Pattern Recognition

nanojath writes "The title of William Gibson's latest release, Pattern Recognition, seems particularly appropriate. While widely noted for its 'departure' from Gibson's usual genre in that it is set in the more-or-less present day, the themes, characters, and plot devices of Pattern Recognition are fully in line with the Gibson canon. Whether this is a good thing will depend greatly on the individual reader, Neil Gaiman's assertion that it's Gibson's best effort since Neuromancer notwithstanding. The short version: readers who enjoy Gibson's later work will probably find this typically fast-paced mystery to be a satisfying read, if not their favorite example among his post-Eighties efforts. Those who feel that Gibson's fire has been progressively dwindling as he navigates middle age will probably feel that Pattern Recognition is more of the same, the fast-forward technology of Neuromancer an increasingly muted backdrop to the main attraction of psychological and sociological themes." Read on for the rest of nanojath's review. Pattern Recognition author William Gibson pages 368 publisher Putnam rating 7 reviewer Jonathan Hamlow ISBN 0399149864 summary Gibson turns his trademark fast-forward speculative lens on the present with a compelling novel of a marketing savant's search for a mysterious artist. Despite its strengths, Gibson's latest novel has serious flaws.

Pattern Recognition's Cayce Pollard is very much a Gibson protagonist -- a somewhat hapless but sympathetic outsider with a unique sensitivity for a particular class of data. Cayce has what is termed an "allergic" sensitivity to the peculiar cultural ephemera of marketing and branding, and employs the sometimes-debility (she experiences something akin to a panic attack, for example, in the presence of too much Tommy Hilfiger) as a highly paid consultant in the survival-of-the-fittest ecology of the 21st century marketing industry.

She is also a "Footagehead," a member of an internet-based community which obsessively follows and theorizes about a series of enigmatic film clips, apparently components of a larger work, which surface anonymously and without announcement in the various uncharted archives of the internet.

Cayce is led by her current employer (a Millennial marketing savant who's Swiftian name, Hubertus Bigend, is easily the funniest thing in the book) into a search for the creator of the mysterious footage. At the same time, she is plagued by an apparent conspiracy of intimidation, involving the systematic invasion of her privacy and an exploitation of her "brand allergy" gift, and haunted by memories of her father, a security consultant who disappeared in New York in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, and seems almost certainly, but not provably, dead. Her search leads her into the labyrinth depths of post-cold-war politics and economics -- depths it seems she may find increasingly difficult to navigate a path out of.

Comparisons to Gibson's earlier works are easy to find in Pattern Recognition. Its main character, with her savant informational talent, brings earlier characters like Case, Laney, and Silencio to mind. Her wealth-facilitated search for the artist of the Footage is strongly reminiscent of Marley's search for the boxmaker in Count Zero (and in fact Hubertus Bigend seems a more benevolent but still creepy combination of Virek and Cody Harwood). Certainly there seems to be a certain self-conscious recognition of these comparisons in the fact that Gibson gives his female protagonist a name phonetically equivalent to Case. Pattern Recognition is also Gibson's first novel since Neuromancer to follow a single point-of-view throughout the entire book. In this and many other respects it has a simpler and more direct story than any other Gibson novel, though it is driven by the mystery angle and contains no shortage of twists and turns.

I tend to like Gibson books better in multiple readings and I'm curious to see if this effect holds for Pattern Recognition. My first reading impression is that, while a well-written and enjoyable page-turner, this is Gibson's weakest work. The translation of his trademark savant talents, ubiquitous technology, idiosyncratic artists and post-modern robber barons to a recognizable present-day reality is hit-and-miss. Story elements that might pass easily enough in a world of the not-too-distant future ring false in this version of the present, where the comparison to what actually is is constantly invited. Likewise, the introduction of September 11th is forced and suspect. There is something slightly off in Gibson's portrayal here, something revealing that after decades as a Canadian expatriate, Gibson cannot fully align with the American viewpoint any longer. And it is perhaps to soon for this very real human tragedy, whatever its sociopolitical lessons and consequences, to be used as a plot device in a work of speculative fiction. I wasn't fully satisfied by the answer to the mystery of the Footage artist, which seemed contrived, and found the resolution of the story to contain altogether too much deus ex machina.

