“There is no future”

God Save the Queen, Sex Pistols

“[C]yberpunk transforms the negative space of the external environment into a positive zone. Still ruined, it is now converted into a site where interesting things happen and where humans flourish, as the throbbing vitality of Gibson’s Sprawl and Chiba City demonstrate…”¹ Cyberpunk is“… “at home with alienation, staged in a landscape of decay.” (at 261)

The beauty everywhere … Cyberpunk’s dystopian worlds offer the reader uniquely damaged visions of a near future, especially compelling because these strange approximate futures are so well lived in, and if not exactly comfortable to all, then beautiful, discordant and honest, like the world feels honest, familiar then to both the punk characters who skate through and the punk readers/watchers who immerse themselves in the construct.

The power of the degraded world of the Sprawl and Chiba City in Neuromancer flows from the readers’ essential familiarity with the environment. The setting is postmodern, post something. Yet unlike many traditional science fiction narratives, the cyberpunk’s world view is one of adaptation and survival and acceptance. This is a place we see as a logical extension of our society’s current trajectory. It may be that the smell of oil refineries on the Long Beach night air is just another particularly vivid indicator of how close we are to a future where there is no true sense of nature remaining.

I had a cyberpunk epiphany watching Ken Burns’ “National Parks” documentary last night on AmeriKan t.v. The narrative of the parks, the quotations from the ecstatic geniuses John Muir, Thoreau and Walden … They all spoke of an imperative connection to earth and god and man’s place among all of the above by touching nature, nature revealed. It seems that visiting Yellowstone or Yosemite might create a new vision of my place – and I can remember thinking as a child that Mt. Hood outside my home in Portland Oregon was as good a deity as any in the pantheon. This like the protagonist in Do Androids Dream musing about the love or desire for a real sheep, an animal, I can feel the parallels, but can I change?

Last night, I recognized my divorce from these musings. How long has it been since I’ve gone for a drive not fearing traffic snarl? Police? Yes, I believe nature could be useful to me, my children, and yet it all seems so remote to life here in the city, or the suburbs, or the society. In traffic, in apartments, in laundromats, our contemporary American cyberpunk culture thrives like a slightly watered down blade runner. For city dwellers, there is something to the cyberpunk setting that touches our world view.

This singular element makes cyberpunk “real” in the modern world: we will survive adapt and live, even after World War Terminus, we may love, we will desire, the most human trait of all. We will go forward, the devolution taking us all along for the ride.

The Setting of a cyberpunk story is one of the most important aspects of the genre. It is a unique place that draws the reader in. It does this by being in some aspects almost identical to the world that we live in; while also being different enough to fascinate the reader or viewer. This combination of familiarity and strangeness is what makes Cyberpunk settings successful. Sometimes the setting is the most appealing aspect of the whole story with the reader more interested in hearing more about it than what happens to the characters. Often there are two settings: the real world and cyberspace. These settings are often rather bleak, sometimes even post-apocalyptic. There is almost always some powerful authority, whether it be corporation, government, or even religion, that has an enormous influence of the lives of everyday people. By observing the settings of various cyberpunk stories we can see what similarities they have.

Initially in the film The Matrix, the setting is very familiar. It is the towering office buildings and slow moving traffic jams and degenerating apartment buildings of any of dozens of cities around the world. At first the rules of this setting seem to be the same as these of our world. However, as the story progresses we learn that nothing is as it seems. This first manifests in strange occurrences ranging from the coincidences of the white rabbit incident to the nightmare where the agents literally seal Neo’s lips and implant a bug into him. Later it is revealed that everything that Neo has ever known is really just a computer generated virtual reality. The real world is something altogether foreign to what we are accustomed to. It is cold and dark and barren. The only place where humans survive is deep under the ground. The surface is the domain of viscous robots controlled by cold and cunning computer intelligences. The virtual reality setting of the Matrix can be viewed as a responsive character in the story as there are many intelligences that control it. Neo can control parts of it as well.

