Gain: A Novel [Paperback]

Serious American novelists are compelled to confront certain questions: what is right about America? What is wrong with us? A select company of writers are distinguished by their ability to recognize that the answers to these questions are virtually identical. I am thinking about Dreiser, Fitzgerald and, now, Richard Powers. In Gain, Powers tells two stories in one, one historical and one contemporary: the first tells of the seemingly irresistible rise of Clare, a multi-national corporation; and the second examines the life of a working mother afflicted with ovarian cancer -- a disease evidently caused by chemicals released by Clare's manufacturing processes. The book reads somewhat like a novelistic rendering of Hardy's poem "The Convergence of the Twain." Like the iceberg and liner in Hardy's work, heroine and corporation are on a collision course plotted by human vanity and outraged nature. As in the very best of classical tragedies, the action seems both sadly unnecessary and starkly inevitable. As the soap-selling business of the Clare brothers gathers momentum, one feels both the thrill of its financial triumph and the horror of the humam cost its growth exacts. In this novel, the conditions of American society enable characters to conceive great visions and to pursue them with courage and enthusiasm. At the end of the day, however, they cannot escape either their mortality or the prosaic, banal truth of their existence. Did so many brave, intelligent people labor and die just so that the heroine's teenage son can play video wargames in the comfort of a suburban bedroom? It is troubling, Powers suggests, that all our hopes and strivings should take us no further than this. Even-handedly, however, Powers shows us the benefits of industry as well as its dark side. Also deeply impressive is the sheer knowledge conveyed by this novel, ranging from insights into Whitman's "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" to informed commentary on the process of making a bar of soap. While some readers may grow impatient with Powers' erudition, I found it fascinating to be in the presence of a poet who is also a technician. Gain is linked in my mind with the tragic quest of Gatsby and the life and death of Clyde Griffiths. Like Fitzgerald's novel and Dreiser's, it probes the core of the American Dream -- a dream that irresistibly calls its followers onward, a dream too mighty to escape but too fantastic to fully achieve. The book is a powerful jeremiad against those who gain the world and lose their souls, but it also acknowledges that this kind of self-destruction may be inherent in the human, or at least the American, condition. Gain is one of the very best business novels I have read. In my view, it is one of the best American books of the last 25 years, maybe longer.

Richard Powers is such a great novelist that a reading of any of his novels, at whatever juncture, is bound to draw comparison with other masterpieces such as the Gold Bug Variations, The Time of our Singing and The Echo Maker. My reading, therefore, of Gain Powers sixth novel ultimately drew comparison. My conclusion is that Gain does not match up to the aforementioned masterpieces.

True to form in Gain, Powers has two stories running parallel throughout the novel. One narrative tells the story of the Clare family and their development of a soap making and eventually chemical business. This story is a hugely ambitious endeavour as it not only tells us the story of Clare corporation but more importantly it is a history of business development in the USA and as a by-product other significant historical events are touched on, such as the American civil war, in a typical Powers oblique manner. The second narrative tells the story of Laura Bodey and her family. Both stories are set in a town called Lacewood and it is the fact that Laura resides in Lacewood where the by-products of Clare corporation is assumed to have polluted the atmosphere from which we are led to believe Laura contracted cancer. Although they eventually overlap, the time span of the two stories are different. The story of the Clare family and corporation spans about 150 years, while that of Laura overlaps with the last 40-50 years of the Clare story.

Meanwhile, as both narratives progress, Powers interrupts them with short blurbs announcements in the form of advertisements, propaganda and Clare corporation promotions. It could be said that these announcements functions as a relief from the two main narratives but equally they do something more important by bringing into focus some of the cultural issues that drove capitalism and helps it to renew itself. Given that Laura contracts cancer and a group lawsuit is brought against the Clare corporation it is rather ironic when on reads an advertisement that runs: "Native Balm is a consummate, and unequalled, fully warranted article for washing and cleaning, and overall promotion of the body's health."

These different layers of narrative and multi-story telling renders Gain a novel rich in diverse themes. On one level if the novel is not a full analysis of capitalism it nonetheless certainly provides a very good excursion around it operation. On another level it is about some brave pioneers who came, saw and conquered the USA. It is also about adventure both metaphorically and literally - metaphorically about the superiority of one race of people over another in the sense that Clare and their likes venture out to create new inventions in their newly conquered world at the expense of the native Indians. The flip side of that, on a literal level, is that the youngest of the first generation Clare brothers keeps the spirit of adventure alive by undertaking an expedition. The expedition's chief purpose was to: "compile a reliable cartographic description of an area whose riches had previously been sealed in ignorance." But the real motive in undertaking the expedition is not the mere mapping a territory but to explore new opportunity for development.

Powers comes close to moralizing by suggesting that the downside of development is the unintentional harm that it might cause. This is manifested through Laura's suffering as a result of contracting cancer. Laura's experience of cancer is well observed by Powers, every minute detail is outlined. He reveals the ups and downs of Laura's experience as she goes through examination, scans and treatment. The family's concerns and tensions are well brought out. However, a major weakness for me is that given the nature of the issue, Powers handling of it was too cold and clinical. Laura's story lacked emotional gravity.

It is debatable as to whether or not Powers offers a critique of the rise of capitalism. If he does it is certainly subtle and to do so he draws on that old literary device known as irony. Here is an example: "Human progress had already taken a considerable toll. The very gas lamps that lifted the pall of night also issued a rising tide of coal tar treacle that threatened to drown the nation in advancement's sewage." But Powers critique whether subtle or not is not mere propaganda. His is a balanced approach where he recognizes both the downside and benefit of research and production in a capitalist system. The Clare youngest brother, Ben, dreams of: "a land purged of disease. He ceaselessly applied his intellect to locating the remedies for a wounded world."

Gain also serves to remind us of the economic cycle of boom and bust. Powers does this not in economic jargon but with down right plain honest language: "In three massive contractions, the labour force shrank from five hundred to little more than three hundred. Plant salaries fell from twelve dollars a week to nine, and then eight. Those who held on to their jobs felt lucky to have them and at any price." As I write that is exact economic situation we are facing.

In terms of the pose in Gain, at times the sentences are so dense, rich in metaphor that they quite simply command a slowing down and a second take of the reading. By way of an example Powers write: "The full moon shines above her empty house. Tonight's blaze is so bright it almost tricks her nasturtiums in syncopating their circadian rhythms."

As I read this novel, I had mixed feelings about it. In comparison with some of his other works, Powers was not writing at his peak. Nonetheless, in some passages such as the episode that outlines Resolve's wife Julia's political and other ambitions one gets a glimpse of what makes Powers a great writer.

Powers tackles one of the most underwritten subjects in fiction - business. We live in an age of triumphal capitalism, yet few writers have undertaken to examine it. Our lives are dominated by institutions that are quite literally unimagined. Powers puts his imagination to that task.

His project is to make an epic of a major corporation's rise, not as a story of individuals, though the family that made the corporation is beautifully realized, but as a story of people and institutions moving through a context, a society, an economy. What a job for a novelist!

Yet Powers brings it off, intercutting his wholly-absorbing history of the Clare Corporation, a Proctor&Gamble-like mega-corp, with a more personalized story of a family who live with the company and its products.

Gain is worth reading and I think probably re-reading. It's going to last.