Pynchon-Gibson Connection

[Hartwin Alfred Gebhardt]

J.D. P. Lafrance writes:

>    I was recently rereading William Gibson's excellent novel, Neuromance awhile
> ago and began to notice similarities between his work and Pynchon's. I did a
> little digging and found out that Pynchon has had a profound influence on
> Gibson's work. 
[...]
> Interesting stuff indeed.

TRP has probably influenced many a writer, not just from the sf 
genre.I also enjoyed Neuromancer, but found the two sequels boring and 
predictable - just more of the same, minus the novelty. (Maybe Gibson 
will have another idea someday?) I find it interesting that scenes in 
a video arcade remind Gibson of Pynchon's work, while Gibson's work 
in turn reminds you of Pynchon. Maybe a somewhat old-fashioned 
interpretation of this would go something like this: TRP's subject 
matter is primarily 'real' life and 'real' people, refracted through 
all kinds of interesting prisms - while Gibson's subject matter is 
primarily other people's work, which he gives an interesting 
re-working. Of course, that would make Pynchon a kind of 
modernist-masquerading-as-postmodernist, rather than a proper 
postmodernist (like Gibson) and some people might disagree with 
this....

hg
hag at iafrica.com