The setting of Neuromancer is less familiar at first than that of The Matrix. However, it too is similar enough to our current world that we can readily identify with the world that the characters are interacting with. The story starts in a smoky bar with an ugly and nosy barkeeper. A setting that occurs thousands of time in real life, I am sure. There are cheap hotels and busy streets and hectic markets. All of these settings have been influenced by the course of technology but they are recognizably similar to the settings that we are familiar with in our everyday life. It doesn’t matter that all the trains are maglev in this story, they still shake the apartments of those unfortunate enough to live too close to the tracks.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep my not be considered Cyberpunk by some people but the setting is very Cyberpunk. It takes place on Earth after a devastating World War. The large apartment buildings of the cities are still there, but they are largely abandoned. Perhaps the most similar aspect of this story’s setting is that of the media. In the story the TV and radio media has an absolutely enormous influence on people. Every single person knows who Buster Friendly and his guests are. Just as most people are familiar with the media celebrities of our world. These peoples’ opinions carry extra weight because they are so widely known and have access to such ubiquitous methods of mass communication. The setting even has what may be considered an early prototype of cyberspace, with access to it being obtained though the use of empathy boxes. If one uses one of these devices they are instead into another reality entirely, just like the Cyberspace of Neuromancer or the Matrix in The Matrix.

Cyberpunk settings are gritty, dirty and in a strange way they are realistic. They are not hard to envision as a possible future. They are, I think, essentially today’s society and culture as the author thinks it might be if we have access to tomorrow’s technology and science. It acknowledges that science and technology can be used for both good and ill purposes and that they can be used by both oppressors and freedom-fighters alike. Take the world as it is today, then add not-too-distant-future tech and science to it, perhaps sprinkle in a disaster or apocalypse. Now you have a Cyberpunk setting.

“Here be dragons” is a phrase used to denote dangerous or unexplored territories, in imitation of the medieval practice of putting sea serpents and other mythological creatures in blank areas of maps. (Wikipedia, Here be dragons)

As a reaction to the Utopian science fiction (frequently set into a distant glorious future), cyberpunk projected all our fears into the uncharted territory of the very near future.

What separates us from the near dark future is a kind of unspecified, yet imminent apocalypse. Hence, most of the cyberpunk scenes are post-apocalyptic ones, where the apocalypse is a given, part of a forgotten history:

“…no one today remembered why the war had come about or who, if anyone, had won.” — Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Chapter 2)

This lack of the time dimension, from disinterest in history to a “carpe diem” attitude towards life is the image of a chronic existential nihilism.

Actually various forms of nihilism are present in the cyberpunk settings: from the aforementioned existential nihilism, underlined by the timeless Mercer’s cycle in ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,’ to the metaphysical nihilism in The Matrix:

Boy: “Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead… only try to realize the truth.”
Neo: “What truth?”
Boy: “There is no spoon.”

Moreover, The Matrix features Jean Baudrillard’s “Simulacra and Simulation” book, as a hollowed book from the chapter “On Nihilism,” beautifully underlying Baudrillard’s message. Later in the movie, Morpheus shows Neo “the desert of the real,” a clear reference to Baudrillard’s work (see first page here).

The “carpe diem” behaviour fuels the consumerism, which becomes extreme and devalues everything: Penfield mood organ devalues genuine feelings, plastic surgery devalues beauty, simstim edited reality replaces reality. Everything is available in too many ephemeral options, anchoring everyone in a perpetual present.

“…by the 1990, the variety of (android) subtypes passed all understanding, in the manner of American automobiles of the 1960s.” — Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

The lack of genuine items is underlined by the concept of ‘cheap copies of replicas.’ This and the continuous re-purposed antique objects illustrate almost a coprophagous society, feeding on its own detritus.

Paradoxically, these settings makes you experience a claustrophobic feeling in an open space, this is achieved in Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy through the social and urban detritus; the ‘dessert of the real’ in The Matrix.

In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep the kipple, the radioactive fallout and the pressure to emigrate from Earth creates the claustrophobic environment on a depopulated Earth; with overlapping glimpses of agoraphobia triggered by the sound the empty buildings creates.

