Will Our World Become Like What William Gibson Depicts in the Book?

In William Gibson’s story “All tomorrow’s parties”, he depicts a world where the virtual one is going to overwhelm and destroy the real one. His prediction about how cyberspace will influence people’s lives and change people’s attitudes is based on facts and seems that it could come true in the future. His book, “All tomorrow’s Parties” was written in 1999 when the internet was a new innovation when lots of records were done by hand and written down on paper. At that time, not many people would think that the internet could become a part of their life. However, only 8 years later, everything has been turned into digital formats, databases, and then was connected to the internet that people came to rely on in their daily lives. This change happened in the recent decade and overturned human behaviour which has been developed over thousands of years and it will keep changing our world in the future. This is very frightening because new technology invades our lives so rapidly. This made me wonder whether our world will become just like the world depicted in the book or will there be a day that I cannot distinguish the real from the hyper real. Nevertheless, the strong influence of cyberspace/ Internet on our lives cannot be denied.
To sum up, the ideas William Gibson generates influences a lot on our society today. His ideas are able to make people imagine what the future would be like and examine their actions today. Therefore, we might be able to adjust our behaviour so that we can prevent the dystopia William Gibson describes before it becomes a reality.

Encountered Cultures Through Vancouver Narratives: In Vancouver Short Stories and Innocent Traveler

As the course draws to an end the time has come to reflect on some of the works read and the different authors’ unique representations of their Vancouver. We’ve explored a collection of different cultures in Vancouver Short Stories, and the English to Canadian Culture of Ethel Wilson. These texts each showed a distinguishing narrative or writing style that represented a different culture or group of people.

Starting with the short stories, four main ones stood out being able to identify their authors’ culture and unique writing style. First “In Vancouver” by Martin Allerdale Grainger, represented a narrative of early English settlers and society, enticing them to come to where one could find rugged adventure, very different from their traditional English lifestyles. Next came the unique views and story telling of Pauline Johnson and Emily Car. Through their works one could illustrate the landscape, legends and people of the Native American culture and early Vancouver from their descriptions. The Asian- Canadian culture was represented by the works of Wayson Choy and Sky Lee, in which their characters struggled to, assimilate into Canadian society due to their cultural traditions and differences. Also usually the characters were divided in assimilation, the younger generations managed to slip into Canadian society with ease, while older people struggled to let go of their customs. Moving to Ethel Wilson, we got a view of the English- Canadian culture, somewhat different from that of Grainger. Wilson’s work was different because as the story progressed we saw how she slowly immersed herself within the Canadian culture, learning to love the city immensely. This differs from Grainger’s work because in his works only an advertisement was made not a story of his assimilation into the culture and Canadian society.

Destabilizing Effect

To tell you the truth, for the first 82 pages of All Tomorrows Parties By William Gibson, I did not think I could finish this book since I despised it so much. At first, nothing made sense to me, and as soon as I would get into the story, the chapter would end and yet another confusing setting and new character was introduced. But when I started to like it a bit more, I did feel that it made me a bit uncomfortable, by its destabilizing effect. This novel got me thinking of the future, and how if it will turn into anything like All Tomorrow's Parties, I'll be glad I won't be living through it. One thing that troubles me about life on this bridge, is their lack of police service. For example, when Silencio's friends, Raton and Playboy were murdered by the man, their bodies were not confiscated by the cops and no one really made a big deal out of it, as if it was normal. And when Carson got shot by the man in the black scarf who was actually following Rydell, no help came to either seek medical attention for Carson or to arrest the shooter. That is one aspect of the story that makes me feel really uncomfortable and unsafe about the bridge, just like the medieval ages, where anything could happen to anybody for any reason due to a lack of law. These all contribute to the fact that Chevette did not want to walk back to where she had parked the van and that Fontaine pointed a gun at both Chevette who knocked at his door and Silencio who sat innocently by his window. Other things that worry me is that Fontaine had two wives, Clarisse and Tourmaline. It is as if women have lost their rights and San Francisco has gone back in time and followed the paths of some modern developing countries. And the fact that all the beaches are so polluted that they have bio-hazard signs on them, makes me think about the way that we are living as a nation right now to actually cause that in the future. I know that this book was very different from other books that I have read, but I guess William Gibson did have a destabilizing effect on me and many other people too and in a way it is a good thing, since it causes doubt about the present.

Cyber-punk? What the…

From chick-lit to cyber-punk how do these people think up these genres? While reading through Gibson’s All Tomorrow’s Parties (ATP), I was trying to figure out what the term “cyber-punk” meant, without having to go on some weird sci-fi dude’s website. I really liked this book; it was a welcome change from Ethel Wilson’s Innocent Traveler, which still haunts my dreams night after night, you guys know what I’m talking about right? I thought the constant change from character to character was pretty cool, it made it so you just start to really get into one person’s story and then they cut you off until you read a few more chapters about other people and get back to them.

To the definition of cyber punk; the term cyber derives itself from cybernetics, which is the “study of human control functions and of mechanical and electronic systems designed to replace them”. The term punk just describes a hoodlum or rebellious young person. When combined the main concepts of these words form the ideas of mechanical (cyber) individualism/ anarchy (punk). The genre of cyber-punk places emphasis on the freedoms of the individuals in the story, combining “high tech with low life”. “Cyber-punk science fiction stories” a term coined by Gibson, are usually set in a combination between the low level side of technologically advanced societies and also taking place online in a cyber space blurring reality. The characters in these types of fictional stories are usually lone anti-heroes in which they are outcasts, criminals, and/or hackers, being manipulated to do the bidding of higher powers.

