The Legend: Part 2

(This posting is the second of two on William Gibson's Agency book tour appearance at the Stanley Industrial Alliance Theatre, where he is interviewed by Marsha Lederman, the Globe & Mail's Western Art Correspondent - Part One can be read here.)

Marsha Lederman refers to Gibson's traumatic childhood - his father died when he was six, and his mother when he was 18 - and observes that, "Your protagonists sometimes have that feeling of being an orphan, and being cared for by a community, such as the character of Verity in Agency.  Am I reading too much into that?"

Gibson shrugs in response.

"Well, probably – I’m not very conscious… of it.

When I was studying comparative literary critical methodology, which I actually did, I ran across something that was very popular at that time with academics, I don’t know if it still is.

It’s an idea called the Interpretive Fallacy...

The interpretive fallacy said, that the fallacy was... that the author of the book had any more idea of what it was really about than anyone else reading it. And I got that. I think, I kind of see how that would work.  I think that I still apply that… to my own work.

I’ve got it - E. M Forster, Aspects of the Novel*. (The audience applauds.)

We’re now talking about something else that Forster addresses in Aspects of the Novel.

He says that the exact extent to which a novel is didactic is the exact extent – he doesn’t put it this way – to which it SUCKS."

As the audience laughs, he goes on to explain that he has no desire to be didactic in his writing.

"It’s not that I want to teach people things, I want to cause people to ask themselves questions.  And I don’t even know what those questions will be. That’s my idea of what a good book… does - to cause people to wonder… and then come to their own conclusions."

Lederman responds by noting that Agency may not be didactic but that he does have a platform, citing the Shard-shaped climate change towers in future London that "minimize the carbon emissions, or…I don’t know how it works."

Gibson interrupts her and says with a smile: "The reason you don’t know is that I don’t know how it works either. That’s a deliberately flagrant example of soft science fiction hand waving. Climate change (waves hand) – we fixed it."

 

He then takes a look at the similarly casual post-apocalyptic future he's created and the degree to which is it only sketched out.  Almost all of the action takes place within central London, there are references to characters from Toronto and New York, as well as a vague curiousity on the part of the characters regarding China (which has apparently survived by sealing itself off from the rest of the world), but that's the extent of information about the world.

A propos of nothing, he then says, "I don’t know…I’ve been talking about this book for SO LONG."

To which she responds, "Should I ask about Neuromancer**?  You’ve only been talking about that for ...35 years?

He replies that it's somewhat refreshing for him to discuss Neuromancer at this point.  Interestingly, based on his earlier comments about not being aware of the influence of parental death on his work, he focuses on the fact that none of the characters in Neuromancer have parents:

"I was incredibly young when I wrote it – I wasn’t that young chronologically, I should say I was incredibly immature when I wrote it – so I look at it now and it’s such a completely adolescent thing.  No one in Neuromancer has parents. None of them have parents, or ever had any parents, they’re these splendid... feral creatures!

One of the things which has changed over the course of my writing is that now they have parents. Verity’s mother is still alive, and she has to call her, and she doesn’t get along with her stepfather... there are families that aren’t families of evil technocratic billionaires and whatnot.  Those are the only families in Neuromancer… and I don’t think I knew that I was doing that, you know.

It’s probably quite appealing for some readers."

Lederman tells us that as she was getting ready for the evening, her 11 year old was playing Fortnite, and shouted out, "Welcome to the Agency," which obviously has no link to Gibson's book, but which seems to speak to the interconnectedness of popular culture.  She then asks, "Do you game at all?"

Gibson points out that although he himself wasn't (and isn't) a gamer, Neuromancer's virtual interaction with the digital environment had its roots in the gaming environment of the 1980s:

"The whole cyberspace thing in my early fiction came from walking by really early gaming arcades on Granville Street and seeing the posture of the kids who were playing those games like how physically into it they were and it seemed to me that if they could have reached through the screen and grabbed those giant wonky pixels and moved them around that would have given them what they wanted.  And that was where the cyberspace concept came from, from looking into very primitive game arcades.