Gibson's facile prose and knack for telling a fast-paced and compelling story prevent these problems from derailing Pattern Recognition altogether. The book is readable, enjoyable, and not without satisfaction. Gibson is to be admired for risking a chance on a fairly radical direction in his genre and taking on the altogether less malleable present in favor of the endless possibilities of the future. The depths to which he mines his own material speaks, perhaps, to the strain of this effort. Fans will probably accept Pattern Recognition's addition to the Gibson canon, detractors of his latter works will no doubt see it as further evidence of his decline. I hope that it indicates a tentative but promising step into a larger world of narrative possibilities for Gibson, and that this promise will prove itself as our stranger-than-fiction present evolves continuously into the future.

You can purchase Pattern Recognition from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

footagehead

[$$$$$exyGal]

Here's another good review

Or really, just do a search for "footagehead" at Google and you'll get several reviews and an excerpt or two.

--sex

The book is already dated

[Ummon]

Gibson is so focused on microcultural events that the book was dated before it was even published. Which is really funny considering that the main character has a deep revulsion to trademarks. I really got tired of seeing trademarks in the text, especially that damned iBook. At least in the Neuromancer series the trademarks were made up.

Gibson and technology

[mattdm]

You have to remember that Gibson doesn't actually know much about real technology -- I remember hearing that he doesn't even use a computer. He just thinks this cyber stuff is woah, cool man. This explains a lot -- remember the ridiculous X Files episode he wrote with the T1 line going to a trailer, and the brain-swapping and all that? The tech is just a cinematic device, and he never takes it seriously -- hence all the "psychological and sociological themes".

Now, there's nothing *wrong* with this. Lots of people who write westerns have never touched a horse, and cheap paperback romances don't bear much resemblance to real life.

It does, however, make Gibson less interesting to me as a real-life computer geek -- just as having a even hints of a real social life makes those paperback romances uninteresting.

Re:Gibson and technology

[spRed]

google for a recent interview with Gibson

He didn't use a computer back in the mid 80s when he wrote Neuromancer, but then not many people did. He now uses them as much as your average joe, though he is still no technophile. The idea that Mr Cyberpunk doesn't use a computer is so man-bites-dog, however, that it still gets reported as fact.

present tense

[chloroquine]

I ended up with a reviewers copy of this book from my local second hand bookstore. (yes, I'm aware that buying a proof is vaguely evil, but I never said I was a nice person) When I read it I couldn't help but notice that much of Gibson's appeal for me lies in his depiction of a wild and frighteningly believable future. Since this book is set approximately in the present, I was not as distracted by gadgets and modifications, but was forced instead to take a long hard look at his ability to create believable characters and plotlines.
The result is that I enjoyed the book, but was very aware of Gibson's limitations. I found it difficult to get lost in the world that he, the writer, creates. His ability to create atmosphere is very good, and that is definitely something I enjoyed.

Related Goodies

[Anonymous Coward]

Free Pattern Recognition sample chapter.

William Gibson home page.
A bot modeled on Gibson's take on AI.
The Aleph - all things Gibson.

How dare you write such a tantalizing review!

[Ayanami Rei]

You insensitive clod! You mock my horrible predictament; having many books to read for class leaving no time for consuming others for pleasure.

Is there some way this book could be shoehorned into a self-becoming philsophical angle? Because then I could justify reading it for a paper.

Otherwise I have to wait 3 months. ::sobs::

Gibson long forgotten by me

[kid zeus]

As seminal as his first few novels were, I believe that Sterling lost any relevance well back with the likes of Virtual Light and Idoru. It became quickly obvious that he was writing screenplays clothed as novels, the real problem being that the screenplays weren't even good.

