“The
sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. It's
not like I'm using,’ Case heard someone say, as he shouldered his way through
the crowd around the door of the Chat. “It's like my body's developed this
massive drug deficiency. It was a Sprawl voice and a Sprawl joke. The Chatsubo was
a bar for professional expatriates; you could drink there for a week and never
hear two words in Japanese. Ratz was tending bar, his prosthetic arm jerking
monotonously as he filled a tray of glasses with draft Kirin. He saw Case and
smiled, his teeth a webwork of East European steel and brown decay. Case found
a place at the bar, between the unlikely tan on one of Lonny Zone’s whores and
the crisp naval uniform of a tall African whose cheek bones were ridged with
precise rows of tribal scars. ‘Wage was in here early, with two joeboys,’ Ratz
said, shoving a draft across the bar with his good hand. ‘Maybe some business
with you, Case?’ Case shrugged. The girl to his right giggled and nudged him.”
The opening page from Neuromancer is effective for analyzing and understanding the text, or “starring” it.
Starring is the deconstruction of passages or scenes into smaller units called
lexias, which function as the indivisible building blocks of meaning within a
text. The introduction to a text is a great place for starring because introductions
often include a description of the universe in which the story occurs; these
descriptions utilize various codes and signifiers in order to convey meaning to
the reader and get the reader to understand the world and the text.
Introductions are usually teeming with cultural and proairectic codes because of
the way in which those codes frame stories, especially when considering a
fictional piece such as The Necromancer.
“The sky above the port was the
color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” The mention of a television can be
interpreted as a signifier of wealth which falls under the category of a
semantic code. The television is an allusion to the middle or upper class because of the luxuries of leisure time they possess that lower class
individuals do not have access to. The assumption that the reader knows what a
television is, and that they know what a dead channel looks like, is inherently
cultural and tied to socioeconomic status. Furthermore, there is an emphasis on
the ubiquity of technology that contextualizes Neuromancer, making it apparent to the reader that this universe is
based around a technological culture. The casual references to various technologies
and digital forums contribute to the understanding of Chiba City as a
futuristic society where technological connotation is the norm. Technological
connotation “is a secondary meaning, whose signifier is itself constituted by a
sign or system of primary signification,” that is often represented by
technological imagery. The technological imagery (or connotation) used here is
that of the television sky and the dead channel, which together present an
interesting contrast. This seemingly-contradictory metaphor reflects the
symbolic code, which often operates on paradoxes and/ or antitheses. This
heaven and hell comparison
further illuminates the mood and environment of Neuromancer, where the grayness and deadness of ‘hell’ bleeds into
'heaven', creating a dreary, undead atmosphere. One could also argue that the
juxtaposition between nature and technology occurs in this line, where the
television has ‘replaced’ the sky in the same way that technology is replacing
other processes that once were categorized as natural. This again harks back to
the idea of living within a technological culture, where technology becomes
integral to human interactions and lifestyles.
“‘It's not like I'm using,’ Case
heard someone say, as he shouldered his way through the crowd around the door
of the Chat. ‘It's like my body's developed this massive drug deficiency.’” The
first thing that comes up is the question: who is Case? The hermeneutic code
poses and answers questions, though the answers may not always be revealed immediately. In Neuromancer,
due to the nature of living in a technological society, technology can possess an identity and a personality; thus,
questions of what or who is real become crucial to the understanding and
reading of Neuromancer. In addition
to not knowing people, we also do not know the places that lie within this
universe (for example, the Chat). These enigmas are the reasons why
introductions are great for starring; they lend themselves to posing questions
and making references that are not immediately clear to the reader.
Introductions to fiction utilize the five codes Barthes mentions in order to
develop the reader’s interest in the book, which Gibson clearly utilizes in his
works of fiction. The blurring of the real world and cyberspace occurs when the reader can no longer distinction between a person and a technological
entity. On a somewhat related note, there is the mention of drugs which connotes not only health
deficiencies but also humanity; humans are susceptible to drugs while
technology is not. I think what Gibson could be trying to suggest here is that
technology has become drug-like for humans in this new world of Neuromancer. Technological culture to a certain extent is an addiction to the digital.
“It was a Sprawl voice and a
Sprawl joke. The Chatsubo was a bar for professional expatriates; you could
drink there for a week and never hear two words in Japanese.” Again, the
hermeneutic code is at play, posing another question for the reader: what is
Sprawl? Sprawl could be part of a cultural code since
Gibson explores the meaning of Sprawl in his other works, but no one would
understand the reference unless he or she (or phe)
read his other books; cultural code often refers to bodies of knowledge
surrounding certain terms or phrases that are understood by a few. I suppose to
a certain extent the knowledge that Chatsubo is Japanese is somewhat
cultural as well, since that may not be apparent to every reader. The word sprawl also
has a semantic connotation of uniformity and conformity (thinking of suburban
sprawl) which strengthens the conception of Chiba City as an eerie society
dominated by technology; this is characteristic of machine (and digital)
culture where life becomes literally and figuratively mechanical.
“Ratz was tending bar, his
prosthetic arm jerking monotonously as he filled a tray of glasses with draft
Kirin. He saw Case and smiled, his teeth a webwork of East European steel and
brown decay.” Again, the question of who these characters are comes up, and
what is Kirin? The proairectic code here is the fact that Ratz is tending the bar
which is a commonplace activity, and it implies his socioeconomic status. What
is important to note is that the bartender, a seemingly ordinary
individual performing an ordinary task is also conquered by technology (having
a prosthetic arm). Not only is technology infecting or infiltrating culture,
but also human bodies. This then raises issues of cyborgs and cyborg
identities, living in a technological culture. What does it mean to be both
real and unreal, living and nonliving? Remember the imagery from the beginning
of the passage that mentioned the television sky and the dead channel. Neuromancer constantly displays images and
metaphors of the undead throughout the story, which grapples with the intersection
of nature and technology, humans and digital devices. One question that stems
from the presence of this ‘cyborg’ character is how he came to be that way. Cyborgs bring with them an air of
mystery which reflects human skepticism of technology and its safety. Further building
upon the sky and death imagery, the juxtaposition of steel and decay also embodies
the symbolic code, linking the ideas of strength and vitality with death and
decay. This creates not only an eerie setting, but one in which the world seems
to be in a purgatory-like state, in suspended animation. Everything and
everyone seem to be straddling the line between life and death, mobility and
immobility, individualism and conformity.
“Case found a place at the bar,
between the unlikely tan on one of Lonny Zone’s whores and the crisp naval
uniform of a tall African whose cheek bones were ridged with precise rows of
tribal scars. ‘Wage was in here early, with two joeboys,’ Ratz said, shoving a
draft across the bar with his good hand. ‘Maybe some business with you, Case?’ Case
shrugged. The girl to his right giggled and nudged him.” Who or what is Lonny
Zone? Another mystery comes into the reader’s mind which can either be part of
the cultural or hermeneutic code depending on whether or not Gibson has
previously described this character in other works. On another note, Ratz’s
question to Case is also a question that the reader must ponder. Why is Wage hanging
around and what does phe have to do with Case? There’s an interesting way in
which the universe of Neuromancer
toys with spatiality in that, references to other universes (or pieces of
fiction) are made but not in a manner that links the two universes together.
When Sprawl is mentioned, there is nothing that suggests that Neuromancer and Gibson’s other work are
related in anyway, but they simultaneously share this technological culture that
is a recurring theme throughout the introduction of the book.
