Pattern Recognition

[arch_schatten]

The fabulous taro_twist recommended me Pattern Recognition (by William Gibson) after hearing me babble happily about the Sprawl trilogy. I have fallen in love with Gibson's style after a luke-warm start -Neuromancer is not exactly easy-reading given all the things you have to learn about the future/present to get it. But after Burning Chrome, I just can't

Comments

[jij]

I loved Pattern Recognition! The end is kind of unsatisfying but then...I think anything would have been and that's kind of the point, in some ways. It's a strange sort of empty book, lots of big empty white spaces in between things, if that makes sense. It really made me think of the Internet a lot, the kind of white noise of information fogging our days. I'll be curious to see what you think of it!

[arch_schatten]

I finished it! I liked the end better than Mona Lisa Overdrive's, for example. It didn't.. satisfy me entirely because I guess I wanted.. more? but I'm not sure what it could have been otherwise. I really liked all the characters and the plot and the meta, so it was a really fun book all around

[jij]

I think it's connected to the book! Well, to Gibson in general really. Pattern Recognition was so cool because it almost wasn't science fiction at all...it was almost like science magical realism, just the tiniest bit impossible here and there. Gibson's really good at the feeling of the modern world, in some ways--at least, the cold yet freeing and oddly humane side. "Humane" isn't a word Gibson's books generally call up, but I think his vision is very humane in a lot of ways, like existentialism--in the end all we have to hang on to is human connections.

(He obviously causes me to free-associate a bit!)

[taro_twist]

Yay, Pattern Recognition! I'm so happy you liked it. :D I loved reading your thoughts on it and the obsessive paranoia it evokes, and also on how it compares to Gibson's other work. I haven't gotten the chance to check out his other stuff yet (although I will be printing Gernsback Continuum for my ride home--thanks for the link! I think I remember you talking about this one over the NY trip) so it was interesting to hear that Pattern Recognition seems to have a different feel than the others.

And the travel-less jet lag! I'd never thought of it that before, but now that you say it, it makes total sense. Life definitely feels like a series of bursts of movement, followed by pauses to allow the soul to catch up before taking off again.

And that passage, too! That was one of my favorites in the entire book, and the second I read it I thought "BATMAN!" It tickles me that you picked it out. X)

[arch_schatten]

I hope you liked the Gernsback Continuum! Pattern Recognition does have a different feeling than the Sprawl trilogy, though I think it does allude the Sprawl future when it's talking about how America chose Nintendo over the computers where you programmed your own content. Gibson predicted a future that was on the other road, the one where we all picked the more challenging computers and not the ready-content ones. I think the relic computer collectors in Pattern Recognition are the people who would have fit perfectly in the Sprawl trilogy.

I love the idea of the soul taking longer to read out bodies sometimes, especially with travel or when we face a big event in our lives. Like.. we have to keep moving, but the soul is left behind processing, and then we enter this.. white noise state while we wait for it to return to us. I really loved the book, sis, thank you so much for giving it to me! I enjoyed it a lot :D

That quote was *totally* about Batman. Batman would approve, I'm sure :P