The disoriented, helter skelter style of Neuromancer bring “cognitive estrangement” to a whole new level. Case is the ultimate case of cognitive estrangement. In the beginning of the story he steals from his employer, and as punishment his nervous system is poisoned with the Russian wartime chemical Mycotoxin. After falling from the “bodiless exultation of cyberspace,” Case proceeds to degenerate into a drug addicted stupor.
Our protagonist is experiencing a different reality from our own. His is a reality in which his nervous system has been splintered by both technology and drugs. Therefore, it is not surprising that the style of William Gibson’s novel is disjointed. The disorientation of style is purposely done to bring the reader into Case’s neurologically damaged mind.
Case doesn’t focus on the entire picture of reality, rather – his view zooms immediately on shiny objects, colors, the glow of neon laser light, lips and eyes, lines of worry etched on the face. The events of the novel proceed in a drama of immediate intensity. One minute Linda is his lover, the next she is treacherous and backstabbing.
Perhaps Gibson’s style is deliberate. He is trying to place the reader into the neurological state of our trans-human future. The concept of an android has existed in numerous novels before this one. Yet William Gibson’s Neuromancer is successful in creating a character with a machine like consciousness. Case’s mind is tapped into a cybernetic network, and therefore his consciousness is inevitably transformed into something beyond human:
He operated on a permanent adrenaline high, a byproduct of youth and proficiency, jacked into a custom cyberspace deck that projected his disembodied consciousness into the consensual hallucination that was the matrix (Gibson 5).
