Distrust That Particular Flavor by William Gibson

1. This is a collection of essays by William Gibson. They range from personal essays, transcriptions of lectures, prefaces to books he didn’t write, reviews of books he didn’t create, etc. The breadth and scope of discussions, ideas, and topics impresses—I half expected this to be twenty-six essays on technology influencing culture. And though a few essays touch on that most Gibsonian reflection, in no way is this an Ayn Rand book restating the philosophical premise every five pages. Through the varied approaches, topics, and purposes of the essays, much more is said than, “Culture is technologically driven, mmkay?” I guess what I’m trying to say is that, being interested in Gibson, I love this book, but people who are less interested in thinking about the ways culture and technology interact might need an angle to pick this book up, might need to be led to which essay has something they’re interested in discussing. And the shotgun-scatter of topics presented here—a selection from over twenty years of his life—should provide a gateway for most. Whether it’s literary criticism with “The Road to Oceania”, early science fiction with “Time Machine Cuba”, ruminations on the creepiness of regularly listening to dead people in “Dead Man Sings”, discussions of Japan and Tokyo as cities, or an essay about the famous Vandevar Bush essay—there are a lot of inroads here and most of them lead to interesting places. For me, my interest in his mind was key, so the whole book was a must read. But for others I’ve met, a single essay will often get them to peruse the book for other essays whose topics interest them, instead of reading all of the essays within.

2. The structure uses self-criticism to contextualize some of the less apparent essays. For instance, a long essay in the middle rambles: partway through I grew aware of how many words were being used for a discussion that Gibson would typically use less for. After the essay, in the self-critical portion, Gibson admits that, stating,

Gosh, but could this article ever do with a haircut. It’s at least twice as long as it needs to be: dripping with wholly extraneous detail. I must have had really quite a lot of coffee. Sorry about that.

But then explains why he includes it anyways:

Although it does detail my mysteriously belated arrival in cyberspace, should anyone ever be interested, while forever proving how little I actually knew (or know) about any of that stuff. I had very little idea of what I was talking about, when I wrote this. This tends to be the case when I discuss newly emergent technologies, and is always the case when one makes generalizations about depths of specialist knowledge one is still scarcely aware of. I stood, at the time of writing this, unknowingly, on a precipice.

And that is one of the questions that often comes up about Gibson: why isn’t he more of a cyborg? Why isn’t he always online? This essay explains, probably so he can stop answering that question every day. But this self-criticism also allows him to illuminate certain time periods. For instance, one essay deals with the making of the film, Johnny Mnemonic, and the joy and craziness he felt through a portion of the process, while the self-criticism admits to his later disappointment.

3. And that’s a characteristic of this book: about two-thirds of the essays are fascinating from an outside perspective. The other third navel gazes hard. That’s not to say some interesting things don’t come out of the navel gazing—the reasons Gibson was initially interested in Tokyo help contextualize the influence technology has on culture. But it’s New Journalism. Gibson’s process echoes Tom Wolfe’s attempts to write about something he doesn’t know by living there for a couple of months, then going away to write about it.

4. Structurally, Gibson’s essays often follow a bit of a pattern where multiple things are being discussed and likened and connected, then a holistic thought is pulled out of them. For example, “The Road to Oceania” is a piece he writes for the NYT OpEd page on what would have been George Orwell’s 100th birthday. It’s structure is indicative of some of the other essays:

1. 1984 is about 1948
—panoptic CCTV surveillance could echo 1984, or could seem an almost organic growth of the streets
—but 1984 is clearly about broadcasting, especially on public mood during the war
—broadcasting media in service of totalitarianism: like in certain backwards nations today
2. But that’s not us today
—broadcasting is backwards already
—we approach informational transparency: lack of privacy is across the board, not hierarchical
3. Both the paradigm and the technology have shifted from Orwell’s day
—the globalization of information is key to how we didn’t end up under Ingsoc
—transparency is egalitarian: to governments, corporations, and citizens
—but the craziness that comes with the transparency and globalization is profound and linked [I think of all the YouTube conspiracy videos]
4. Through transparency, secrets are gone
—we cannot hide truths from the future [A crooked politician will eventually be found out by the world]
—but truth (singular) still relies upon interpretation [We all saw the twin towers fall, some believe it to be a demolition, others do not]
5. Orwell succeeded
—maybe he went there so we didn’t have to, but he succeeded in envisioning his dystopia
—his dystopia is rooted in the nightmare core reality of 1948 and he succeeded in transmitting that
—but dystopias and utopias are not about the future, they are not a map to there or to the present

As you can see, the structure is interconnected and weaving back and forth. It would have been simpler to split this up into three parts: literary criticism, different types of electronic communication, and globalization of information. But rather than writing the five paragraph paper with each of the body paragraphs discussing each of these three topics, they’re interwoven in a way that makes the whole apparent: of course these three topics cannot be talked about separately when the framing angle is 1984. I didn’t realize this before reading the article, but now I can’t imagine not discussing these three together in that frame. It’s a wonderful structure at engaging the reader and trusting they’re paying attention. These notes of mine are notes, where I’m trying to separate things in order to organize my thoughts into points about different aspects or topics: Gibson mixes them all up in order to have a wall of sound-esque flow of information.

5. In all, this book of essays is profound and seems obvious after reading, but revelatory while reading. Some navel gazing, but most are applicable to me today. I enjoyed reading these essays, though books of essays almost always require breaks between reading to let the mind mull over the thoughts presented. I’d read some of these essays before, but having them collected is a worthy addition to my library.