“And for a minute I shut off the (TV) sound. And I heard the building, this building. I heard the—” She gestured. “Empty apartments,” Rick said. — Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

It is the same blending between extremes characteristic to cyberpunk, here blurring the physical space between claustro- and agoraphobia:

Silence. It flashed from the woodwork and the walls … From the useless pole lamp in the living room it oozed out … It managed in fact to emerge from every object within his range of vision, as if it — the silence meant to supplant all things tangible. Hence it assailed not only his ears but his eyes; as he stood by the inert TV set he experienced the silence as visible and, in its own way, alive. Alive!
— Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

This is the uncharted territory to which we know we’re heading to, the scariest future of all possible futures: the future without a future.

Rather than write a long narrative this time, I considered the nature of this weeks assignment which I have interpreted as: to explore and discuss the role that setting and environment play in the stories and how these elements contribute to the tone of the stories, and decided to do something slightly different. To me, Setting and Environment are very much about imagery, so what I’ve decided to do is to share my thoughts using images (apologies in advance if this completely fails ).

What I have done is to create a small gallery on flickr into which I have added images that evoke different elements, themes and aspects that seem to recur in cyberpunk stories. I’ve added some notes with each of the images. I had hoped to embed the gallery directly into this blog but sadly I don’t seem to be able to do that – at least I haven’t figured out how to do that.

You can access the gallery here.

Los Angeles November 2019, a decaying city, the negative of its once bright and sunny side, set in a post war apocalyptic future stands for the home for our notorious Cyberpunk anti-heroes who roam the dirty streets in the shadows of the powerful and rich. Cyberpunk would not only be half as exciting if the characters didn’t life in such a crazy morbid place. The setting is significant for the genre or else people would not say, ” Oh! Neuromancer and the Matrix are definitely Cyberpunk. The atmosphere is permeated with a sense of impending doom.” But which images and elements give the recipient this sense of foreboding? And what kind of influence to they have on the narrative? I will discuss these questions by examining the setting of Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner” of 1982 in detail. Firstly I will name and describe the elements used for a typical Cyberpunk setting, and secondly I will display which influence they have on the narrative.

The first shot in “Blade Runner” shows Los Angeles at night  illuminated by its great many lights and occurring erupting fire pillars. The absence of moonlight or stars suggests a darker mood and underlines the infernal touch the fires of the factories give to the city. At first glance, it is obvious that the inhabitants don’t make a difference between night and day. The lights are on around the clock exhibiting people from numerous ethnic groups, colors and shapes. The streets are full at all times and flooded with gleaming stroboscopic lights, isolating the individual scamping with his perception. Huge omnipresent advertisement boards dominate the view and display the presence of companies existing in every aspect of life. Politicians and parties are extinct in a world where corporations wield the power to suppress everything and everyone. Those with power always have a “place in the sun” like the “Tyrell” corporation in their giant golden pyramids giving the impression of being the height of human civilization. The people who live literally at the bottom of the city have to live with Scott’s “endless” rain, unshielded in the dark alleys and slums of the city. The dark and sinister mood permeats the whole movie by using a film method named “low-key-style” to create and condense shadows at odd spaces. Even the characters appear latent and hidden in shadow as if being part of the setting.

These images give the Cyberpunk genre the essential detail for the world in which cyberpunks move, breathe and live. Some places in the setting are necessary for the course of conflict in a story. It is already known that many films novels have a detective flair or “film noir” atmosphere, because of the setting. Alleys, offices, slums and factory buildings give the characters substance in a story. But so is it the other way around. The setting cannot stand alone without its characters, because it is a medium which needs mass or the characters in this case in order to act and interact. The recipient is able to visualize these interactions, because he or she can imagine how it would feel to move in this kind city. It is necessary to say that the setting delivers us an impression how the protagonist perceives his surroundings. As a recipient, we have the chance to understand the insight of a cyberpunk more clearly when we understand in what kind of world the anti-hero developed in.

