just finishing second read of spook country.

tito rocks.

carry on.

Until WG posted
Dvinsk-Clan - Le parkour
Tito's actions just seemed fiction; but, after that, Tito seemed much more real.

More Parkour

Tito is my fave. To me, the heart of the novel. (Milgrim's captor is, to me, the novels hairy sweaty bollocks.)

Hmmm.... Milgrim:

Stanley Milgram

Submission to authority

sometimes, ironically, milgrim feels like a facilitator of a character. like he facilitates the character of brown and that side of the plot.

while tito has the fun of systema, protocal, and the spirits.

as for seeing stuff, i recommend again the film "district 13", lots of parkour stunts. warren ellis did an issue of his global frequency where, from memory, someone was running across london in order to save the world. fun.

quote:

sometimes, ironically, milgrim feels like a facilitator of a character. like he facilitates the character of brown and that side of the plot.

I think I know what you mean. While Milgrim usually felt quite real (I can even now easily see him in the Asian laundromat with his little book, and at the park unratcheting his plastic cuff), it surprised me when Gib wrote dream sequences for him. I'm sure they make sense for someone strung out on Ativan, and they were interesting enough, but it felt totally unlike Gib to me. Only time I can think of where Gib didn't feel Gibbish.

Also, Milgrim's role in the book and later portions was to be a wild card pinball ricocheting by chance off the events of others. The French money comes to mind.

Also, didn't it turn out that his knowledge of Russian patois or whatever prove useless to Brown?

Finally (and I can't believe I'm going to say this, and it's probably been said here before), Milgrim seems an apt metaphor for mainstream society asleep at the wheel, addicted to anti-anxiety x,y,z, a pawn of the addle-pated far right and not daring to hope for rescue from more reasonable political entities.

Gibson characters as thematic carrier waves. Ick. I must be coming down with something.

milgrim as druggie loser probably isn't a 100 miles away from the likes of case in neuromancer. he just didn't have the *skill* to make him something more. yes, he was a translator, and was hired for that role. and i guess from that brown was armitage? that puppet authority figure?

there was stuff to like milgrim, like you say, the laundromat scene was cool. there is just something about the vibe, him sitting there with his mad book, his drugs, the food, great little sketches of a reality. but not necesarily key to the book.

but then i guess the idea of necesary only comes into play when we look too closely instead of just enjoyed it for the ride.

quote:

but not necesarily key to the book.

Not as a key component. More like lubricating oil in an engine. He was this no one who was, inadvertantly, everywhere ('everywhere' in the sense that an old house has a smell of must that registers over and over in all quarters).

quote:

Originally posted by remotepush:
but not necesarily key to the book.

I've heard this before but I really don't get it. Not necessary to the plot maybe, but absolutely key the book, in my opinion.

quote:

Originally posted by IndividualFrog:

quote:

Originally posted by remotepush:
but not necesarily key to the book.

I've heard this before but I really don't get it. Not necessary to the plot maybe, but absolutely key the book, in my opinion.

Ah. Yes. I agree.

fair point, but like i said, milgrim in his self had some great stuff, so not dismissing him.

quote:

Originally posted by remotepush:
milgrim as druggie loser probably isn't a 100 miles away from the likes of case in neuromancer. he just didn't have the *skill* to make him something more. yes, he was a translator, and was hired for that role. and i guess from that brown was armitage? that puppet authority figure?

there was stuff to like milgrim, like you say, the laundromat scene was cool. there is just something about the vibe, him sitting there with his mad book, his drugs, the food, great little sketches of a reality. but not necesarily key to the book.

but then i guess the idea of necesary only comes into play when we look too closely instead of just enjoyed it for the ride.

I agree with KL, it is vital to the book though not the plot.

Milgrim had a great career, he was back in DC during the Clinton "salad days." He, like Case, are seen after the addiction kicked in. And, like Case, a military spook-type plucks him off of the streets and forces him to help him in a winner-take-all mission.

The basic template is the same. Brown is Armitage, Milgrim is Case. The powers that be need the services of a street addict to engage in their elite little games.

It's just a different take.

Milgrim acts as a witness, he is a more passive character than Tito but serves an important function in the structure of SC.

quote:

Originally posted by RUR:
Milgrim acts as a witness, he is a more passive character than Tito but serves an important function in the structure of SC.

i suppose in the end the same can be said of hollis. she is a witness to the flipside of what milgrim witnesses, to some degree.

quote:

Originally posted by remotepush:
i suppose in the end the same can be said of hollis. she is a witness to the flipside of what milgrim witnesses, to some degree.

That's a good point; I suppose you could just as easily make the case that Hollis is "unneccessary to the book" too. I wonder why people only think that of Milgrim? Because Hollis is introduced in the first chapter so she is assumed to be the protagonist? Because Milgrim is so spacy? Because he makes political statements that piss people off? It's very interesting.

"Because he makes political statements that piss people off?"
Maybe.

The Main protag in the book, I think, is the Old Man, insomuch as everything revolves around him. Even Bigend is just a plot element/enabler.

There are no main characters.

i suppose to a degree that tito can be compared to milgrim, they are both "passive", both "tools", but the manner and their approach to that are very different. which is why tito and milgrim are very different characters. and my next point just undid itself, because as i think it through, by the same logic hollis is a tool of bigend/node.

i guess hollis feels like the protaginist because she is the one we get the most sense of what she is thinking about. i'm sure we are all familiar with the idea of a lead character being a substitute for the reader, where the character enters into a new situation and we as the reader follow in her footsteps exploring out own introduction to the narrative. for me at least that lead character is hollis. we enter this world through her eyes.

following that logic, milgrim is too passive and is already deep in by the time we meet him, and he represents one side of events. the flip side tito is on the inside of the conspiracy, he is milgrim's opposite number. while hollis is like us, external, and feeling the whole thing out step by step. even if the same can be said of tito and milgrim, certainly neither are entirely clued up as to what the plan is, their roles are different.

as for the old man, i don't think he can be regarded as the protaginist. if anything he is the master of all knowledge, the gate keeper, the one person who knows everything that is going on in the novel. that makes him too big to be the protaginist, if you know what i mean?

Yeah I agree. I just threw the P-word in to plug the ?? hole. Old Man is The Hub. Hollis is the entry point, the recursive portal.

And, reclaiming the title thread: tito is awesome.The heart.

quote:

Originally posted by kenmeer livermaile:
And, reclaiming the title thread: tito is awesome.The heart.

i was quite conscious of the fact that we had gone off topic horribly. thank you for returning it to the core point of the thread

Sympathized with both tito and milgrim, and liked them. of all the characters of the book they were most like people i consider my friends.

Also they are both savants of somesorts, not unheard of in gib's stories, as few previously mentioned characters in this thread.

I've had no access to wonderland of interweb for three weeks and some. Been working a real job, no cut hair yet.