William Gibson’s debut novel about Case, an ex-computer hacker, searching for a cure for his damaged nervous system in the streets of Chiba City, Japan, has won the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, and the Hugo Award. I was reading on ‘Wikipedia’ that it has also been adapted into a graphic novel, a radio play, a video game, and is also in consideration for film and opera.
It is therefore, with considerable embarrassment, that I have to confess that I did not get it. And I don’t mean that figuratively speaking - I literally mean that I did not understand what was going on.
While I cannot pin point the root cause of this, I feel that a lot of my disengagement had to do with the fact that - once the basic premise of a computer hacker and the existence of a ‘matrix’ had been established (to effectively categorize this book as sci-fi) the rest of the story was a generic tale of a fired, disgruntled employee, given to drug addiction, roaming the streets, fleeing from gangsters that he owes money to.
I was also thrown off-track by the constant use of jargon - not scientific or medical jargon - but the characters’ internal ‘street talk’. In all fairness, I suppose that is a realistic touch, but it ended up confusing me even more.
I will say that the ending was a good twist; who’s to say, however, that had I understood what was going on, I would not have figured it all out!
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