Synopsis
WHO DID YOU LOVE BEST Of ALL? There, she said softly to herself, let it chew on that. And pressing the entry tab, she flicked the switch and left the computer to its own devices. What a question! All he could truthfully say, to whoever it was who was interested and kept pestering him about it was that -he hadcertainly loved. Intensely And often. Its not an impossible idea - a computer program fed with every scrap of data concerning Lord Byron's life and work, even allowing for his moods and preferences 'Brainchild Harold', the Professor called it artificial intelligence The experiment is supervised by a pair of vaguely sceptical computer technicians, while the rather attractive Byron expert, Anna, tries to coax some long-sought facts out of the impeccably ordered, personalised memory bank And indeed 'His Lordship' does seem to respond well to flattery At times he can also be grumpy, quite contradictory, huffy, quaintly suggestive and definitely evasive But Anna perseveres because just suppose the program did reveal who Byron loved best of all - man or woman? Suppose she found out why he left England so suddenly in 1809? Suppose the computer wrote a new poem ? 'Clever, brilliant, fun' Daily Mail 'Sparkling written with an elegance that makes each sentence soft or hard, a pleasure whatever it deals with Seldom has my disbelief been so willingly suspended' Financial Times
From Publishers Weekly
An ape may never write Shakespeare, but the computer/hero of this charming confection manages to write Bryon: three new quatrains to a loved one hitherto unmentioned either in the poet's correspondence or in his verse. Indeed, after having been programmed by a couple of sober-sided technicians and stuffed with every available scrap of Byronic information by the romantic young student Anna, the computer becomes Byron, musing, as its input and output buttons are pressed, on the early years in Cambridge, where he met and fell irrevocably in love with a choirboy. The knottiest problem posed to the computer concerns Byron's sexuality, and whether the verses to Thyrza in Don Juan celebrate a man or a woman. As she asks questions worded to avoid computer pique (because the machine becomes touchy and evasive on the subject of sex), Anna, like scores of young women before her, falls under Byron's spell and even suspects, when called "Anna dear," that the computer may have a soft spot for her as well. Prantera's (Strange Loop, The Cabalist) own fondness for Anna is transferred to the reader, as the quirky facts unfold and the question of Byron's sexuality is satisfactorily answered. This is a book to delight both Byron buffs and lovers of whimsy.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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