Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Pattern Recognition by William Gibson ISBN: 0-425-19293-8 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: 03 February, 2004 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.72 (130 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Gibson's Breakout Postmodern novel! **** 1/2 stars
Comment: Author William Gibson has always proclaimed the influence of Thomas Pynchon ("V," "Gravity's Rainbow") in his beginnings as an author. With "Pattern Recognition," Gibson not only tips his hat to Pynchon but also seems indebted to him through the book's structural content. Gibson's new book, and I mean no slight in saying this, feels like a re-work of Pynchon's classic "The Crying of Lot 49."
Heroine Cayce Pollard, like the heroine of Pynchon's book, finds a symbol that defies decoding and, seeking its answer, slowly gains a not inconsiderable amount of self-knowledge through treks across land and people. Rather than the Trystero in Pynchon's book, which remained a mystery at story's end, here Cayce seeks the Footage and its Creator; what she uncovers dazzled and delighted me. (And watch for the veiled reference to Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow" through Win; it changes so much about this book!)
The prose of Gibson in this book is masterful; he is acute and lyrical while noting how material comforts have come to desensitize us and lead to a sense of soul-decay. Truly, this is some of Gibson's most impassioned prose since "Neuromancer." His ear renders some of the most awe-inspiring descriptions and musings this side of Don DeLillo ("White Noise" and "Mao II"). However, whereas DeLillo misstepped slightly with his latest book, "Cosmopolis," Gibson's meditation is eerily, and deadly, on. I can only find one fault with the book, and that is that the end of "Pattern Recognition" starts to let the plot wrap up just a little too quickly.
Still, not merely content to be behind the postmodern masters of DeLillo and Pynchon, Gibson finally closes the ranks with this novel. Through "Pattern Recognition," he proffers himself as one of the accessible yet intelligent authors on the postmodern condition. Familiar, yet deliciously different.
Rating: 4
Summary: Delayed Impact
Comment: My wife and I have been reading Gibson aloud to each other for years now. His prose is so, well, poetic, it really tolerates vocalization quite nicely. After "All Tomorrow's Parties" (the most beautifully written SF novel and one of the most interesting I have read recently), we were quite excited by the advent of "Pattern Recognition" and sprang for the hardcover.
We read it aloud on a long drive together, an hour or so at a time. The "mystery" of the plot and the oblique excitement to know what happens next that it engenders kept us looking forward to each reading session. At the end, however, we finished the novel with a vague feeling of disappointment, of loose-ends being tied up too neatly, of the resolution being essentially too banal for the detail and complexity that lead up to it. Perhaps that was Mr. Gibson's point. Dunno.
However, I must say, that in the months since, points of view about current world culture that are expressed (both implicitly and explicitly) in the novel have kept returning to our casual conversation. I conclude that much of the book is profound in some subtle sense that may not effect you right away, but which will have a long lasting influence on each reader's consciousness of popular trends and their expression in media and merchandise.
A warning: as with most of William Gibson's books, there are layers here. If you are a pop and internet culture enthusiast (not to mention technologically "aware"), that is, if you are "hip" you'll "get" almost all of the book. If not, well, you may not "catch" enough of the (many) cultural references or enough of the interplay between ideas, character, and plot to make it worth your read.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Texture of Internet Culture
Comment: "Pattern Recognition" is one of those books I wished would not end. Not just because it is a fabulous book, but because I need to know more-much more! I need to know more about the main character, Cayce Pollard, her world, her mother, her job, her new love, her old loves, her IPod, her friends and her father.
Cayce Pollard, her first name Cayce, what a great name! I picture her as a thin, stylish young woman with attitude. You know, you understand just by looking at her that she is not someone to jerk around- she jerks YOU around. She has charisma, intelligence that oozes from her pores. She is a modern young woman who understands the culture of her times.
Cayce lives in New York City. She is an unusally intuitive market research consultant. She can tell by looking at the first design of an ad whether it will sell, whether the public will buy it. On a trip to London, she is shown a design for a product, and after looking at it for one minute, she feels in the pit of her stomach a wave, the answer is "No". The designer's agent puts the picture back in her portfolio, no questions asked- they must go back to the drawing board. Can you imgaine having this kind of control in the world of marketing?
Neither can Dorotea, a protoge of Hubertus Bigend, the marketing guru to whom Cayce just gave the "NO" word. Thus begins the mystery. Cayce is in London working as a consultant and has intrigued Bigend. He wants to hire her to work on a secret assignment to investigate several snippets of a face seen on the Internet. This face has become an obession with a subculture all over the world. Groups on the internet have sprung up trying to guess what this "face" means. The face appears randomly and sometimes with a new piece of the face added. Mr Bigend wants to know who is behind this "face". With this lind of information he could embed in his designs a brand loyalty. He could organize group behavior around cultual objects and ideas.
Cayce accepts this job because she has already become intrigued with this face. She is a member of a chat room on the internet FFF- designed just to discuss the face. She has become an integral member of the chat group- her intelligence and wit have attracted several chat room members, and they all look to her for guidance. This new job with unlimited funds at her disposal takes Cayce to Tokyo and Russia. She becomes enmeshed with a very wealthy Russian family and adventures abound.
In the mdist of these adventures, Cayce is also seaching for her father. Will Pollard an ex-security chief and probable ex-CIA agent has mysteriously disappeared on 9.11.01. He and Cayce were very close he has disclosed his secret agent mind to his daughter. Is there some relationship between her father and the new secret assignment she has taken?
I loved this book. I want to read more about Cayce Pollard. I want to know her life. I want to understand if her new relationship continues- does she return to Russia? What does she do with the enormous amount of money given to her? What happens to Cayce Pollard? prisrob
 |
Title: Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1) by Neal Stephenson ISBN: 0380977427 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 23 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
 |
Title: Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan ISBN: 0345457684 Publisher: Del Rey Pub. Date: 04 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
 |
Title: All Tomorrow's Parties by William Gibson ISBN: 0441007554 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: 08 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
 |
Title: Neuromancer by William Gibson ISBN: 0441569595 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: January, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
 |
Title: Signal to Noise by Eric S. Nylund ISBN: 0380792923 Publisher: Eos Pub. Date: 08 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