In cyberpunk novels and film, setting is often as much a character as the human and non-human characters. The dystopian futures are often nightmarish visions of imagined post-capitalist societies where large multinational corporations have more power than national governments. Grey skies and polluted air permeate Gibson’s novels; the famous opening line of Neuromancer describes a sky that is “a color of television, tuned to a dead channel”. Blade Runner and The Matrix both illustrate similar realities, and Snowcrash imagines a world where governance has been ceded to corporations and entrepreneurs.

This week’s discussion will focus on the idea of setting in cyberpunk novels and film. What is the effect of the crowded cityscapes, rain, eternal dusk or nighttime, neon signs, faceless masses and speeding rapid transit on the narrative? How do these elements contribute to the tone of the novels, and could they be said to be responsive characters in their own right? Write a 1-2 page paper on the settings of the cyberpunk novels and films in the curriculum and explore the questions raised above.

Please upload your piece as a blog post by Monday 28th of September, in preparation for the discussion on Wednesday 30th September. Please tag your post with the tags “Week 3″ and “scenery”, as well as any other tags you would like to add.

Image: Night City on Flickr,  by LordFerguson, CC BY-SA 2.0

Technically an anti-hero lacks the attributes of the hero, of the “knight in the shining armour” type. I believe that one particular aspect of not being a (classical) hero is the use deception, living double lives, etc.

In The Matrix, Neo lives a double life: he works a dull cubicle job by day, helps his landlady take out the garbage; by night he’s involved in illegal information trade. He is trapped into this double life and he looks for an exit: an answer and a saviour (Morpheus).

Neo is not the hero type, he chickens when Morpheus asks him to climb to the building’s roof to escape custody. Later he undergoes extensive training, to “free his mind,” to become functional.

In Neuromancer, Case was a hacker, but he was damaged, denied cyberspace and trapped into his body. That’s why his suicidal life in the Night City is like not his own, he works “meat” jobs; I could say that he’s trapped into a permanent dull day job. He is offered an exit and a fix for his neural damage to become functional.

“For Case, who had lived in the bodiless exultation of cyberspace, it was the Fall. … The body was meat. Case fell into a prison of his own flesh.”

In both cases they are offered freedom, an escape from a prison. It is interesting to observe that while for Neo the prison is the Matrix, and for Case the prison is his own body; what is actually imprisoned is their minds.

MORPHEUS “The Matrix … is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.”
NEO “What truth?”
MORPHEUS “That you are … kept inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind.”

Both are in this aspect freedom fighters, rebels by definition, portrayed as such by the systems they fight, that those systems underline their negative side, changing the audience’s perception on themselves.

I think that a characteristic of most anti-heros is their apparent shift from anti-hero to hero; I believe that this is actually the shift of the audience, which switches sides. Moreover, I believe that this switching makes big part of the enjoyment of reading or watching cyberpunk.

It is commonly known that heroes differ from ordinary people, because of their righteous sense of moral to stand up against evil, to use their special abilities to help those in need and their development from “zero” to “hero”. But what is with the protagonists in Cyberpunk stories? How does he or she become a hero or more precisely an anti-hero? Being often an anti-hero doesn’t categorize him or her as good or evil or black and white. The borders are grayish and leave room to speculate out of “what” the typical cyberpunk is made of. In order to establish a conclusion I will compare and contrast the personalities and character developments of  “Neuromancer”‘s Case and “The Matrix”‘ Neo. I will proceed with extracting their similarities in these aspects and show if there is an archetype cyberpunk who repeatedly appears in most movies and novels.

