This is my second reading of this novel, this time as an audio book, the first being a .txt file printout when I was an undergrad. This is the seminal novel starting the 'cyberpunk' genre (which was already taking form at the time Gibson published it) and creating an entire subsection in literature. Let's be honest though, the book is hard to read. If you go on amazon, you will find dozens, if not hundreds, of negative comments complaining about jargon, density, unclear plot, unlovable characters, etc. etc. Newsflash: that's EXACTLY what the book was supposed to be. Some people even complain that the book is full of cliches. If they used their brains for anything else but mindless entertainment they would realize that this was the first book in the Cyberpunk genre (in 1984) and all of the things that are considered cliches today because they were repeated so many times over the past few decades were INVENTED by Gibson in this book. Saying this book is full of cliches is like saying 'The Lord of the Rings' is full of cliches.
This book invented terms and concepts we take for granted today, like cyberspace, jack-in, visual representation of computer networks and data, corporations ruling a technically advanced but morally and socially deteriorated world, also cloning, cryogenics, orbital resorts, black leather and chrome wardrobe were brought into the mainstream of science fiction after 'Neuromancer' became famous. The only problem is that we still today do not have enough special effects technology to make a movie out of it, though one attempt is scheduled for 2011, but may be shelved like many before it.
It is a very dense book. It is small, about 250 pages, while describing a whole new world, thus, by necessity, it is very dense. It is full of jargon which is not explained anywhere because Gibson invented it. The reader needs to be very careful, note all the references and new words and keep them in his mind at all time, as there are contextual clues later on where they become more clear. This is one of the beauties of this book, not for the feeble of mind and intelligence or imagination. There are no positive characters in the book. Everyone is an anti-hero, even the artificial intelligence Wintermute, which kills mercilessly and indiscriminately, including an 8 year-old boy in order to achieve its goal. There is very little to no moral fiber left in the world of the 'Neuromancer'; prostitution is almost a regular job (for both men and women), everyone is on some kind of narcotics, the world is polluted and dangerous and the rich are richer and more evil than ever.
The story follows the resurrection of a hacker, or 'cowboy', Case, who is saved from his last leg of life in Chiba City, coastal Tokyo suburb, and crime-capital of Gibson's Japan, by a brainwashed ex-special corps colonel Armitage, helped by a street-samurai, surgically-enhanced assassin Molly, with retractable razor-blades under her nails. Add to this a psychopathic performance artist who can materialize his thoughts holographically, a Rastafarian orbital space station, where the smell of ganja and the rhythm of Dub are the only constants, an illegal Artificial Intelligence with split personality disorder, cloned ninja assassins, and finally an alien artificial intelligence from the Alpha Centauri system which is only hinted at, and you get a milestone in science fiction and literature, a work which sole purpose is not entertainment, but expansion of the limits of the mind, something that all entertainment was supposed to do before the invention of reality television.
I am looking to read the second and third novel of Gibson's "The Sprawl Trilogy", the Sprawl being an unified metro area from Boston to Atlanta, which although do not mention Case again, and have a minor role for Molly, still happen in the wonderful, intricate and disturbing universe Gibson has created. A final note: although the book is a gem of literature, that cannot be said for the science part. Since the beginning of science fiction there have been two kinds of sci-fi writers: scientists and all the others. Scientists sci-fi writers, like Asimov and Clarke, take meticulous care to base their fiction on actual scientific theories, research, probabilities and possible directions. Their novels are based on hard science, their speculations could actually be true and possible one day, like the geocentric orbit for satellites which was first proposed ('invented') by Clarke. The other kind of sci-fi writers, to which Gibson belongs, do not care much about the scientific justification behind their work or speculations, but only use scientific concepts and facts as a jumping board into developing fantastic stories, characters and plots, which have little to no base in present or future reality or scientific research. Although many concepts and words from Gibson's novels became commonplace today (cyberspace, jack-in, etc.), most of his proposed concepts are unfeasible and unworkable, beginning from self-conscious Artificial Intelligence or machine in general, which is a favorite plot of non-scientist sci-fi authors, but has no basis in any scientific fact or theory. To put it simply, Artificial Intelligence is a branch of computer science concerned with studying function derivatives, and the probability of any kind of program, machine or construct achieving self-consciousness through this technology is equal to a big, round ZERO.
Monday, January 4, 2010
"Snow" by Orhan Pamuk
It took me a long time to finish this book. One because I was studying for GMAT while I was reading it, and the GMAT practices took priority, but also because the book is quite slow itself, probably on purpose, like the slow falling of the snow in a quiet mountain meadow. The title of the book in Turkish is 'Kar', the city in which most of it happens is Kars, and the main protagonist nickname is Ka. Take note of that if you are interested in symbolism, as there is plenty of it throughout the book, not the least being mapping emotions and poems to the axis of a snowflake.
Pamuk has been accused of being overly intellectual, intentionally obscure, too philosophical, combining too many things into one novel, not paying attention to character or plot development; and while many of these things might prove themselves true in certain specific cases, "Snow" is a marvelously written book and righteously brought the author the Nobel Prize for literature in 2006. The book is about a poet returning from political exile in Germany, becoming a journalist for an Istanbul newspaper which sends him in the most remote northeast corner of turkey, the city of Kars, on the borders with Georgia, Armenia and Iran, it's glory days long gone and buried in the last century when it was one of the southernmost points of the Soviet (and before that the Russian) Empire.
