Spook Country

Spook Country is William Gibson's (of Neuromancer fame) latest novel, a sequel (at least in the manner of Gibson's sequels) to his last, Pattern Recognition. PR is one of my favorite books; I consider it Gibson's second-best after Neuromancer. SC, while a good read and certainly better than much of today's popular fiction, doesn't quite stand up to its predecessor.

SC is a much more focused narrative than PR, and yet its plot proceeds much slower, a paradox resulting from its division of focus to three protagonists rather than PR's one (and a pattern following Gibson's previous trilogies). I miss Cayce Pollard's absurd random encounters (Voytek, Ngemi, and the ex-NSA man come to mind) that later allow the protagonist to influence the plot rather than participate as a mere puppet. (The characters of Heidi and Inchmale somewhat function in this role, although they are more similar to PR's Parkaboy, I think.) Here everyone seems on the ball from the beginning and never takes a break (though on reflection the locative art that begins the novel is something of an irrelevant smokescreen in terms of plot, however thematically relevant it may be), yet after the first fifty pages I realized almost nothing had happened, and the climax of the book in Vancouver seems to roll out interminably. The sheer absurdity and audacity of the plan, when it is finally revealed, however, perhaps makes up for it; it's almost too much for this novel, but Gibson manages to pull it off successfully, though I remain somewhat doubtful of the mechanism to allow Hollis Henry's participation in it (a necessary evil, perhaps).

The novel is also much more thematically direct, to the extent that it becomes political in many respects. I don't mind the political commentary (though perhaps only because I agree with it), but I can understand how some might be turned off by the references -- "back when America was run by grown-ups", "he said the American people had developed Stockholm syndrome towards their own government after 9/11", etc. They're delicious if you agree and to be honest if you don't you'll probably be disgusted by the eventual reveal, so better to stop now than get started and be dissatisfied later. Perhaps this focus on the political is simply an outgrowth of the novel's focus on the intelligence side of the perverted relationship between intelligence and advertising (where PR focused on the advertising), or perhaps its focus is a result of its political purpose.

In a way, it's simply an expansion of venue -- whereas PR concerned the effects of 9/11 on individuals, through the perspective of a single individual, SC concerns the effects of 9/11 on the larger world, through the perspective of more characters involved in much grander schemes. (This perhaps explains the shift from PR's present tense to SC's past as well -- the present tense helped convey Cacye's disorientation with the present, while in SC the characters have more or less adapted to this new world and, some of them, at least, are now making their own initiatives instead of simply responding to those of others.)

Gibson's prose is as poetic as ever, full of tasty turns of phrase even the caveman conservatives can appreciate. Occasionally his hunger for details outstrip his construction, however, and things simply become awkward, but this is rare. More common is Gibson's continued fascination with commas -- strewn everywhere, like a child's toys. I am certain that at least half of SC's commas could be removed without incident. Gibson's obsession with absurd names is here as well, something I find an amusing and playful not-quite-distraction from his works' dark subject matter. PR's Freudian wet dream of Hubertus Bigend returns, joined by the likes of Hollis, Odile, Tito, Milgrim, and others. Indeed, a character known as "Brown" appears instantly suspicious simply due to the mundaneness of his name.

There were times in SC when I was turning the pages as fast as I could, eager to unravel the plot. Having completed it, however, I feel much less moved than, say, when I first read PR, which unsettled me for some time afterwards. SC is good, but I think that in shifting towards the political -- however much I agree with the position -- Gibson loses the more personal experience that made PR and even Neuromancer and his other novels so affecting. SC's characters never move into the realm of stereotypical or allegorical, as with many political novels, but they nonetheless feel more distant and less real than Cayce or Case or even Bobby Newmark. They each have their share of personal baggage, adequately touched on, but that's all it seems to be -- touched on and gotten over with so that Gibson can proceed with what he really wants, his commentary. I wanted to know more about his characters, and less about the terrible world of today that I'm already quite familiar with.