemical equations:
The symbols traipsed across the page, as cryptic as the skittering beetle
code in that story by Mr. Poe from the
Philadelphia Dollar Weekly
. The
first equation was a cotillion, a quadrille of decoupling and recoupling.
Na and Cl parted amicably, grabbing the split partners of 2H and SO
4
to
forge new squares while still balancing beautifully across the equal sign.
The second spun a sprightly Roger de Coverley, the terpsichorean set-
and-a-half breaking down longways in the winding hey, SO
4
cracking
into two new dancers of its own right, with never a leg being gained or
lost. [Powers 2001, p. 131]
The bottom line of all the technical details is clear enough: “Man now
spun worth from worthlessness, gold from dross.” The dream, in other
words, of the chemical philosophy.
So fluent does Powers become in this chemicalization of culture that
he can even toss us a (rather good) chemical joke or two, as when Laura
Bodey's daughter admits to having provoked a fight with another girl at
her school: “She says”, Laura tells Don, “that she asked the girl how
many viscoses died to make her blouse.”
But Laura Bodey is, seemingly, there to remind us of the conse-
quences of it all. In the light of the topic's title, it could appear to take the
shape of a morality tale: the business begun by the upright, honorable
Clare brothers becomes transformed over the years into a greedy multi-
national that ends up endangering the citizens unfortunate enough to live
close to its toxic, carcinogenic effluent, or who use its chemical products.
Inevitably perhaps, if rather depressingly, Powers was accused by some
reviewers of taking an anti-industrial stance in which he mounts “an as-
sault on corporate America” (Caldwell 1998). As with
White Noise
, such
crude readings tell us more about the preoccupations of the reader than
about the novel.
Powers himself is much more careful to balance his equation. For a
start, it is never clear in
Gain
whether Laura's ultimately terminal illness
is really connected to Clare products at all. As Don presses Laura to sue,
she insists that there is no reason to believe that her cancer has environ-
mental causes. When Don tells her that she is part of a cluster centered
on Lacewood, she points out that “ovarian cancer doesn't cluster”. She is