The city boasts many architectural remains of a better past, but they, alike the current denizens, are out of maintenance, made into something else, hastily put together in a hope for semblance of something better, but failing miserably. Snow starts falling the day Ka arrives in Kars, and the entire books happens in the 3 days of a thick snowstorm when all the roads to Kars are blocked and the outside world is locked out. Pamuk has deep love of Turkey and the Turks, regardless of their origin, beliefs, status or social standing. We see marching through the book's pages people from the military with strict secularist views, Islamic fundamentalist which do not shy from murder in order to further their goals and the Glory of God, former Communists and present Socialists who are not really sure what political beliefs they hold currently, small-time merchants, business owners, Kurdish separatists, secret police spies, religious high school students and plenty of unemployed, bored, future-less, hopeless people who form the amorphous bulk of the citizenry of Kars.
Ka also has a romantic interest in Kars, his old love Ipek, who is more beautiful than ever. Her former socialist father, her Islamic fundamentalist sister, the enigmatic and charismatic Islamic terrorist Blue, his little cohort of followers and admiring women, the mayoral candidate of the Islamic party, the failed Ataturk actor and his fat wife, who turn to political and military coup to end his not-so-glorious acting career, make the cast of the novel motley and drawn from every corner of Turkish life. The novel is written from the point of the author, Pamuk, who finds the diaries of Ka and re-traces his story, both going to Kars and to Frankfurt, putting the pieces together as he discovers them, leading up to the murder of Ka in Frankfurt, and unsuccessfully trying to find Ka's notebook with the 19 poems he wrote while in Kars, the first writing he has done in many years, and his last before his death.
The book might not be the easiest read, and definitely not an easy-reading novel with Turkish setting, but for those willing to spend the time, it rewards the reader with deep insight into the complicated situation of being a Turk in Turkey, on the crossroads between east and west, the only secular Muslim country but with a strong religious Islamic movement, the remnants of an empire, still containing many peoples and elements from all the corners once that empire stretched to, trying to look to the west, but not willing or unable to leave behind its eastern past, unsure as of where it stands, but still chugging along the best it can. 'Snow' will be a rewarding adventure for any open-minded reader willing to give it a chance.
Pamuk has been accused of being overly intellectual, intentionally obscure, too philosophical, combining too many things into one novel, not paying attention to character or plot development; and while many of these things might prove themselves true in certain specific cases, "Snow" is a marvelously written book and righteously brought the author the Nobel Prize for literature in 2006. The book is about a poet returning from political exile in Germany, becoming a journalist for an Istanbul newspaper which sends him in the most remote northeast corner of turkey, the city of Kars, on the borders with Georgia, Armenia and Iran, it's glory days long gone and buried in the last century when it was one of the southernmost points of the Soviet (and before that the Russian) Empire.
The city boasts many architectural remains of a better past, but they, alike the current denizens, are out of maintenance, made into something else, hastily put together in a hope for semblance of something better, but failing miserably. Snow starts falling the day Ka arrives in Kars, and the entire books happens in the 3 days of a thick snowstorm when all the roads to Kars are blocked and the outside world is locked out. Pamuk has deep love of Turkey and the Turks, regardless of their origin, beliefs, status or social standing. We see marching through the book's pages people from the military with strict secularist views, Islamic fundamentalist which do not shy from murder in order to further their goals and the Glory of God, former Communists and present Socialists who are not really sure what political beliefs they hold currently, small-time merchants, business owners, Kurdish separatists, secret police spies, religious high school students and plenty of unemployed, bored, future-less, hopeless people who form the amorphous bulk of the citizenry of Kars.
Ka also has a romantic interest in Kars, his old love Ipek, who is more beautiful than ever. Her former socialist father, her Islamic fundamentalist sister, the enigmatic and charismatic Islamic terrorist Blue, his little cohort of followers and admiring women, the mayoral candidate of the Islamic party, the failed Ataturk actor and his fat wife, who turn to political and military coup to end his not-so-glorious acting career, make the cast of the novel motley and drawn from every corner of Turkish life. The novel is written from the point of the author, Pamuk, who finds the diaries of Ka and re-traces his story, both going to Kars and to Frankfurt, putting the pieces together as he discovers them, leading up to the murder of Ka in Frankfurt, and unsuccessfully trying to find Ka's notebook with the 19 poems he wrote while in Kars, the first writing he has done in many years, and his last before his death.
The book might not be the easiest read, and definitely not an easy-reading novel with Turkish setting, but for those willing to spend the time, it rewards the reader with deep insight into the complicated situation of being a Turk in Turkey, on the crossroads between east and west, the only secular Muslim country but with a strong religious Islamic movement, the remnants of an empire, still containing many peoples and elements from all the corners once that empire stretched to, trying to look to the west, but not willing or unable to leave behind its eastern past, unsure as of where it stands, but still chugging along the best it can. 'Snow' will be a rewarding adventure for any open-minded reader willing to give it a chance.
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