That sort of does continue for me as a technique – I was able to do that because I wasn’t playing those games."

 He then admits to being a late adopter because of this approach.

"So when new things emerge, I’m usually reluctant to jump right into new technologies and new forms of mass media as they emerge but only because I want to watch other people being affected by it first – because it gives me some really valuable sort of material that I wouldn’t gain if I were a constant participant.

It’s like you can’t be the anthropologist of your own culture. You have to be outside … you have to be from, maybe a previous culture, it really doesn’t matter. 

But … I think that’s worked for me all along … I was very slow to get on the internet and all.  I used to say, my friends were on bulletin boards and things, and they’d say, You should do this, and I’d say, I’ll do it when dogs and children can do it

And then the world wide web was invented and dogs and children can do it!

So I had no choice.

But once I was IN it, I was OF it, and I could no longer had that extra perspective, I guess."

Lederman goes on to ask about virtual reality and whether or not Gibson has had any VR experiences, to which he replies that he's had "a TON of VR experiences... because when people make it, they like to catch me if I’m anywhere where they are, and say 'Put this thing on!' and I’d have this experience."

However, he also notes that, as far as he's concerned, VR has failed, and that the real success has been the flat screen gaming experience, which is immersive for users without the need for any kind of headmount.

Following the virtual reality exchange, there's a question period, after which we have the option of lining up for autographs, something that I don't normally do out of consideration for other people who may be with me.  However, in this case I'm on my own, so I decide to get in line. 

Pulp Fiction, one of Vancouver's better book stores, is conveniently selling Gibson's books in the lobby.  I buy a copy of Agency - graciously discounted by 20% - and join the queue.

As I stand there casually leafing through my newly purchased hardcover, a helpful theatre employee comes by with a supply of Post-it™ notes, asking people if they just want a signature or if they would like to have it personalized. I have no plans to flog the book on eBay™as an autographed Gibson, so I cheerfully request that it be personalized for Sid, which she writes on a sticky and adds to the flyleaf of my copy.

The line moves along fairly rapidly - Disneyland was worse - and it's only about 25 minutes before I arrive at the autograph table and Mr. Gibson himself.  I make the deadpan observation that the woman handing out the Post-its had reassured me that the signing wasn't a tipping situation, and that I just want to confirm that, which gets a bit of a chuckle from everyone except Gibson.

As he signs my book, I ask if I can take a picture, and he pauses and poses.  Hoping to get a reaction, I ask him to make love to the camera, but his faint Mona Lisa half-smile does not change by a hair.  I'm not completely off my game, other people smile, but apparently it takes a bit more than that to make a legend laugh.***

- Sid

* In the first half of the interview, Mr. Gibson was unable to summon up this author's name in the heat of the moment, so when it came back to him, we gave him a round of appreciative and sympathetic applause.

** For the non-fans in the audience, Neuromancer was Gibson's brilliant breakout novel from 1984.  That being said, if there are non-fans reading this, thank you.

*** And I don't even get a good shot, it's just too dim, something that they really should take into account for an autograph setup.

The Legend: Part 1

There's an unexpected optical illusion when you see the cover of William Gibson's new novel Agency from a distance.

Held in your hands, the book looks normal, but the combination of the sharp text and the blurred face just looks wrong from 40 or 50 feet away - the distance between me and the stage at the Stanley Industrial Alliance Theatre, where Gibson is about to discuss Agency, his latest novel, with Marsha Lederman, the Western Arts Correspondent for The Globe and Mail.

I repeatedly adjust my glasses in an attempt to bring the cover photo into focus, until I finally realize what the problem is and force myself to stop.

To the audience's amusement, Marsha Lederman starts her introduction by saying, "I'm so excited!".  This is a common thread: there's a strong feeling of "we're not worthy" when people talk about William Gibson.* 

She provides us with a brief overview of his life and career, concludes her introduction by saying, "Tonight we are in the presence of a legend," and William Gibson ambles up to the microphone.

As legends go, Bill has aged well. In her intro, Ms. Lederman mentions that he was born in South Carolina in 1948, which seems wrong, somehow - in my mind, William Gibson will always be the tousle-haired alt-rock dissident in Harry Potter glasses who spawned the cyberpunk genre in 1984 with the publication of Neuromancer, his breakout novel.

