A Book A Week - Week 2: Neuromancer

This week's book:
   Neuromancer   by William Gibson

Grade:  A

Do you know I had never actually read this book all the way through? I bought a copy in... we'll say 1989... and read dribs and drabs, a page here a chapter there, but I never sat down and read it from the beginning to the end.  I'll tell you why not a little later.  This is the seminal cyberpunk work, the granddaddy that started it all.  Gibson is credited with coining the term 'cyberspace' and he also originated the Japanese-influenced post-apocalyptic wasteland of corporate supremacy that seemed to be the rage for a while in the 80s and 90s.  So I need to give him mad props for that, it's not easy to invent an entire genre from nothing.

I gotta say, it was an enjoyable read.  It kept my attention as I slowly became invested in the characters who are, let's face it, an entirely unpleasant group.  I thought the plot was moving at a herky-jerky pace until I realized that it was following the Hollywood three-act structure.  I don't know if Gibson meant to do it or if it just happened that way, but you can set your watch by the script beats in this novel.  I tried to temper my criticism with the realization that most people won't see the structure underneath.  So, absent that, I did like it quite a bit.

But I had one thought while working my way through the first chapters - it must have been exhausting writing this.  There is so much mood, so much atmosphere so much painfully self-conscious metaphor that the author must have needed a nap after a few hours' work.  For example:  'Beyond the neon shudder of Ninsei, the sky was that mean shade of gray.  The air had gotten worse; it seemed to have teeth tonight, and half the crowd wore filtration masks.'  And that's on page fifteen of two-hundred-seventy-one.  After a while it's just too much.
   About halfway in I finally recalled why I never had read it all the way through before:  I never had the patience.  It's as tiring reading it as it must have been to write it.

 If 'The Hobbit' was a kid's book, 'Neuromancer' is a young man's book.  It's all front, all style without enough substance to match, the hat-sideways gang-sign-flashing suburban white kid trying to make a point he doesn't understand.  It's well-done, and like I said it kept my attention, but there are a few things that nag at me.  Like the question 'why Case (the main character)?'  It's established on the first page that Case is a burn-out, he can't jack into cyberspace any more, and then he's fixed and the plot continues on.  But why him and not any of a billion other 'net jockeys?  Or why Armitage/Corto?  He has an incredible back story, but it's never clear why he and only he can serve his place in the novel.

Still, even for its shortcomings, I'd recommend anyone read it.  Or give it the old college try.

Next week:
   Twilight   by Stephanie Meyer
    I'm not bullshitting, I'm really gonna read it.