Pattern Recognition (novel)
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Pattern Recognition (G. P. Putnam's Sons 2003, ISBN 0-425-19293-8) is William Gibson's eighth novel, the first to be set in the contemporary world. Although set in the immediate past and referring to real-world technology, it's still considered a work of science fiction. John Clute of Science Fiction Weekly referred to it as "SF for the new century." [link]
As is characteristic with Gibson novels, Pattern Recognition is replete with neologisms. Some of the most memorable are gender-bait, a male posing as a female online to elicit positive responses; cool-hunter, which Gibson picked up from the marketing industry, where it had been in use for some yearsSee the 2001 PBS documentary, The Merchants of Cool; and Mirror World, meaning England, by reference to opposite-side driving, etc.
It has been cited as the first major literary work to respond to the events of 9/11, although it does so in an indirect fashion; the disaster is mentioned briefly, yet its memory pervades the events in the novel as it occurrence becomes an overwhelming, unavoidable fact of daily existence.
A film adaptation of the book is currently in production, to be directed by Peter Weir.
Plot
The novel is set during the summer of 2002, primarily in London, with the main character in typical Gibson fashion globetrotting to Japan, France, and Russia; there are also flashbacks to her life in New York City. The main character, Cayce Pollard, has been hired by a firm called Blue Ant based in London, seemingly to appraise new logos for their client. She is staying at the flat of a friend who is in Russia filming a documentary about an archeological dig. Pollard suffers from a psychological hypersensitivity that causes her to have allergic reactions to brands and corporate logos - which makes her the ideal advertising consultant. She uses this unique talent to gauge the “hip-ness” of a pitch or brand.The plot develops as she is drawn into a mystery surrounding snippets of film footage, or “footage” as it is referred to in the novel. Some mysterious artist has arisen, releasing their works and placing them at random locations on the Internet for their growing base of admirers to find and discuss. Several websites have arisen discussing the footage, hypothesizing over its creator, their methods, intentions, inspirations, and other factors. The owner of Blue Ant, Hubertus Bigend, is seeking to find the creator and exploit their talent for his firm. Having identified Cayce as a poster on one of the more reputable footage discussion sites, he seeks to hire her to find the creator.
Meanwhile Cayce meets a band of bohemian artists of Russian extract that reveal to her a unique sub culture, and reveal the large reach of Blue Ant, Bigend’s company. One of them works nights at clubs and bars in viral marketing, flirting with men and talking about a specific product or campaign. She tells Cayce that she is “talking up” the footage under the orders of a division of Blue Ant.
Also, Cayce begins to be tormented by Dorotea, a woman who appears to be working for the designer Blue Ant hired to create a logo. Thinking the cigarette burn on her jacket and the break-in at her friend’s flat where she is staying are all revenge for her rejecting the first logo, the intrigue rises as Doretea assaults Cayce with images of the Michelan Man (the image which elicits the strongest reaction from Cayce’s “allergy”) both at the office and her flat.
Succumbing to Bigend’s offer and the opportunity to discover the maker, Cayce joins forces with Boone Chu, an American from Oklahoma, owner of a failed dot com. The mystery of the footage dovetails for Pollard with the mystery of what happened to her father on 9/11, who had flown to NYC for unknown reasons the day before and was last seen getting into a taxi in midtown Manhattan at 7 a.m. on the morning of the attacks. Reeling in the memory of the events, Cayce flies to Japan to get information through a source connected to Parkaboy, a friend she made on the footage website. There she is accosted by two associates of Dortea, though she promptly escapes with the help of Boone who has been following her.
Using the information she received in Japan and the connections of her bohemian friends, Cayce tracks down the e-mail address connected to the footage. Cayce e-mails that person and is invited to Moscow to meet. After taking measures to throw off anyone following her, Cayce travels to Moscow and meets who turns out to be the creator’s twin sister, Stella Volkova. Cayce learns that Stella’s sister, Nora, was permanently injured by a mine used to kill her parents in an attack related to organized crime. Their uncle Andrei Volkova, now a very wealthy Russian businessman, takes care of the two, enabling Stella’s sister state of the art equipment to produce “the footage”. Before long, Cayce is able to meet Stella’s sister and even observe her creating a snippet of the film.
However, by finding the sisters, Cayce has aroused the suspicions of the uncle’s security force. In one last desperate bid to appease her true employers, Dortea confronts Cayce and drugs her in an attempt to elicit the resources Cayce used in obtaining the e-mail address that led her to the sisters. Dorotea gives her an overdose, though, and the Uncle’s team steps in to correct the situation. During this overdose, Cayce has a break through, accepting her father’s death, gaining closure, and recovering from her brand “allergy.”
After her recovery, Cayce discovers that the Russians have created a low-security prison for the processing of the footage. Bigend is called in to secure a business deal (outside of the matter of the footage) initiated by the uncle. Boone and Dortea are both discharged for their duplicity, and Cayce is given leave to visit the sisters as she will. As a parting gift, the Russians give Cayce the research they had gathered in regards to her father, which far exceeded any other in completeness. The novel ends with a series of e-mails – a motif used often throughout the novel by Gibson – closing all remaining plot lines except one, which is in bed with her.
Trivia
The novel inspired Sonic Youth to write a song of the same title, which opens with the lyric "I'm a cool hunter making you my way" and appears on their 2004 album, Sonic Nurse.In the X-Files Season Seven episode "First Person Shooter" (which was co-written by William Gibson) there is a character named Darryl Musashi who is a programmer that is murdered. A character of the same name appears in Pattern Recognition as a friend of Parkaboy.
References
External links
- [PR-Otaku]: Logging and annotating William Gibson's Pattern Recognition
- [William Gibson Books: Pattern Recognition]; author's site
- ["The Case of the World"], by John Clute, Science Fiction Weekly, February 24, 2003
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