The particulars of why Neuromancer is such a challenging read comes from the vernacular and conventions that Gibson employs. A prime example of this is in chapter titled FIVE, about 6 paragraphs down in my version. Gibson uses common language to describe an action in a different sense than how a modern writer would use it, creating confusion for the reader and forcing them to search for answers and information all the time.
“Molly began to sign rapidly, produced a scrap of paper, wrote something on it, and passed it to the Finn. He took it between thumb and forefinger, holding it away from his body as though it might explode. He made a sign Case didn’t know, one that conveyed a mixture of impatience and glum resignation. He stood up, brushing crumbs from the front of his battered tweed jacket. A glass jar of pickled herring stood on the table beside a torn plastic package of flatbread and a tin ashtray piled with the butts of Partagas.”
Here Gibson talks about signing like we know what he means and offers no information as to the substance of what the signs are conveying. Gibson is intentionally using conventions and ideas that have common understandings for us today but differ from the way he uses them. Gibson thus creates a void of information for us, which we instinctively look to fill with some information from the text. This would be the approach to literature that I have encountered before, with the reader being informed as the story but Gibson does not choose this approach.
Gibson just glides right over this use of confusing structure and terms diving right into his next disorienting trick of using the brand name of an object that unless you know can be a completely foreign term. One would assume that Gibson is talking about cigarettes when he mentions an ashtray and the term Partagas, but by now we know not to trust Gibson to give it to us straight. In reality they are a brand of Cuban Cigars but unless you know that to begin with, this word will blend in with the rest of his term list, which has been steadily building up throughout the story constantly leaving you grasping to have the whole story explained.
I was wondering if anyone shares my opinion that Gibson relies on the reader putting up with his “manner” of writing much like the character of Case dealing with weird circumstances in the book? My stance is this, that the narrator is explaining the situation through Case’s eyes, the only problem is Case does not really have all the facts. He is blundering through these exchanges just as much as we are. I believe this choice is not literary laziness but a decision to disorient the reader at all times, that defines why the story actually comes across as a very personal experience.
LONG AND SHORT OF IT HE INTENTIONALLY USES WORDS IN WEIRD WAYS TO SCREW WITH US