G alatea 2.2's autobiographical character is unabashedly named Richard Powers. In many particulars, he conforms to known facts about the life of the author: he is exceptionally bright; he has an expert knowledge of computers and their workings; he holds a master's degree from a large midwestern university (identified only as U.) to which he has returned, after the publication of three of his novels, in a non-teaching capacity; he lived with one of his former undergraduates for over a decade, first in Boston, then in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and in the Netherlands; and he studied as an undergraduate at U. with Professor Taylor (in actuality, Professor Robert Schneider of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), whose depth as an interpreter of literature lured him from his physics major to a major in English.

The love of Powers's life is C., a woman several years younger than he, an...