So obviously Pattern Recognition is not science-fiction, or at least not in the usual sense of the word. But it's certainly not just "contemporary fiction."

Has anyone here read anything by Hari Kunzru? I read Transmission over the summer, and while I didn't like the book, it reminded me of PR. It's this kind of exaggerated reality, with a pretentious culture-vulture vibe throughout. I think, in some ways, PR is a satire of that kind of writing. Gibson enjoys self-deprecation and satire and irony, and I don’t think PR is meant to be an entirely serious novel, but also as a commentary of this recent trend of sciency contemporary fiction. But I'm being way too obscure.

So, to get on topic, what genre do you think PR would fall under? I like adding the word "punk" to things, so I say "Marketpunk," with its focus on the economy and cool and the skill trades. Hari Kunzru's Transmission would also be Marketpunk, but then, PR would be Mock-Marketpunk.

I did not see any punks in PR.

I would call it a current events novel, nothing else. No Logo tried to be market-punk. Pattern Recognition does not try to conform, but unlike Neuromancer it does not try to break anything either.

José

Can't box it in a genre; it's recombinant.
A snapshot might be called:
Fortean-collage

Well, there were the goths at the Children's Crusade, but anyway...

Genre as a useful tool starts to break apart at a certain point. It really serves to give some pieces value while refusing value to others. In your assignment of "marketpunk," you assume that no-one has really done this before, which is certainly not true. Check out Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon," which is also a recent example of an SF writer writing a "current events" novel. "Cryptonomicon borrows not only from WWII narratives but also from a specifically Japanese genre which usually details the rise and fall of a company (I'm cribbing this from a Washington Post review from 1999; my recall is rusty). This could put Cryptonomicon, in many ways, square in the middle of your genre definition. I think what you're actually talking about is: 1) literature that leaks into SF (see: Pynchon, Thomas; Atwood, Margaret; Lessing, Doris; etc.), and 2) SF that leaks into literature (or gets big enough to be noticed by the literary establishment, usually when it sells beyond its expected demographic. See: Gibson, William; Butler, Octavia; Stephenson, Neal; Lessing, Doris; and many others).

There are, of course, many precedents for your coinage. Douglas Coupland, for instance, who has been writing what's been called "Gen X lit" since the '80s. I'd add Haruki Murakami to a list of writers who also slip the border between "accepted" literature and "ghettoized" literature. And, except for the diehards that are only interested in maintaining the borders of either genre, either side of the line is only going to get more-or-less "sciency."

One of the funnier lines in Joss Whedon's "Firefly":

quote:

WASH
Psychic, though? That sounds like
something out of science fiction!

ZOE
You live in a spaceship, dear.

WASH
So?

As a society, the West and developed East are entering that realm, and since this is happening, our written matter is going to reflect that. Either the future-prognosticators are going to further imagine the-web-on-steroids (Idoru basically does this), or they're going to give up, like Gibson to some extent has, and admit that the present is somehow weirder than our futurists ever thought.

This long-winded post is devoted to trying to question the terms of your statement. Why is it important that we come up with a "genre" for Pattern Recognition to distinguish it from cyberpunk, other SF, or other literature? I'm aware that this activity is quite popular, but I've lately become convinced that genre is not always relevant to understanding the work in question (just as knowing an artist's life may shed some light, but is often simply secondary-- the author is often someone *different* when he or she writes, as Proust would have it). I do not mean to say that "genre" is wholly useless. Examining how people have thought about genre, what certain genres did at certain moments of time (or what they *do*) and what they mean within their historical context is an interesting entry-point. For example, SF is more than a "genre" in many respects: it's an industry with very specific modes of production, both in print and in other media, and it has systems just as comics have systems that are pretty solidly codified as ways of doing business. One of those systems is the fanzine, for instance. But using SF here has simply provided an entry point through which we can begin examining these things.

Historically, I have to admit that it's interesting to track the development of the cyberpunk aesthetic from one fanzine, "Cheap Truth," to the point that it's currency and relevance seemed to require Billy Idol to ill-advisedly make a concept album about it... but the fiction itself has a life beyond 1981-1992 (otherwise we wouldn't be here). If Pattern Recognition reveals anything to me (and I know I've said this before, and Gibson certainly has), it's that the elements of cyberpunk SF have become embedded not merely in our cultural weave, but also in our cultural objects, technology, etc. And now that we can see that its preoccupations have become our *current* preoccupations, we can also see that its preoccupations have, in some way, *always* been our preoccupations.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Justy,

And, of course, in three lines, Eric makes me sound like I like to hear myself talk.

Do not be so harsh on yourself, it was a great dissertation of the lack of validity of genre as a label.

And you got to use appropiately embedded. Extra points.

José

quote:

Originally posted by Justy:
And, of course, in three lines, Eric makes me sound like I like to hear myself talk.

I don't know about that. My brevity usually has more confusion than conclusion.
And besides, I like the way you talk.

The thing is, though, I'm always concerned that just by inundating everybody with info that I shut down discussion...

I mean, sure, just cause I'm writing *my* dissertation on this stuff...

JRE is right, don't be so harsh too yourself

you just blind everybode else with (science) knowledge
but it's not that you shutdown discussions, just sometimes there's nothing more to say

quote:

Originally posted by Justy:
And, of course, in three lines, Eric makes me sound like I like to hear myself talk.

Well, you are an academic, for chrissakes. We students expect nothing less.

We'd also like to read more of your dissertation.
Good thread topic Jaunter.

Eric,

Believe me, so do I...

[edit:]I've pimped this out before, but here's what you get when you google "william gibson justin roby"

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Justy,

Derrida had a bad Christmas... He had no presence

Bad pun! Bad, bad, bad!

Oddly, I think Derrida would have liked it.

quote:

from Justy's Systematic Change: William Gibson, Monsters, Cyborgs, and Time- ‘They are like Giger’s paintings of New York,’ Yamazaki had said, but the reference had been lost on Laney" (108)

It was lost on me too; but, I googled it this time. Thanks Justy