Richard argues that “Gibson is intentionally chaotic, complex, and ambiguous” and points toward specifics from the text as he continues mulls over the multiple locations and terms used in Neuromancer. Matt agrees, and hones in on the word ““Macau” as a problematic term in the text and attempts to parse all of its shades of meaning. He attempts to do the same with the word “Turing;” I recommend that he take a look at the life of Alan Turing for a even more perspective there!
I think both Matt and Richard are asking a very important question in regards to authorial intent–just how confused does Gibson want his readers to be? Is he just being clever, or does he have a higher purpose, a “truth” that he is trying to communicate?
Christina thinks that part of his objective is to intentionally play around with our sense of time in the novel, which, she says, “does not seem to progress singularly,” and causes “time vertigo” for her.
Emma disagrees, and does her part to throw down the gauntlet for the week, saying that “The most frustrating thing for me is that I don’t care about the characters.” I normally find this to be a lazy argument (after all, is that really why we read literature?) Thankfully, Emma gives some compelling reasons why she thinks we should care, and wrestles with the fact that “this might be intentional on Gibson’s part. The characters do live in an isolationist world.”
Finally, Young Park returns to the very beginning of the novel to consider the full implications of that famous opening line, concluding that “Gibson manages to fill in the details without any crude exposition, leaving instead small hints in unexpected places.” It’s an astute observation and he supports it well with textual evidence–convincing this reader, for one, of Gibson’s genius yet again!