Pynchon-Gibson Connection

[J.D. P. Lafrance]

Another similarity between Gibson and Pynchon is that both authors blend images
and figures from popular culture seamlessly with literature and technology to
illustrate how much the media, etc. permeate our daily lives. For example, there
is a particularly striking passage in Neuromancer when the protagonist, Case
visits another character's office...

"Neo-Aztec bookcases gathered dust against one wall of the room where Case
waited. A pair of bulbous Disney-styled table lamps perched awkwardly on a low
Kadinsky-look coffee table in scarlet-lacquered steel. A Dali clock hung on the
wall between the bookcases, its distorted face sagging to the bare concrete
floor. Its hands were holograms that altered to match the convolutions of the
face as they rotated, but it never told the correct time." (p.12)

Conversely, we see an even more obvious integration of popular culture in
Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow.

"It was one of Groucho Marx's vulgar friends. The sound is low, buzzing, and
guttural. Bette Davis freezes, tosses her head, flicks her cigarette. "What,"
she inquires, "is that?" Margaret Dumont smiles, throws out her chest, looks
down her nose. "Well it sounds," she replies, "like a kazoo." For all Slothrop
knows, it was a kazoo." (p.619)

The parallels are very interesting. Where Gibson appropriates images of the art
world and music (it is widely known that many of the "computer jargon" in his
first three books is actually punk and hippie slang), Pynchon refers to old
Hollywood films like King Kong or the Marx brothers...

bfn,
JDL