At the end, and speaks to him in Russian? Who is that supposed to be? Old man?

It's either the old man or somebody in his employ. Milgrim stole Hollis phone.

quote:

Originally posted by Hasa:
It's either the old man or somebody in his employ. Milgrim stole Hollis phone.

Yes, but Garreth knows the phone is gone and by extension so would the Old Man and those in his employ.

I think the simplest explanation is that Bigend speaks Russian. Milgrim is the first to speak Russian. The speech has that Bigend self-asuredness.

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Originally posted by Psychophant:
I think the simplest explanation is that Bigend speaks Russian. Milgrim is the first to speak Russian. The speech has that Bigend self-asuredness.

So then Bigend, in your mind, is calling out of his self-described curiousity, to see who has the phone?

Now *this* is what I call Tweaking the Otaku.

I think it was the Russian bartender in the Gentleman Loser, dialing a wrong number for a patron in a numeral-slurring barroom din.

Well of course it's Bigend calling. Milgrim stole Hollis's bag (and cellphone).

quote:

Originally posted by martin:
Well of course it's Bigend calling. Milgrim stole Hollis's bag (and cellphone).

Yes, but at that point the bag is in a mailbox. he'd have to decide to track the phone itself and then call or just call and see who answers. I just don't see why he;d do it at that point. He'd be on to the next thing.

Or maybe it was just bigend. I should have asked.

quote:

Yes, but at that point the bag is in a mailbox. he'd have to decide to track the phone itself and then call or just call and see who answers. I just don't see why he;d do it at that point. He'd be on to the next thing.

And Bigend is a very curious man, yes? Who follows his instincts, yes? No reason they should stop at the end of a story or, more accurately, because the object of his pursuit has dead-ended.

The missing cellphone might have made his instinctive nose itch mightily?

I assumed it was Bigend.

I assumed the caller is Bigend too. Then someone pointed out in another thread that Bigend spoke to the twins' uncle from _PR_ in French. So, I had to rethink it. I still think that the caller is Bigend. He just picked up enough Russian language during business deals over four years to have a telephone conversation.

He has been making business with Volkov for four years. And I suspect Volkov's French is better than Bigend's Russian.

I like the fact that Bigend has almost no limits. We have not yet found something he could not buy, somewhere he could not insinuate in, someone he could not get to do his bidding, in the end. Or something he does not know about. And information is Bigend's drug of choice.

Definitely an info junkie. I was talking to a friend of mine several years ago about why children fight sleep. We came to the conclusion that children fight sleep because they are addicted to information uptake and learning. Some type of reward system going on in the brain for information storage and retrieval.

quote:

Originally posted by Eric:
Definitely an info junkie. I was talking to a friend of mine several years ago about why children fight sleep. We came to the conclusion that children fight sleep because they are addicted to information uptake and learning. Some type of reward system going on in the brain for information storage and retrieval.

It's ironic then that sleep allows one to process and store said input.

"Input!! Johnny Five needs more Input!!!"

It said the man replied in "accented but serviceable Russian". I would think that The Old Man would speak Russian so well that he wouldn't have an accent. And The Old man wouldn't care enough about the phone to try to call it.

Bigend would be curious enough to give it a ring, and it would make sense that he would speak Russian but only enough to communicate.

Speaking of Milgrim, I would be deeply indebted, if someone would explain to me the need for that character. (Extra points if you can exclude references to WBG's fascination with addictive behavior.)

He is necessary to observe Brown.

quote:

Originally posted by Black Jacque:
Speaking of Milgrim, I would be deeply indebted, if someone would explain to me the need for that character. (Extra points if you can exclude references to WBG's fascination with addictive behavior.)

I was perplexed about this also. Metaphorically, I think he symbolizes the easy yet consciously painful acquiescence of the American public to a belligerent, irrationally abusive government, the "Rize" I believe being a code for "information" used to keep the public in check. He may have also symbolized Gibson's view of his readers, his thieving ways being a veiled reference to bootleggers. Though practically, he only seemed there to translate Volapuk; I was sort of expecting the perspective on Brown to change once that no longer became necessary to the larger plot.

If you think about it further though, Milgrim's escape from Brown and his theft of Henry's purse put him in a position to either entirely liberate himself from addiction or plunge himself back into it in a big way... the implication being, if my reading of Milgrim is correct, that property theft can have transformative value, especially if irony is attached (the money in the purse being the repayment of another addict's last wishes.)

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

"symbolizes" seems rather grand, but upon reading this, I do feel there might be an allegorical connection between Milgrim and the average American: drugged on tranquilizers and held captive by a vague "security"-ish thing. Struggling with the discrepancy between his rational analysis and the lure of Rize.
While reading, it seemed like a (good) huge joke that Brown needed Milgrim for the simple task of reading Russian. Like the fact that there are not enough Arabic literates to study the electronic data collected by western intelligence.
To me, it seems a bit over the top to attach big moral judgements to a fictional person like Milgrim.

Answering literally, Milgrim exists so that we can glimpse the other side of the "Cold Civil War" without Gibson having to feel empathy with Brown.

So Gibson requires a coerced (but not much) reliable (ergo the choice of addiction) educated witness. Although nobody agreed with me in London, I think Milgrim is Gibson's manifestation in this novel, as can be seen by becoming Gibson's spokeperson.

I like Milgrim. Maybe because I never can be Hollis or Tito, but I could have ended like Milgrim. I still can.

He is the closest to a normal person in that novel, which says plenty.