Jul 29
In today's post: John Updike's thoughts on rabbits. (Source: Larry D. Moore/Wikimedia Commons)
And it’s back. Everyone’s least favorite series of posts…Your Search Questions Answered. These are actual, unedited search terms that brought people to my blog. Visit Part 1 and Part 2 for a recap.
Now, on with it.
Jul 27
The creepy cover returns.
I really wanted to like this book.
That’s probably a bad way to start a review, right? I mean, it probably communicates, right away, that Neuromancer didn’t meet my expectations. I’m saying right away that that something about the novel excited me but, for some reason, Neuromancer fell short.
Is that what I’m saying?
Yep. That’s exactly what I’m saying.
If you’ve been following this blog, you know it takes a lot for me to negatively review a book. All the books on the Time list are excellent, well-reviewed novels, and I try to keep that in mind as I read each one. So that makes it difficult for me and, sometimes, unsettling to go against the flow, as I also did with Mrs. Dalloway.
But I’ll start with the positive aspects of Neuromancer.
Jul 26
Was Joseph Heller famous for the wrong book? (Source: MDCarchives/Wikimedia Commons)
Is an author’s best book always his most well-known book?
That’s the question John Self of The Guardian asked last week, and his opinions sparked quite a discussion in the comments of his article and on Twitter. For instance, he mentions Kurt Vonnegut, who is probably most famous for Slaughterhouse Five. But Self says Cat’s Cradle was his best work.
Self commented on several authors who have books on the Time list–including one of my current favorites, Catch 22. Speaking of…
Jul 25
What is it with Neuromancer and the creepy book covers?
After noticing a trend, I did an image search of the novel and came up with five book covers that may or may not give you the willies.
You tell me, which one is the creepiest? Here are the candidates:
Jul 22
So, small fact about me: Just below my left shoulder blade, I have a tattoo of a seagull in flight over a palm tree.
That's Daisy, but where's Gatsby? (Source:Zhippo.com)
Don’t believe me? You’re right. In fact, I don’t have any tats. I know…so lame.
I’m not opposed to tattoos, but if I ever got one, it would have to be of something really, really meaningful if it’s going to hang out on my skin for another 50 years. In other words, no barbed wire, skulls and crossbones, or lightning bolts—unless I wanted to memorialize surviving a lightning strike or something like that.
What about novels? Has a book ever changed my life to the point that I would get a tattoo of a character or something to do with the novel? Can’t say that’s happened, and I don’t think it ever will. But to each his own.
Jul 21
Bono: Neuromancer fan.
Hop in the back of a limo, drive the country, and get interviewed by Bono. All of that sound fun to you?
That’s the treatment Neuromancer author William Gibson received in the 2000 documentary, No Maps For These Territories. In a limo armed with digital cameras recording everything, Gibson talks about his career, his works, and his observations on modern society.
I love this quote from Gibson:
I’m not a didactic writer, I hope. There’s nothing I want less to be than someone couching a conscious message in prose fiction. But, I think one of the things that I see when I look back at my earlier work is a struggle to recognize and accept that the heart is the master and the head is the servant. And that is always the case… except when it isn’t the case we’re in deep, deep trouble. And we’re often in deep, deep trouble.
Jul 20
There is no shortage of creepy Neuromancer book covers.
Not really. But I think he had more to do with it than Al Gore.
If you read Neuromancer, one thing you really have to appreciate is William Gibson’s vision for the future.
Published in 1984, the book was prophetic in many ways. Most notably, the term “cyberspace,” which is like some type of global virtual reality network that you “jack” into. Crazy stuff happens there, too. Like, you can die.
But that’s not all. Computer viruses. Hackers. Artificial Intelligence. Neuromancer could almost be a book written this decade–smack in the middle of the digital age–instead of nearly 30 years ago. Gibson was a visionary.
Jul 19
Woolf paraphrased: James Joyce sucks.
Virginia Woolf had this to say about James Joyce: “[Ulysses is] the work of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples.”
Now that’s pretty funny and maybe a bit harsh, don’t ya think?
Authors have such egos. And when it comes to insulting their peers, their creativity shines.
FlavorWire recently listed the 30 harshest author insults in history. Here are a few of my favorites:
Jul 18
Science fiction, huh?
Well, this makes two straight novels that belong to genres I’ve never read. Book #21 was The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Now it’s time for Neuromancer, my first experience reading sci-fi.
This novel by William Gibson, published in 1984, is supposed to be almost prophetic–coining terms like “cyberspace.” I believe there’s a “microsoft” in there as well.
Interesting plot similarities to The Spy as well. The protagonist, Case, is a washed-up computer hacker who gets hired by a weird, dude named Armitage to do some serious hacking. Cryptic description, I know.
Some quick facts about Neuromancer:
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