I’ve been thinking about yesterday’s class and how we discussed the overall theme of globalization and its portrayal in Pattern Recognition in different ways but mainly through cyberspace. That theme is pretty obvious when you think about how so much of the communication in the book is through email or blogs. The footage is discussed on the blog, Cayce uses email to contact the maker of the footage etc. Because this was the central theme I liked how the last chapter of the book was called mail, you find out what is going on in everyone’s lives through emails. We find out that Cayce’s phobia is gone through the email with her therapist etc. This seemed a bit predictable but fitting that the theme was cyberspace.
Gibson also described things in a technology/cyberspace/digital way. On page 187 (paperback) Cayce is describing how Marina looks, “She looks like, Cayce decides, like a prop from one sequel or another of The Matrix; if her boobs were bigger she could get work on the covers of role-playing games for adolescent boys of any age whatever.” Also the character that Parkaboy and Darryl make up, Keiko, is digitalized, she’s a digitally made Japanese schoolgirl. These are just other ways Gibson tied in his theme of cyberspace.
Gibson does make a point of lacing "Pattern Recognition" with loads of technology. The characters seem to live by it or should I say, the characters would not function without it! Gibson is directly correlating technology and how it is satiated within our everyday lives. How we are interconnected many times only by the strings of our devices.
ReplyDeleteAt the end Gibson even reconciles most of the characters by using e-mail (which is then called mail) to connect all the dots. Gibson ended the book how he started, which was essential to come full circle. Gibson chooses to leave the question of whether technology helps or hurts us to the reader. I can say after reading it, I feel both modalities holds weight.