Nonetheless, there he is at the age of 72: the tousled hair has receded and been cut short, his posture is stooped and his pace a bit slower, but the signature round glasses remain, along with the unique view of the world that makes his writing so distinctive.

Agency, his 14th novel, is the sequel to his 2014 novel The Peripheral, in which Flynne, a woman living in a near-future version of the United States, discovers that rather than working in a virtual environment, she and her brother Burton have been operating remote devices - peripherals - in the future.

The future to which they’ve become connected is a hundred years later than their own, a world in which a series of cataclysmic events ironically referred to as the Jackpot have eliminated 80% of the population.

Agency continues to explore alternate timelines – referred to as stubs - and maintain dual storylines in the near and far future. It's set in an alternate universe (which is aware that there are alternate universes) in which Hillary Clinton won the 2017 election and the United Kingdom voted against Brexit.

Gibson does a brief reading from Agency, mentioning that he was adding them up on his way to the theatre, and that this would be the 15th and final reading from the Agency launch tour, a prospect which he seems to greet with some relief.  He explains that the reading is set in what London has become about a hundred years in the future and that the characters are discussing an alternate "stub" timeline that forks away from their history - which is our future. It occurs to me that this is the most explanation that I've ever received for a Gibson storyline, even while reading one.

In the conversation he reads, one of the characters comments, "They're still a bit in advance of the pandemics, at least," which gets an appreciative if slightly nervous laugh from the audience.

After the reading, Gibson joins Lederman at a pair of centre stage seats, and she starts the conversations by asking if Agency is written as a warning.  Gibson considers this, and says no, but explains that when he began writing The Peripheral, he didn't realize how staggering the Jackpot would be, and that it floored him when Wilf, one of the characters from future London, described the full extent of the Jackpot, because he had never seen it all at once.

Lederman questions this: "You make Wilf sound like he's separate from you!"

In response, Gibson explains that before he began writing fiction as an undergrad, he read Aspects of the Novel  - he blanks on the author's name, although he's convinced it will come to him later. 

"It said that a novelist wasn't fully doing their job as long as the characters weren't entirely in control. That impressed me.

When I started to write - try to write - I discovered that the only way I could do it was to get to a point where I was sort of watching the characters doing what they were doing and listening to them saying what they were saying and taking it down, with very little sense of where it's going. That's where that comes from.

"I don't think I could do it in any other way. For one thing, if I knew how it was going to end, I'd be so bored."

Lederman discusses the dichotomy between the technological changes after the Jackpot and the changed, emptied world that it left behind, asking if this reflects his view of technology, "this bifurcated experience that makes life easier but creates destruction?"

"It's become apparent to me since I've been working with sort of material** is that often the most powerful changes driven by new technology are unanticipated consequences as far as the inventors and developers of the technology, and people who embrace it, they have no idea.

I can almost remember the world before completely ubiquitous plastics. In my earliest baby pictures, the toys I'm playing with are for the most part wood and metal.

So I can remember my mother showing me a letter opener that the Fuller Brush Man*** had given her when he’d come to the door. It was shaped like a Fuller Brush man, so it was kind of a ... trippy thing. And she said, 'Look at this, it's made of plastic.' it was really novel, it was this lightweight, slightly flexible, slightly fragile material and that was why he had given it to her, to capture her imagination, because it was plastic.

No one imagined at that point that tiny fragments of the Fuller Brush Man literally would be killing shoals of coral. Even today, like all of that stuff wound up in the ocean.

It took about five years for everything I was playing with to be made out of injection moulded plastic, for the most part, and another five years for them to invent plastic bags. And no one looked at plastic bags and expected the deaths of uncounted species.”

When asked about the problems caused him by the election of Donald Trump, he speaks ruefully regarding the demise of the book that he was originally working on when Trump won the presidency, a book set in California in the near future, where Hillary Clinton is president of the United States.

"It was going slow in part because I was watching the buildup to the US presidential election out of the corner of my eye.

