The world of Cayce Pollard

I’m listening to William Gibson’s “Pattern Recognition” again, narrated by Shelly Frasier. I’ve never actually read this book, and the other Gibson books I’ve read I’ve not liked so much. Perhaps Gibson is akin to Shakespeare–best heard spoken.

I can’t quite explain why I like this book so much. The plot is thin. The language is opaque–Gibson possesses and employs a vocabulary I’m far too lazy to approach. It’s more literary fiction than science fiction. I’m not even sure how it qualifies as sci-fi, really. With the the exception of the protagonist’s branding allergy there is nothing particularly fantastical or futuristic about it. On the contrary–it’s main draw is Gibson’s ability to take the mundane and make it fantastical.

Gibson’s talent seems to lie in taking things we’re largely familiar with and endowing it with a visceral, even garish, importance. Our protagonist Cayce doesn’t just suffer from jet-lag, she rhapsodizes about the disorientation of “soul delay.” Gibson doesn’t just “show, don’t tell”, he transcends it, giving even the most brief descriptions  a searing urgency. For him it’s not just about telling the story, but telling it in a particular way. He doesn’t just love words, he chooses them carefully for impact.

The effect is an immersive story. You don’t just see Cayce Pollard’s world, you experience it. It’s a fascinating world under the glare of Gibson’s literary style–only on later contemplation do you begin to wonder why you found it so interesting. Gibson loves what he is writing about, and he makes you fall in love with it, too.

“Pattern Recognition”, and to a lesser degree the two sequels, is if anything “anti-fantasy”. Typical fantasy says, “Look at this cool world I’ve come up with.” Gibson says, “Look at this cool world you live in!” His tale of Cayce Pollard, Cool Hunter, is semi-autobiographical. He has found all this cool-ness lurking on the margins of our world, and he’s presenting it to us. Vauxhall Wyverns. Silk Cut cigarettes. Pilates equipment that sound like aesthetically-pleasing torture devices. Otaku cults. Immigrant acculturation. Viral marketing. Moscow warehouses turned night clubs turned secret video production facilities. Near-mythical figures who make their fortunes in both ethereal and mundane ways. Cold-war relics and skillsets. Social media communities that become real-world undergrounds. It’s all normal. And in Gibson’s hands it’s all fascinating, fantastical, and viscerally cool. No object is merely itself.

I could never be a Gibson. I lack the vocabulary. I lack the mindset, the perspective. Even if I tried to write like Gibson I doubt I could keep it up for more than a short story that would at best be viewed as the sincerest form of flattery. I’m not sure his style could even be appropriate to what I currently write. What would Gibsonian style applied to fantasy even look like? I think the shock of juxtaposition would rip apart anything it was applied to, like the Genesis planet in Star Trek III. The result might be fascinating enough to convince an editor to buy one such book. But I doubt a career could be built on it.

Perhaps this is evidence that I should try a different genre for my next book. While Gibson’s approach might not work in a fantasy setting, it could work amazingly well in urban fantasy. In a way, that’s what “Pattern Recognition” is. It’s decidedly urban, with the magic derived from the unrealized potential of mundane things. It’s not strict modern fiction, because we’re taken on a tour of a world most of us will never see–if indeed it even exists. While we don’t doubt that such lifestyles and careers are possible in a world as crazy as ours, our chances of ever encountering them first-hand are as rare as unicorns. Cayce Pollard may very well exist in some form, but I’ll never meet her by living my life.

I can’t explain why I like “Pattern Recognition” so much. This is not my first attempt. It may not be my last. The reason may not even entirely be Gibson. Shelly Fraiser certainly does a better job of reading Gibson’s tricky prose than I do. But this is at least my fourth time through it now, which makes it one of my most re-read books. There’s something about it that has lodged in my psyche. Yet it’s certainly not for everyone. I don’t expect anyone else to “get it”, or get it for the same reasons.

This post, more than anything, is yet another attempt to deconstruct a book that clearly grabs me and try and figure out why. I hear from other writers more successful than I that the best thing you can do is write the book you want to read. This makes sense to me, because if you don’t even enjoy what you’re writing, it’s likely to come through in your writing, and no one else will like it either. And so I continue to try and figure out just what is about “Pattern Recognition” that pulls me in again and again.