Book report: Pattern Recognition (a novel), by William Gibson
As soon as I finished reading this novel, I started back at the beginning and read the whole thing again. I liked it that much.
I’m surprised I didn’t read this earlier. I loved Gibson’s “Neuromancer”, and read both sequels, “Count Zero” and “Mona Lisa Overdrive”. “Virtual Light” is one of my favorite books of all time, and I re-read it about once a year. But its sequels, “Idoru” and “All Tomorrow’s Parties”, left me cold. I didn’t connect with the characters, and the plots seemed muddied.
But, after hearing Gibson speak earlier this year, I thought I’d get back on track again, and I’m glad I did.
The main character is Cayce Pollard, a 30ish American woman with a strange gift-slash-curse: she is acutely sensitive to product logos. On the plus side, she can immediately tell if a new logo “works”, so she is in high demand from advertisers willing to pay her big bucks for her opinion before launching their ad campaigns. The downside is that most logos bother her and some – like the Michelin Man or Tommy Hilfiger – send her into anaphylactic panic. Now, if there’s anything more perfect than a character allergic to product logos to dissect the consumerist world we live in, I can’t imagine it. That’s part of Gibson’s genius.
While Cayce is in London on one of her consulting engagements, she is offered an intriguing proposition. Some snippets of video – called “the footage” – have been showing up on the Web anonymously. Cayce is one of those who avidly discuss the footage in online discussion groups. Where do they come from? Who’s making them? Why? Are they part of a larger work? Her assignment is to track down the maker of the footage. It’s an adventure she embarks on reluctantly: the footage, and its maker, are precious to her, and she doesn’t want to ruin that specialness.
I have to just say here that Gibson’s evocation of these online discussions is sly and perfect, especially considering this book was written in 2003. I remember watching episodes of “Lost” and “Heroes” with my laptop on my knees in front of me, sharing my enthusiasm with other fans in real time, and analyzing them endlessly afterwards. You feel like you get to know these people well, even though you have no idea of who they really are. Similarly, Cayce’s best friend online is Parkaboy, who unites with her against forum rivals like Mama Anarchia. In many ways, her online friends are closer than her friends in the real world.
As Cayce commences her search for this McGuffin, she encounters a global cast of vivid and fascinating minor characters. Gibson has a deft touch at creating characters that may be secondary, but aren’t aware of it: they have their own lives that just happen to intersect Cayce’s. There is the Belgian marketing mogul, the Italian bitch, the British film-maker friend, the Polish tech artist, the American misanthrope calculator collector, the Chinese security expert, the African dealer in tech exotica, the Japanese geek, the Korean forum admin, and the Russian mob kingpin. They all speak in distinct voices and I would recognize any of them at once.
Gibson also has a remarkable gift for the telling detail. For example, he can describe a closet in a pre-war Japanese apartment – and not exhaustively, mind you, just a few sentences – and you somehow feel like you know a great deal about Japanese geography, history, and culture. Also, I’ve noticed before how Gibson is fascinated by special objects. He once earned his living by visiting thrift shops, recognizing undervalued items, and reselling them for a profit. So, it’s no big surprise to see special attention to things like Sinclair Z80 microcomputers and precision-made mechanical calculators in this book. On the other hand, I was unable to find any Steely Dan references. Gibson often – always? – includes some reference to Steely Dan in his novels. In “Neuromancer”, it was the dive bar Gentleman Loser; in “Virtual Light”, it was one character asking another, “Where DID you get those shoes?” But I couldn’t spot it this time out.
Now, William Gibson is a renowned science fiction writer, and “Pattern Recognition” has the strange and uncanny feeling of science fiction, but I’m darned if I can put my finger on a single aspect of science fiction in it. It doesn’t take place in the future, it takes place in the past, in the year after 9-11. But it isn’t an alternative history or anything like that. There are no strange technologies or mutated characters. It just *feels* like science fiction.
One theme that seems to run through the book is the past, and history, which are not the same thing. Cayce’s father disappeared on 9-11: is he dead? She doesn’t know. Her filmmaker friend is shooting a documentary about unearthing relics from World War II – that are immediately pillaged to be sold on eBay. Without a history, without knowing where we’ve come from, how can we possibly have a future, which we’re going towards?
Cayce is a decent woman, not the spy or detective type, who is merely trying to do what’s right and to follow her own joy. She finds much more than she expects, and we’re happy for her. I was sad that this story had to end: I want to know more about what happens in her life.