All Tomorrow's Parties: A Blog?

First off, I want so say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was such a relief to read something I could follow and understand without too much in depth analysis. I'm sure there is more to the story than what is on the surface, but the story itself was a definite page turner that kept me interested no matter who the story was focused on. I liked how Gibson left a lot of the book up for interpretation. The use of ambiguity is effective, but not overwhelming.

Okay so here's my case. Being that this course is titled "Fiction in the Blog Dimension", I have become suspicious about this book as a form of blog. First of all, there are a total of 73 chapters in this book. This is unheard of for a novel, at least in the novels that I've read. Some chapters aren't even a page long. Each deals with a specific incident for a specific character or group of characters. When I read chapter 42, entitled "Red Ghosts of European Time" for the second time after skimming through the book, I noticed that this chapter is relatively insignificant to the plot of the story. It almost seems like a reflection of the day's events and describing what Fontaine was doing before he went to bed, much like a diary. Most chapters have this sense when you read them. Then I thought, wait a minute, a blog is a form of a diary. So, couldn't this book be a form of a blog?

The more I think about it, the clearer it comes. This book is a collection of diaries of several characters, except they are not written in first person. They are all third person. The best analogy I can think of for something like this is a forum, which is a form of a blog in which several users interact from their own computers and with their own points of view. For the most part, they stay focused on one topic and one can follow each person’s interpretation relatively easily. This parallels Gibson’s book, where the “forum topic” is The Bridge, because everyone has an affiliation with it in some way.

So there you have it. I claim that William Gibson’s book is cleverly structured as a blog.

Similarities and Differences Between Blogs and Douglas Coupland’s Novel, “Hey Nostradamus !”

When I was reading “Hey Nostradamus!”, I had a feeling that although this is a published book, it has some features that are quiet similar to a blog. For example, this book is composed by four different people form four different points of view (just like four different writers can compose one blog). All of them present very personal feelings and internal perspectives. The language they use is relatively simple compared to other novels we read such as “Vancouver Short Stories” and “The Innocent Traveller”. In addition, although the four people (Cheryl, Jason, Heather, and Reg) do not directly communicate to each other, the way they speak their story (such as retelling the story and giving another explanation or expanding the story) does give them a chance to refer to other’s narratives viewpoint.

However, although there are many similarities, the book, “Hey Nostradamus!” is still a published book which, by definition, is very different form a simple blog (because people will rarely do revision when they are blogging). Therefore, what a book can present will be more significant than what a blog can present. For example, “Hey Nostradamus” deals with lots of elements such as love, relationships, religion and the massacre which includes deep and philosophical meaning that needs a lot of space to discuss. (This kind of ideas cannot easily be dealing with in one blog). The ideas and meaning tend to be more profound and last longer and are discussed by people over time. Besides, the time frame the author, Douglas Coupland, uses is not commonly used in blogs. For example, in Cheryl’s part, the author doesn’t focus on one fixed point (i.e. the present, when Cheryl faces the massacre) but jumps to the past and into the future in order to present Cheryl’s thinking. The author also makes some prediction in Cheryl’s part like Cheryl’s knows that her writing her on binder about “GOD IS NOWHERE” will be left behind and that people will wonder about it. These perspectives are very different from the perspectives in an ordinary blog because a blog is usually focused on the present (like a diary, and the computer system will record the date) and its topic is often referring to one thing.

As a result, although “Hey Nostradamus !” was presented in a very special format and it’s style reminds me of a blog (like Heather’s part which was presented in a diary format), it is still quite different from a blog.

Love vs. Religion

Love and religion often challenge each other in the novel, “ Hey Nostradamus!” by Douglas Coupland. Love consists of both lust and an individuals support and encouragement for another, and religion embraces our beliefs and how we react to our surroundings. These two situations can either bring people together and unite love and religion, or in some cases, tear people apart into isolation when the interests of love and religion conflict each other. There are several examples of this throughout the book. Reg certainly favors his religion over his son Jason. When his son longed for guidance and forgiveness for stealing the neighbor's raspberries, Reg turned his back on him and pretended as if he did not exist since the sin of theft was committed. He also accused Jason of murder when Jason had actually saved innocent people, claiming that Jason should have been killed instead of committing a sin himself, even if it saved his life. This demonstrates that Reg would rather have lost his young son's life rather than have him sin. Religion also created conflict between Jason, Cheryl and Youth Alive, leaving Youth Alive no choice but to accuse Jason and Cheryl of sinning when they were suspected of having premarital sex. Jason even took his fury out on Youth Alive! physically, by beating up Matt Gursky. Reg also ruined his relationship with Barb after stating that one of her twins had no soul since one of them was a clone of the other, due to his beliefs. These examples show how religion can create dispute and opposition in relationships when applied too strictly. On the other hand, Reg and Kent's relationships is a good example of how religion and can bring people in sync. Reg and Kent shared the same beliefs, so Reg respected him, even more so than his own wife, and was constantly defending him even in ridiculous situations, such as in sixth grade when Kent complained about Easter egg's indirectly hinting at lust. Also, Jason and Cheryl were united in marriage due to religion, and would have remained as one till death parted them apart.