Henry Dorsett Case was once a renown hacker in the underground world of Chiba City who provided his employers with stolen information and data of corporations. After trying to steal from his last employer and getting caught was he punished for his theft by poisoning his nervous- system with a mycotoxin which prevents him to use his “brain- computer interface” and diving into the global computer network of cyberspace. Unsuccessful in finding a cure, Case has to give up his former profession and vegetates on the fringe of the living, highly addicted to drugs, unemployed and suicidal.  He is saved by the offer of an ex- military soldier named Armitage and his mercenary fighter Molly Millions who offers him a cure in exchange for his services as “console cowboy”. Case accepts this deal and undergoes the surgery to his rehabilitation. He soon learns that sacs of the same poison which crippled him in the first place have been positioned in his blood vessels to poison him slowly anew. Case doesn’t have a choice than to work with Armitage who promised to let the sacs be removed as soon as Case is done with his work. His nihilistic attitude at the beginning  accounts for the self-destructive nature of punks as we know them. His disrespect for authorities confirms his actions towards the corporations or his last employer. He does not undergo a great personality change as we see it with other classical heroes. Throughout the book Case is self- centered, because he only tries to help himself. Mostly all of his actions are driven by the one desire to free himself from dependency. At first he is dependent on Armitage and then he is dependent on Wintermute. The AI who used Armitage to get the aids to merge with his other AI half Neuromancer.

Thomas A. Anderson his a computer specialist who leads a double life as a computer programmer in a respectable firm and as a hacker under the name of Neo who steals kinds of important data and sells them. At one evening he wakes up at his computer and finds a mysterious message which tells him to follow the “white rabbit” to get answers to his questions. His path leads him to Trinity his first contact to Morpheus crew, to his first encounter with the “bad guy” Agent Smith and at last to Morpheus. Morpheus gives Neo, as he is now referred to, the choice to choose the red pill (finding out what the Matrix is) and the blue pill (forgetting the incident and continue his usual life). Neo chooses the red pill thus leaves the Matrix and undergoes a kind of “rebirth” of his true body. Shortly after, he gets saved by Morpheus’ crew and gets medicated to rehabilitate  his neglected body. Neo recovers and begins his training with his new mentor. Morpheus explains Neo that the reason why he felt that the world was “wrong” comes from the fact that the reality he lived in is not real. Machines won against humans in the last great war and subdued them to slavery in order to use them as energy source. Neo denies this truth at first, but then realizes that de does not have the choice to turn his back from it. His training resumes and Morpheus tells him about the prophecy of the “Chosen One” by the oracle. He believes that Neo is will become this destined man and free all humans out of their slavery. Although Neo has doubts his course of actions lead him to the path of becoming the “One” and rescuing Morpheus from the treachery of his crew member Cypher. Neo is driven by his unanswered questions and the discovery of truth. The beginning of the movie shows that Neo’s life itself was a lie. He was a lonesome man who lived two lives to a shallow extent and always looked for a reason why he felt the world was “off”. The discovery of the ultimate truth of the Matrix changes Neo in many ways. He opens up to people, finds strength and courage where there was not any and cares for the well being of others.

To cyberpunks information seems to be especially essential for their personal motivations and the development of their character in the storyline. Both Case and Neo deal with data and information in their “underground” businesses. As hackers they share the attitude not to follow the rules society gives them and feel confident that no one can trace them and harm them. But as soon as the first mistake happens do both have to deal with the consequences. Case gets caught stealing from his employer and Neo gets caught by the Agents. Sooner or later they come to the one point where they are not in the position to make an important choice which concern their lives. These new information force Case  to work for Armitage and disobey him and Neo to forget his ordinary life, because of taking the life-altering red pill. Of course do Case and Neo differ from each other greatly when looking at their personal traits and further motivation. On the one hand does Case not become an altruistic character like Neo at the end and only tries to solve his own problems. Neo on the one hand is interested in the Matrix for his own benefit, but changes as he sympathizes with Trinity and Morpheus, excepts his fate as the “One” and helps to rescue mankind from the reign of machines for the benefit of others.

I find it difficult to say if there is an archetype classical cyberpunk which applies to the characters like Neo and Case. There are specific character traits which makes a character fit into a Cyberpunk story, but not ultimately an hundred pro cent cyberpunk. It would be foolish to say that there is something like a pure cyberpunk character, because the example of Case and Neo shows that two characters of Cyberpunk don’t have to be very similar in order to be cyberpunks. The one is just a little more “punk” and the other is a little more “cyber”.

