[EN World Book Club] Pattern Recognition [January 2004 Selection]

[barsoomcore]

Couldn't finish it.

I'm not sure about Gibson. Has it been all downhill since Neuromancer? I used to like Count Zero best of all, but I haven't read it in years and can't find a copy anywhere so I don't know.

I welcomed the campiness of Pattern Recognition and once I got that, I was looking forward to something uncharacteristically humourous -- but instead I got less and less engaged as the story went on.

His characters never seem to care very much about anything -- in worked in Neuromancer because working against Case (the uncaring one) you had Molly's passion and Armitage's sheer craziness (not to mention Riveria's evil ugliness) -- Case was the "normal" one we could identify with. But nowadays it seems like all his books are people with versions of Case -- disconnected people without close relationships to others or even to their surroundings. People who just don't seem to care about much of anything.

Which I know is part of what Gibson's trying to talk about but surely meaningful art has to get to the passions that drive us in order to have something interesting to say about the human condition.

Or maybe I just like stories with more sex and violence.

 

[Khynal]

(I stumbled across the thread, and it has been said you can participate at will... )

As a general impression, each of Gibson's books seems to be less about story and character development, though those elements are certainly there, and more about presenting (which was a term he used in Idoru or All Tomorrow's Parties, can't remember which). He takes an idea, or a bunch of them, holds them up to the light, turns them this way and that, and points out some interesting features. Pattern Recognition seemed more this than any of the preceding books. (I say this six months or so after reading it.)

So really I just looked at it as a discussion of branding and imagery and how rampant these are in modern society. Cayce's problem was the means for us seeing it everywhere, from logos to the impressions people were trying to convey in their appearance. There was even one minor character who completely changed his look every time he flew between New York and London.

Branding is hugely important, because if it works right, a logo speaks to a more subconscious or primitive part of your mind - or something; I'm no psychologist. The footage was an example of that. The girl making the footage had lost most of her higher consciousness, so the imagery in the film was coming straight from the part of her brain that registered logos and speaking directly to that same part in the people who watched it.

So that's what I took away from it. I was pretty interested in the concept, so I had no trouble reading it, even though I'm normally in for the plot and character development.

But it sure was weird.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

I'm surprised at how light this thread is. Has anyone else read this book (either for the club or not)?

Sorry, I have to opt out on this one. I never even started the book. I'm not doing very well on this book group, and I was all excited about it when it started...

Next book, I will finish!

 

[barsoomcore]

Each of Gibson's books seems to be less about story and character development, though those elements are certainly there, and more about presenting (which was a term he used in Idoru or All Tomorrow's Parties, can't remember which). He takes an idea, or a bunch of them, holds them up to the light, turns them this way and that, and points out some interesting features.

I guess my thinking is that if he wants to write an essay, let him go ahead and do that. I'd probably find it more entertaining. But as a story I thought it failed.

I quite liked All Tomorrow's Parties, partially because the payoff at the end was so great -- but there was enough story to keep engaged enough to make it to the end. Pattern Recognition didn't have enough -- and I'm not sure the ideas behind are really all THAT interesting. Branding is ubiquitous, but that doesn't make it interesting.

 

[JoeBlank]

I sat this one out too. Took a look at the book and a few reviews, and it is just not my thing. Never read any Gibson.

barsoomcore, this is as good a place as any to mention that you are partially to blame for me not reading Pattern Recognition. Cthulhu's Librarian convinced me to give the Science Fiction Book Club a try, and in picking my initial order of books I ran across a combined edition of the first three books in the Barsoom series. Never having read them, I thought a little sci-fi would taste good with my fantasy, and I also figured "that barsoomcore guy sure seems to like this stuff, and the website for his campaign looks interesting."

So I am finishing up some Barsoom, instead of reading Pattern Recognition, and I am enjoying it very much, thank you.

I have picked up Eragon and am looking forward to it.

 

[barsoomcore]

I'll take that hit gladly.



Edgar Rice Burroughs: for when you want your cheese uncontaminated with modern notions of... well, just about anything.

 

[Dacileva]

Edgar Rice Burroughs: for when you want your cheese uncontaminated with modern notions of... well, just about anything.

I love all the ERB books...

Also, one must admit that, until settling down, both Thuvia and Llana were far beyond their time in terms of powerful female characters. Anyway. This isn't much about Pattern Recognition anymore...

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

If we wanted to get really deep, we could discuss how Pattern Recognition was accepted for publication and probably read merely because it's a William Gibson work, so the very mediocrity of the work itself is a powerful statement about the influence of brands.

Idoru was much better than PR, I thought. This doesn't seem to have a driving purpose behind things - it's just a lot of stuff that happens. I'm glad I read it, but I probably wouldn't bother doing so again.

IMO, you're wrong about one thing, though: Gibson is making the statement that in the future, a lot of people will be like his characters. Modernity disconnects. The boundary between extraversion and introversion becomes thinner and thinner as the world becomes progressively broader and shallower.

[/weird sociocultural analysis]

 

[mmu1]

Another non-member here who read the book.

I'm a big Gibson fan and have eagerly devoured everything he's written. Pattern Recognition is a bit of a departure for those, like me, who revelled in his vision of the future and assumed that as time marches on "his future" will continue to evolve. Instead, it's almost as if he is moving backwards in time as we, his audience, move forward, for the future portrayed in Patern Recognition is literally just around the corner.

One way of looking at why Gibson is going backward and a reason why his work has (arguably) gotten weaker has to do with the concept of a "singularity" as defined by Vernor Vinge - a point sometime in the future at which such a radical change will occur that it becomes impossible for humans to make reasonable predictions about anything that might happen afterwards.

The most likely theorized "singularity" is the emergence of true sapient AI - which is what happens in Neuromancer (or in Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive, depending on how you look at it), and since there's no way to see beyond that point, you have to go back to an earlier time...

Or maybe he just got bored with those characters and decided to go back in time on a whim.

 

[Michael Tree]

If we wanted to get really deep, we could discuss how Pattern Recognition was accepted for publication and probably read merely because it's a William Gibson work, so the very mediocrity of the work itself is a powerful statement about the influence of brands.

You could take that even further, and discuss how quality isn't determined in a vacuum, but emerges from expectation and context. Pattern Recognition wasn't a mediocre novel, it was quite a good novel, but when judged against Gibson's other novels it pales on comparison.