Neuromancer thread 4 : Chapter 19 to END

[Traveller]

For discussion of the last chapters of the book.

[Puddin Pointy-Toes]

I have what I think is a pretty strange mental image of what Villa Straylight looks like. From the descriptions it doesn't seem to be a villa of any sort of earth-bound layout, being all curved walls and floors and what have you, and its emptiness and tranquility brings to mind many a science-fiction advnature game. For some reason I see it as being walled in purples and turquoise with eerie ambient music playing. It just seems to fit somehow...

[Traveller]

Thanks for that post, J. Yes, I also tried to imagine Villa Straylight and I saw a kind of huge spiral-y kind of thing like a termite's nest, half of it burrowing underground.

Now that we know about Neuromancer and his real nature, I wanted to ask you guys what you thought of the idea of copying an entire person as if he/she were a piece of paper to be photostatted, and sticking the copy of the person into a world made of memories.

I do get that he is supposedly the right hemisphere of the brain and and Wintermute the left side, which is why Wintermute was so unsure of motivations- because the right side supposedly works more with emotion and the left with logic.

To me Neuromancer was the most far-fetched aspect of the story, but also the most emotionally poignant, because thanks to Neuromancer, Case and Linda get to be together forever. Aawww, sweet!

Since you once told me you enjoyed bitterwseet love stories, J. I suspected you'd like that aspect of the ending, and I hope you did.

Of course it was too much to be expected for the real-life Case not to have gone back to his drugs and Molly to her super-Ninja stuff kicking asses. >:D I guess a leopard doesn't change spots that easily, but I would have been glad if Case could have managed to stay clean.

[Derek, Miéville fan-boi]

I actually only caught that Case had gone back to the drugs when I was going through my notes and wondering why he'd got another new liver and pancreas. Doh.

But I didn't actually get why he did. He was an addict when he was trying to kill himself, at a time when he'd lost his ability to do the work he loved. After Straylight, he was working again. Why would he go back on the drugs?

I wouldn't have expected Case & Molly to stay together. They were only together for the job, and what did they ever have in common?

If we accept the ability to create the Pauley construct, then copying Linda and Case and giving them a kind of existence inside Neuromancer doesn't seem at all far-fetched. I'm more interested that Case knows he's in there and, unlike Pauley, it doesn't bother him. He seems to think that he owes Linda that much (of course, we know nothing about how the Case inside the construct feels).

[Derek, Miéville fan-boi]

I loved the scene where Case is caught inside Neuromancer, and follows the sound of Maelcum's music out. It merged exactly with my memory of the human-form cylons in Battlestar Galactica who keep hearing Dylan's All Along the Watchtower. At least if Maelcum played Dylan, I'd have understood why BG chose that (like, why would you use one of the most recognizable pieces of Earth music. If it had been original, then we'd assume it was their music, and if it had been obscure, then those in the know would take it for a joke).

[Puddin Pointy-Toes]

Molly stalking off was indeed completely natural. I'm not sure the new pancreas and liver were even about drugs per se, but more about Case regaining full control over his life---including his metabolic functions. He was manipulated the whole time he was in Wintermute's employ; I suspect he may not have wanted the reminder, either. He may also not have trusted the longevity of the organs placed in him.

I did indeed like the little soppy bit of the ending---though I didn't much like Linda as a character. It was, however, a nice way to show the road not taken, especially as it was, in a very real sense, also taken. Very neat.

[Traveller]

Cool! I like your explanation for the organ replacement, J. Unfortunately I'd read a bit of background on Gibson, and he was pretty much into experimenting with drugs around the time he wrote it, so that's a bit of a downer for me, but oh, well.

Also, as I said, to me the Neuromancer bit sounds really rather impossible and quite fantastical, but it fits in nicely with the story emotionally speaking, and who said SF can't be fantastical too? After all, fuzzy-wuzzy aliens that look like bears or insects but are still anthropomorphic enough to converse with humans are pretty far-fetched and fantastical too, wouldn't you say? O|:)

Nice catch on the music, Derek.
Hmm, about Case knowing, does the copy of him know? To me it makes sense that the 'real' Case realised it eventually, and I suppose the copy would know because he probably was 'copied' while he was 'inside' Neuromancer's 'memory world'. ..and you're right, if the copy knows, then maybe he knows he's a copy, and maybe he's happy to have a part of himself there with Linda to keep her happy and company forevermore. Who knows who might not join them there as time goes by?

I thought it was interesting, also that when the two sides of the AI brain finally merged, that they became something different from human ken. But of course, in reality, one wouldn't need to build an AI to physically resemble a human brain.(With a right hemisphere and a left hemisphere, I mean. ...and why divide it into a left and right hemisphere, but not also a frontal lobe and cerebral cortex and... -well, an AI wouldn't need the 'lower' parts of a human brain in the first place, because it doesn't have a physical body to regulate. (Gee, our brains really are wonderful things...))
I can see how that bit is a bit of deus ex machina to make the story work, but that's about as far as it makes sense, because why, in reality, would one build your AI like that to start with?

[Puddin Pointy-Toes]

Perhaps right/left was just an analogy used so that Case could relate? One could just as easily say that Neuromancer and Wintermute were designed modularly and with different foci so as to speed development of both.

[Derek, Miéville fan-boi]

Yeah, that works better for me than a strict right/left concept.

[Traveller]

J. wrote: "Perhaps right/left was just an analogy used so that Case could relate? One could just as easily say that Neuromancer and Wintermute were designed modularly and with different foci so as to speed d..."

Hmm, or rather designed modularly and with different foci so that it couldn't become a fully functioning independent intelligence, because humans fear such a thing and what it can potentially do.