Ray Pride

Cyberpunk progenitor William Gibson's latest, "Pattern Recognition," is a compelling, inspired musing on the machining of "cool." Female protagonist Cayce Pollard is a supersensitive maverick of refined design who's much in demand for her suffering: she finds allergens in the strata of corporation branding, who pules at Tommy Hilfiger or the Michelin Man. It's a year after September 11, during which her spy dad disappeared in Manhattan, and we follow Cayce to London, Moscow and other cities as she's possessed by fragments of imagery being loosed on the web, hoping to mosaic "The Footage," which obsesses other "footageheads" around the world as well, into something meaningful. How soon is now? Gibson's suggestive writing about place and time suggests ADD compounded by a hypersensitive sort of depersonalization syndrome, the trauma of twenty-first century life branding Cayce as well. "Pattern Recognition" follows memorably in the lineage of DeLillo and Pynchon. Gibson's got a great ear: Further furrowing the lingua, his lithe, limber prose makes lyrical use of the crosshatching of jargon and branding in our spoken, typed, indifferent world.

William Gibson reads from "Pattern Recognition" on February 12 at 7pm at Borders, 2817 North Clark, (773)935-3909.

(2004-02-11)

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Short Runs
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