The genre of Cyberpunk got the second part of its name for a good reason. The protagonists of Cyberpunk stories are worthy of the title. These characters have little respect for the rules and don’t always have very heroic motivations. Like anti-heroes from other stories they my not be out to save the world or serve the good of the people. Often they are just out for them selves. Just as frequently they are being manipulated and don’t really have a choice in their actions. These characters have a very good understanding of the system that they live in. They know what corners they can cut and what corners they can’t. Although they can manipulate the system to extent, they rarely believe they can take it down. They feel that they trapped just like everyone else, even if they have a bit more maneuvering room than the “sheep.” If the main character does eventually take down the system they rarely think they can at the beginning of the story. In this story I will analyze the classic Cyberpunk characters Neo (from the Matrix) and Case (from the Sprawl Trilogy).

At the beginning of the Matrix Neo is a jaded computer hacker with an “It’s only illegal if you get caught” mentality. We can see this in his encounter with Troy, his main concern is not breaking the law but in making sure that if Troy get caught it doesn’t trace back to him. Neo definitely feels trapped by the system, even before he finds out what the Matrix is, as evidenced by the scene with Neo’s boss at the cubical office. Even after he is extracted by the Matrix he feels trapped, not truly believing he is the One until the end of the film. Even though out the rest of the trilogy he feels helpless, not really understanding what he is supposed to be doing. Furthermore, he doesn’t really have a choice in his actions. This is expressed by his conversation with the Oracle in which he says he doesn’t like the idea of fate because he doesn’t like the idea of not being in control of his life. Yet he is fated to be the One.

Case is not exactly what you would call a wholesome individual. In fact his character is similar to that of a minor villein in other stories. He is a drug addict and dealer in illegal substances and goods. He admits to addicting a young woman to drugs and killing two people in his dealing in the black market. In the beginning he just wants to find someway to access cyberspace again. Later he just wants to prevent the toxin sacks in his veins from dissolving. His motivations are almost completely self serving. It is pretty obvious from the beginning of the story that Case doesn’t really like himself.

In my humble opinion, the character portraits that Cyberpunk paints are absolutely engrossing. They aren’t some white knight that rides to the rescue of some damsel in distress. They are gritty character with lots of street sense and questionable motivations. Perhaps the reason people like these characters is some desire to experience the life of someone in the underworld. Perhaps we identify with the feeling of helplessness that many of these characters feel. Whatever the reason, its characters are one of Cyberpunks strongest attractions.

Week Two, Assignment Two – P2PU – Neuromancer, Case & The Matrix Brian Williams brian.williams@gmail.com

“It was a vast thing, beyond knowing, a sea of information coded in spiral and pheromone, infinite intricacy that only the body, in its strong blind way, could ever read.” (Gibson, at 239)

Imagine a book that presages (or at least “influences” or “imagines”) something as stupendous as the World Wide Web, and virtual reality,1 and your name isn’t Tim Berners-Lee! That’s what William Gibson does in Neuromancer. And, as if that weren’t enough, Gibson’s novel gives us the Sprawl, a slice of familiar world where every last space between Metropolitan Statistical Areas is filled up, built out, in a single continuous city/plague that obviously mirrors our species’ relentless growth and destruction of nature. Beyond the spectacle of Neuromancer’s prophetic core, we have the characters and the story and the story’s influenced by the original story, ad infinitum. This is an important book! In our digital present, imagining Gibson typing without benefit of computer or word processor is quite fantastic!2

One of the stories inspired by Neuromancer is a story told by film: The Matrix. We observe the protagonist Neo’s metamorphosis from a troubled, perhaps brilliant computer software engineer and hacker, a “person” entirely encapsulated within the Matrix’ simulacrum, a false world that is so real as to be The World, into a fully aware soldier in the insurgency against the Machines.

Neo chooses knowledge: that choice makes all the difference3 – a single red pill and down the rabbit hole and out through a birth sequence that is a film hybrid of Elephant Man, Steamboy, and Eraserhead. As a knowing being, tearing at the fabric of the late 20th Century virtual reality that enables the enslavement of his own species for Machine dominance, Neo is confronted with a traditional riddle. Is he or is he not The One prophesized by the Oracle, to save the human species from this relentless and total enslavement?

