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.