The science was unimpressive and, worse, uninteresting. The scrappy, plucky, aww-shucks main characters weren't remotely realistic or resonant, and the stock, two-dimensional villains almost as embarassing as his overreliance on deus ex machina.

The last few books of his that I would read I would approach as if they were bad scifi movies, and I would wait for the villain to vanish in 'death', and then I would wait and call to the page when he would 'mysteriously' return. Then I just gave up.

I have limited time in this world to read truly excellent work. Hell, there's better trash sci-fi being put out in comics these days if that's what floats your boat.

Neuromancer will always rank as something extremely special to me, but it was obviously time to move on from Gibson's lowered expectations a long time ago. Maybe if I hear that he's gone back to writing books instead of crappy screenplays (or horrificly cheezy and outdated X-Files episodes) I'll give him another shot. In the mean time, Im giving a pass on Pattern Recognition.

Re:Hard to beat Count Zero

[Masem]

Count Zero wasn't bad, in the sense that he knows how to take several plot threads, seemingly disjointed, and slowly, but surely, weave them together, hinting at the events from the other threads, until the finale of the book. He did the same quite well in Neuro and Mona Lisa Overdrive.

But, one thing that annoys me with Gibson is that his writing style has gotten 'easier' to read since Neuromancer. It took me several times through Neuromancer to understand everything that is going on in the book in the grand sense of things thanks to unique verbal constructions and new terminology that only makes sense on multiple readings, and even then, there's probably small details that I'd catch on the next reading. I even remember having to reread some paragraphs just to make sure I understood what I could, that's how complex his language was then. Count Zero wasn't quite as deep with the text, though it did warrent a couple of rereads to catch all the details, and some of the complex verbage was still there. But Mona Lisa Overdrive, while requiring a few rereads to make sure you got all the details, lacked the deep structure in the writing, making it very easy (maybe too easy?) to read, and why some think this was his weakest work.

What I find interesting from this review and one elsewhere (Salon? Wired?) is that the plot sounds like a mirror of that in Count Zero with the art dealer looking for the maker of the shadow boxes. IMO, that part of the plot in CZ got the weakest treatment, despite being the darkest part of the entire story, and it did deserve another relook, maybe that's what happened here with Pattern Recognition.

Geeks consistently get Gibson wrong...

[garagekubrick]

For the past three books the same criticisms have been levelled at Gibson's latest book by the geek cognescenti here at Slashdot. It gets pretty boring. I think the problem is Gibson's fustion of noir and attitude to computers gave socially inept people who did not generally have a badass bone in them some kind of feeling that they did; when that became less interesting to him, because it wasn't really even on the money for the most part, most geeks became bored.

Here's some rebuttal to some of those criticisms:

The usage of Sept. 11th makes perfect, absolute sense. I'd like to understand why a poster above refers to the book as speculative fiction. Although marketed as such there is nary a piece of technology nor a futuristic setting to suggest that P.R. is even a work of science fiction, despite being marketed as such by the publisher. If you've worked in filmmaking or advertising on a Transoceanic basis in the past year, this book reads more believable than anything out there.

I think it's obvious that Gibson has taken the central themes in all of his books and reformed them into this and set it in the present day because there's no longer a need to push it forward. The perception of time is a constant underlying theme in Gibson's work, and this one deals with the immediate and what's in fashion because it dominates our day to day living. September 11th is immediate and cannot be ignored, and ultimately the book is about any human search, no matter the time or place, for meaning in a sea of information that is incomprehensible due to its complexity. P.R. does not offer any easy answers or political commentary on Sept. 11th, only a raw sort of need to understand and contextualize something that horrific into a person's life.

That fits into the broader idea of the book, the old Gibson standby of someone trying to track down an artist. The footageheads who trawl the web and dissect and bisect the pieces of anonymous footage are really doing what humans have always done in culture; once again, searching for meaning where there is none.

If anyone can point me to a book which captures the sensation of what it's like to be part of an online community or to communicate with friends daily, globally and immediately; please offer suggestions. That's what P.R. nails.