And when Trump descended the escalator to announce his candidacy my simulation node or whatever it is sort of went "ENNNHHH!"**** But the editor that’s attached to it said, “Forget it, that’s ridiculous. That’s not going to happen.” So I thought, okay, and I went back to work.

But then the UK voted YES on Brexit, and when I saw that I thought ‘Whoa, if the United Kingdom can vote for something that STUPID and that self-destructive, the United States might be able to elect Trump.’ But then I thought, ‘No…’

So when I woke up after November 16th and looked at the laptop where my manuscript was, I thought, ‘Well that's dead.’

So on top of everything else I had to be unhappy with, I was unhappy that my book seemed to have been ruined.”

Trump's election left Gibson with a feeling of "complete unreality."  But this feeling allowed him to immediately take the world he’d been creating and use it as one of the stubs from The Peripheral, and after writing some short pieces to test the idea, found that it worked as a concept and took that as a starting point for Agency.

Lederman comments on how unrealistic the present situation would seem to someone from 2013, and Gibson relates having a luncheon in London during the Agency book tour at which he and a group of fellow writers had “a mutual grumble and sigh of exasperation: what do they expect us to do with this material??”

“It made me realize that part of whatever it is that I do** is I sort of measure what Wilf in the book calls ‘the Fuckedness Quotient’ of the world.

I measure that, then I work out ways to increase it slightly to induce the level of cognitive dissonance that I think would be part of my pleasure in the text that I was writing.

Doing that in this world is incredibly difficult because - okay, I've got it set here, and you wake up the next day, and the FQ is up HERE."

After discussing the influence of current events and internet sources such as Google and Twitter on his work, Lederman  points out that Gibson has "been pretty famously influenced by music, and music has been pretty famously influenced by you."

Apparently Gibson doesn’t feel that Billy Idol’s 1993 Cyberpunk album is the best example of this type of cross-polination, but he acknowledges that Flynne’s half of The Peripheral owes a large debt to a band called Drive By Truckers, which put Gibson back in touch with his small town South Carolina and Virginia origins.

When asked if it’s "kind of a thrill" to have music like Zooropa by U2 or Idoru by Grimes that is in part was inspired by his writing, his response is “It...varies.”

He mentions having a huge cardboard box of cassettes in his basement that he’s been sent over the decades by people who aren't famous: " 'Here, I based this on your work.' That’s kind of more fun in a way than the big guys."

(In an attempt to keep this readable, I've split this posting into two - the second half can be read here.)

- Sid

* I attended a reading by a trio of authors at Toronto's Harbourfront back in the 90s where Nancy Baker, who was reading first, started with with "I realize you're all really here for William Gibson."

** Gibson is oddly reluctant to describe himself as a science fiction writer. His responses are peppered with this sort of euphemism.

*** The Fuller Brush Company used to do door-to-door sales in the United States. This is before my time as well, just for the record.

**** Full disclosure, I struggled with this sound. I illicitly recorded the talk – don’t worry, Vancouver Writer’s Fest, I have no plans to release a William Gibson bootleg album – so I was able to play the sound for my wife Karli. We agreed that it wasn’t indifference, it wasn’t panic, it was more sort of a slightly surprised sound with just a soupçon of distaste. I leave it to the reader to decide whether or not more E’s, N’s or H’s would have better conveyed that intonation.

As well they should be.

I stumbled across this scan while looking for something completely unrelated - it's from a Ryerson student assignment that required us to document a small business in eight photos. I had selected Bakka Books - the only small business in Toronto that I was really familiar with - and this was one of the prints from my final submission. I recall there also being a shot of staff member Jack Brooks shelving books, and a picture of a blonde woman with glasses behind the front desk - sadly, her name is lost to me after all this time.

I wonder if I still have those shots somewhere?  It's very likely that I've since disposed of those amateurish 35-year old black and white negatives, which, in retrospect, is a bit of a shame, it would be fun to scan those shots and post them.  Well, who knows, they might still be in a box in storage, after all, I do have a bit of a reputation for hanging onto things.

- Sid