Neuromancer

I'll be honest. I did not enjoy reading Neuromancer. And admittedly, the same can be said about Phillip K. Dick's Dr. Bloodmoney. For me, the cyberpunk genre reads with a rhythm that is a bit too staccato. The action happens too rapid fire for my taste. It feels like a comic book, only without the pictures. Much like the music itself. I prefer novels with language that reads much more lyrically. I prefer literature that sounds beautiful to my ear. Call me a belletrist. I'll accept the label.

Conceptually I see what William Gibson is conveying but in 2009, who hasn't? What I mean by this is that it's hard to be blown away by Gibson's admittedly groundbreaking ideas and holographic depictions because, quite frankly, I've seen it all by now. This is only true because of the fact that the images conjured through the cyberpunk genre translate so well into film. In my opinion, it's difficult to be impressed when reading (in not so flowing prose) what I've seen at the movies or on cable for what feels like the thousanth time already. Films that come to mind are The Matrix, Minority Report, and the Rosanna Arquette character from David Soderberg's Crash. Perhaps I've been visually jaded. But maybe a verbal conceptualization of aural spacial arrangements just doesn't come across as sexily as it probably did in the 80s when cyberpunk first burst onto the scene. I will add another post when I wake up in the morning. This is something I want to sleep on and wake up refreshed to. I'll have plenty more to say about the novel in particular.