Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Lost in Pattern Recognition

I'm almost 100 pages into Pattern Recognition by William Gibson, and I'm not sure if I like it. I definitely don't not like it, but that's not a resounding compliment. And I would try another of his novels just to make sure that this one wasn't possibly off for me because of the character or plot. I guess that means I sort of like it. Hum. As you can see, I'm struggling just to decide my own opinion. Here are the things that are tripping me up:

First, I don't understand fully what's going on. In the big picture, in a few small scenes, in the occasional sentence.

Second, the prose is so heavy yet scattered that I haven't yet decided if Gibson has a certain genius to his style or if it's just a gimmick.

Third, it's written in limited third person, present tense, which makes me hyper-aware of the narrator who at times seems to be watching the main character (she sees, she walks, she's taken aback) and at other times seems to be inside the main characters thoughts, whittling the narrative down to just her impressions of things.

The verdict is clearly still out.

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