William Gibson @ This Is Not A Reading Series
September 21st, 2007 @ Bloor United Church, 300 Bloor Street West
7:30 PM
by Stewart Byfield
Posted October 2nd, 2007Sure enough, it starts out with a reading. This is fine by me, as I haven't had a chance to read Gibby's latest novel, Spook Country — his eighth by my count. Once again, it appears to be about a hapless, conventional protagonist who finds himself present for the emergence of a new and revolutionary technology. I would like to say that Gibson’s reading interested me enough to go out and buy the novel, but sadly I had to strain real hard just to extract a few precious words from the pulpit. Where have all the competent sound engineers gone, anyway? It seems that, in the past few years, the number of potentially great shows, readings, lectures etc. that have been denied their full impact due to shitty sound has risen dramatically. And fair enough, a huge church is a pretty tough acoustic monster to contend with, but really! The entire presentation: the reading, the ensuing interview, the question and answer period from the audience, was unintelligible. I spent the bulk of it sitting with gritted teeth as the whole PA system threatened to implode our heads with shrieking feedback. So yeah, I think his new book is about the global positioning system and rogue artists chasing virtual artifacts across the world, but as far as I can remember from the presentation it's actually about a totalitarian government that controls dissenting voices with a crack cabal of incompetent sound guys and emergency vehicles.
Gibson closes his own book after reading the entire fourth chapter and settles into a chair opposite the MC/interviewer. The pulpit mic peels out with one last high pitched squawk and then goes dead, then the new lapel mics on Gibson and his inquisitor click and a new type of sonic mischief ensues. I think I can almost make out what they're saying this time when a parade of sirens begins to strafe the church along Bloor Street, although they seemed to be coming down at us from the sky. Apparently, the whole emergency force of Toronto was out joyriding that night and had decided to circle our location, effectively massacring any thoughtful thread we might have gleaned from our new author friend. It's actually a funny image watching three-hundred cyber nerds and literary fans perch their eager faces on their elbows, which in turn are perched atop the railings of their pews, perhaps not realizing how much they resemble a solemn catholic mass.
Thinking back to his novels and short stories I do think Mr. Gibson is a dissenting futurist of sorts, or at least a cautionary one. Here's what I did manage to decode from Mr. Gibson:
On Google:
"Google helps me remember things... universal prosthetic memory."
On eBay (apparently the Gib just loves it!):
"...a vast and complex system of whittling down the world’s additives."
And on his own writing process:
"When I discovered what the McGuffin was it was a very lovely day in the basement."
My apologies to you, reader. Perhaps if you didn't know anything of Gibson's work, you were hoping to learn a bit about it here. No such luck, I'm afraid. He is one of the most important writers of this century (and the last) and if you are really curious, you should pick up one of his books. Any of them in fact; they are all quite good. And if you do know William Gibson well, then you already know, don't you?
I also managed to get the last question asked of him from the congregation that night. A slight, energized young woman sauntered up to the mic and with regards to his body of work and asked if she was reading it right.