That’s a good book.
Highly recommended
As soon as I finished reading this novel, I started back at the beginning and read the whole thing again. I liked it that much.
I’m surprised I didn’t read this earlier. I loved Gibson’s “Neuromancer”, and read both sequels, “Count Zero” and “Mona Lisa Overdrive”. “Virtual Light” is one of my favorite books of all time, and I re-read it about once a year. But its sequels, “Idoru” and “All Tomorrow’s Parties”, left me cold. I didn’t connect with the characters, and the plots seemed muddied.
But, after hearing Gibson speak earlier this year, I thought I’d get back on track again, and I’m glad I did.
The main character is Cayce Pollard, a 30ish American woman with a strange gift-slash-curse: she is acutely sensitive to product logos. On the plus side, she can immediately tell if a new logo “works”, so she is in high demand from advertisers willing to pay her big bucks for her opinion before launching their ad campaigns. The downside is that most logos bother her and some – like the Michelin Man or Tommy Hilfiger – send her into anaphylactic panic. Now, if there’s anything more perfect than a character allergic to product logos to dissect the consumerist world we live in, I can’t imagine it. That’s part of Gibson’s genius.
While Cayce is in London on one of her consulting engagements, she is offered an intriguing proposition. Some snippets of video – called “the footage” – have been showing up on the Web anonymously. Cayce is one of those who avidly discuss the footage in online discussion groups. Where do they come from? Who’s making them? Why? Are they part of a larger work? Her assignment is to track down the maker of the footage. It’s an adventure she embarks on reluctantly: the footage, and its maker, are precious to her, and she doesn’t want to ruin that specialness.
I have to just say here that Gibson’s evocation of these online discussions is sly and perfect, especially considering this book was written in 2003. I remember watching episodes of “Lost” and “Heroes” with my laptop on my knees in front of me, sharing my enthusiasm with other fans in real time, and analyzing them endlessly afterwards. You feel like you get to know these people well, even though you have no idea of who they really are. Similarly, Cayce’s best friend online is Parkaboy, who unites with her against forum rivals like Mama Anarchia. In many ways, her online friends are closer than her friends in the real world.
As Cayce commences her search for this McGuffin, she encounters a global cast of vivid and fascinating minor characters. Gibson has a deft touch at creating characters that may be secondary, but aren’t aware of it: they have their own lives that just happen to intersect Cayce’s. There is the Belgian marketing mogul, the Italian bitch, the British film-maker friend, the Polish tech artist, the American misanthrope calculator collector, the Chinese security expert, the African dealer in tech exotica, the Japanese geek, the Korean forum admin, and the Russian mob kingpin. They all speak in distinct voices and I would recognize any of them at once.
Gibson also has a remarkable gift for the telling detail. For example, he can describe a closet in a pre-war Japanese apartment – and not exhaustively, mind you, just a few sentences – and you somehow feel like you know a great deal about Japanese geography, history, and culture. Also, I’ve noticed before how Gibson is fascinated by special objects. He once earned his living by visiting thrift shops, recognizing undervalued items, and reselling them for a profit. So, it’s no big surprise to see special attention to things like Sinclair Z80 microcomputers and precision-made mechanical calculators in this book. On the other hand, I was unable to find any Steely Dan references. Gibson often – always? – includes some reference to Steely Dan in his novels. In “Neuromancer”, it was the dive bar Gentleman Loser; in “Virtual Light”, it was one character asking another, “Where DID you get those shoes?” But I couldn’t spot it this time out.
Now, William Gibson is a renowned science fiction writer, and “Pattern Recognition” has the strange and uncanny feeling of science fiction, but I’m darned if I can put my finger on a single aspect of science fiction in it. It doesn’t take place in the future, it takes place in the past, in the year after 9-11. But it isn’t an alternative history or anything like that. There are no strange technologies or mutated characters. It just *feels* like science fiction.
One theme that seems to run through the book is the past, and history, which are not the same thing. Cayce’s father disappeared on 9-11: is he dead? She doesn’t know. Her filmmaker friend is shooting a documentary about unearthing relics from World War II – that are immediately pillaged to be sold on eBay. Without a history, without knowing where we’ve come from, how can we possibly have a future, which we’re going towards?
Cayce is a decent woman, not the spy or detective type, who is merely trying to do what’s right and to follow her own joy. She finds much more than she expects, and we’re happy for her. I was sad that this story had to end: I want to know more about what happens in her life.
That’s a good book.
Highly recommended
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