The answer is hardly in doubt because it’s a movie starring Keanu Reeves, of course, but the story line does suggest a traditionally heroic (rather than anti-heroic) naval gazing arc whereby Neo cannot know whether he is or is not The One. He can only move forward and presumably keep faith with his cohort against the machines. Ultimately he will save Morpheus, rise from the dead and destroy the Machine agents … To be continued ()

Is there an anti-hero in the Matrix film? I know the insurgent who turns on his team is repulsive, but he’s hardly anti-heroic. Trinity is a feminist hero — The Oracle and Morpheus and Neo all trend toward the traditional hero myth… The Machine agents are simply pure, unadulterated evil.

In contrast to Neo’s heroic trajectory, Case is the sin quo non of anti-heroes. He spends much of his life screwing people over. Among Case’s favorite pastimes: risking his life in a suicidal rush to rip off employers and customers alike in Chiba City, Japan, killing them, drinking with them, drugging constantly, bedding lovers in “coffins”… [It’s a Wonderful Life!] … Yet he has the strength, intelligence and exceptional skills to rise above base criminality. He is the quintessential beautiful loser, a hunger artist (“meat”) chained to a sequence of events, determinism collapsed into the infinite, invisible fold of the inner-space of cyberspace.

The protagonist’s alienation is complete as he wanders into and out from the haze of an infinite cyberspace, “fueled by self-loathing.” Yet there is the confounding complexity of Case that makes him constantly beautiful. As Gibson observes,

“For me, … the key to Case’s personality is the estrangement from his body, the meat, which it seems to me he does overcome… There’s a long paragraph there where he accepts the meet as being this infinite and complex thing. In some ways, he’s more human after that.” (Rucker, Rudy, et al. Mondo 2000: The User’s Guide to the New Edge. New York: Harber Collins, 1992, at 170). And that passage, at 239, gives Case the largest measure of his vulnerable humanness, critical to the heroic representation: “It was a vast thing, beyond knowing, a sea of information coded in spiral and pheromone, infinite intricacy that only the body, in its strong blind way, could ever read.”

Transcendence for some one or some thing may be achieved but it comes if at all only through an alliance with the AI Wintermute and Neuromancer. For the antihero Case, a “sentimental futurism” pervades, representative of Gibson’s perceived ambivalence toward machine and human relationships (Csicsery-Ronay, Jr. at 231). The antihero Case affirms violence, loses love, and inevitably Molly: “I don’t need you,’ he said.”

And finally there is the existential tuning when Case meets the Wintermute / Neuromancer AI presence, FINN, drinking all the while (of course), expressing his essential human desolation …”

CASE: “So what are you.” He drank from the flask, feeling nothing. FINN: “I’m the matrix, Case.”  Case laughed. “Where’s that get you?”  FINN: Nowhere. Everywhere. I’m the sum total of the works, the whole show.”  CASE: “So what’s the score? How are things different? You running the world now? You God?”  FINN: “Things aren’t different. Things are things.”

And, “He never sees Molly again.”

There is no happy ending. Simply an oblique reference to Case’s endless seeking, movement (the life force), speed (cyberspace), and a hallucination (drugs), the feeling of voyeurism as we watch humans spiraling away from those things we most associate with humanness.  Case’s tragedy unfolding as he watches tragedy become “real” — the artful, lovely writing painting the heroic courage requisite to live and to truly see:

“He’d watched her personality fragment, calving like an iceberg, splinters drifting away, and finally he’d seen the raw need, the hungry armature of addiction.” (Gibson, at 8).

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1Csicsery-Ronay, Istvan, Jr. “The Sentimental Futurist: Cybernetics and Art in William Gibson’s Neuromancer.  Critique (Spring 1992) at 221.

2Gibson, William. “The Neurotyper: William Gibson Blog.” Post Friday, Oct. 16, 2006. “ available at http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2006_10_01_archive.asp

3“I took the one less traveled by.” Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken.” Mountain Interval. 1920. Available at http://www.bartleby.com/119/1.html.