Customer Reviews

Adventures of the Artificial Woman: A Novel

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The initial premise for the book is great - a man cannot find the perfect woman, so he creates an artifical woman to meet his standards of perfection, and he falls in love with her. This could have been a brilliant novel about a man's unrealistic expectations of women, about gender roles, about what (if anything) really separates humans from machines, about creators and the created... but instead, it ends up being a rather tedious and pointless story.

Having read each of Mr. Berger's 22 previous novels at least once, I now feel compelled to write a few lines of loving praise for this, his 23rd. From opening sentence to extraordinary final line, ADVENTURES OF THE ARTIFICIAL WOMAN is a wonderful read. Mr. Berger's wit and sense of irony are as sharp as ever, his ear for language dead on.

It would be a mistake, however, to read ADVENTURES as just a social/ political satire. Berger's work has never been concerned with melioration, and ADVENTURES is no different. It is instead a riotous meditation on the nature of power and creation. Berger's insightful observations and storytelling are captivating, and I had to laugh to keep from crying.

Thomas Berger's latest novel features a man, the female robot he builds, and some of the best satire written in recent days. I am not going to mention anything about the plot since knowing little (as I did when I read the book) is the best way to approach this novel. Suffice it to say that the plot floats along with the logic of a fable and you will find yourself laughing out loud often.

I am also not going to speak of Berger's prose style. I did when I reviewed Best Friends last year (as does most anyone who reviews his work). His style remains a marvel of precision and grace. 'Nuf said.

I will say that this novel is a beautiful, sharp, and poignant satire. This is not a mean book. Berger's use of satire illuminates the often paradoxical nature of being human without ever stooping to ridicule or encouraging readers to feel superior to the characters. Berger celebrates humanity, while at the same time shaking his head in disbelief and wonder. He raises questions you can think and argue about for months, but never breaks a sweat or makes you feel "lectured at."

I recommend this book even more highly than Best Friends which I thought was terrific. Berger accomplishes in fewer than 200 pages what other writers cannot begin to do in 500 or more.

I have read many of Thomas Berger's books, laughed out loud many times and enjoyed all of them. This book although there are funny passages lacks the depth and personality understanding of his other works. The artificial women is one joke that runs out of steam quickly.

This thin novel skates by on the amusement it delivers. Ellery Pierce makes robotic contraptions that a movie like Jurassic Park might use. Having had little luck with women, he uses his talent (and workshop) to craft one of his own design. Perhaps he made her too well, because she has little use for him while pursuing a fleeting career in Hollywood (rising to the pinnacle before crashing to the soaps) and then running for the presidency, on a write-in ballot no less.

The concept of an artificial partner, designed to give the creator what he (or she) wants without all the hassle of an actual human being, has a certain comic appeal,. The robot rejects the creator's dominion, behaves with vexing independence ... a cute but unoriginal concept. Unfortunately, Thomas Berger does nothing new or meaningful with the idea; worse, he makes the artificial woman into a political bimbo, a robotic Chauncey Gardiner. At its best moments, the novel delivers some chuckles; it aggressively fails to do anything else. A novel like this could illustrate the superficiality of basing judgment on appearance or offer insight into relationships between real men and women. This novel opted for a simple, unimaginative story that is intermittently funny. I would give it 3 1/2 stars if I could.

I was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon this book. I formerly had not encountered the author, but I found his novel to be fresh, funny, and imaginative. Although there were some pieces of the puzzle it would have been nice to have an explanation for (most glaringly, how or why there were other robots in existence though the author goes to great lengths to describe the brilliance of Ellery's unique invention), and at points tended to drag a bit (the middle/end). Overall, a refreshing read, a bit of a political satire, great for anyone looking for something different from the norm, or just a good laugh.

Ellery Pierce, a technician at an animatronics firm, is dissatisfied with women so much so that he decides to build Phyllis, the star of Thomas Berger's novel, "Adventures of the Artificial Woman." She cooks gourmet meals, cleans without complaining and learns the role of a proper human being at breakneck speed. However, she has difficulty understanding irony, metaphors and the finer points of being a human; Pierce's jokes at the expense of her ignorance usually come off flat because the punch lines are often transparent.

Once the conflict begins- Phyllis leaves her maker to pursue acting in Hollywood movies- some interesting offbeat characters are introduced, like Eddie, the owner of a strip club. But Eddie and the rest of the oddballs Phyllis meets on the way to stardom are not given any considerable space to flourish, therefore the characters appear to be shallow.

Hoping the novel gets saved with pithy insights from Phyllis is never rewarded. Keen observations from Phyllis do surface at times, but generally her attempts to be philosophical are sophomoric. The concluding section is far-fetched, even after believing Phyllis has been able to pass as a realistic human being. Berger even writes in another artificial being that makes a brief appearance, which just adds to this surreal, but very improbable novel that tries too hard to sound realistic.

Bohdan Kot

The premise of this modest novel is that an animatronic beautiful woman leaves her creator and develops all sorts of intelligence on her own, fools the world for years about her true nonhuman nature, and ends up being elected president of the United States. I see two ways to make this idea interesting. First is to detail just how such a creature can be made, using today's technology and maybe a little fudging, thus appealing to the computer geeks among us. Next choice would be to contrive a really clever set of exploits and episodes based on the differences between real and computer-based creatures.

Mr. Berger chooses to elide the technical details and leap right into the world of the fully realized automaton. But if I'm going to grant him a pass on the technical end, I expect him to make up for it by providing a whale of a good yarn on the other end. But alas that is not what happens, and the story leaps from point to point with not much wit nor irony aside from maybe the general message that people are too easily fooled by surface appearances.