{"id":432,"date":"2007-08-09T22:11:09","date_gmt":"2007-08-10T02:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2007\/08\/09\/spook-country-a-familiar-place\/"},"modified":"2007-08-09T22:11:09","modified_gmt":"2007-08-10T02:11:09","slug":"spook-country-a-familiar-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2007\/08\/09\/spook-country-a-familiar-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Spook Country: A Familiar Place"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, that<\/a> was a rather satisfying read.\u00c2\u00a0 I tried to stretch it out as best I could, but the story just wouldn’t wait.\u00c2\u00a0 And now that I’m done, I think I want to talk about it.\u00c2\u00a0 And then when I go somewhere<\/a> to do just that – exclaim over the presence of Humbertus Bigend, or despair over the ultimate end of Pattern Recognition<\/a>‘s footage – I realize that maybe it’s best to just let it percolate in my own space for a while.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe take some time to go back and pick out my favorite passages, like this one:<\/p>\n

The maids, she discovered, had actually saved and folded the bubble wrap that had come in the box from Blue Ant.\u00c2\u00a0 It was on the shelf in the closet.\u00c2\u00a0 Instant tip-upgrade.\u00c2\u00a0 She put the wrapping, the box, and the helmet on the tall kitchenette table.<\/p>\n

Doing this, she noticed the Blue Ant figurine that had come with it, standing on one of the coffee tables.\u00c2\u00a0 She’d leave that, of course.\u00c2\u00a0 She looked back at it, and knew she couldn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 This was some part of her that had never grown up, she felt.\u00c2\u00a0 A grown-up would not be compelled to take this anthropomorphic piece of molded vinyl along when she left the room, but she knew she would.\u00c2\u00a0 And she didn’t even like things like that.\u00c2\u00a0 She wouldn’t leave it, though.\u00c2\u00a0 She walked over and picked it up.\u00c2\u00a0 She’d take it along and give it to someone, preferably a child.\u00c2\u00a0 Less because she had any feeling for the thing, which was after all only a piece of marketing plastic, than because she herself wouldn’t have wanted to be left behind in a hotel room.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perfect, really.<\/p>\n

I’ve occasionally tried to explain my love for Pattern Recognition, Gibson’s book before this, as due in part to the fact that it did such a spot-on job of describing the world<\/a> that my aspirationally cooler, more clever self inhabited.\u00c2\u00a0 In Spook Country, however, it seemed as if Gibson had actually been following me around the past few years, weaving the story through (an absolutely perfect portrayal of) my favorite Union Square hotel lounge<\/a>, the Beaux-Arts grandiosity of my local train station<\/a>, and into my forays through the shipping lanes<\/a> off Vancouver’s Stanley Park.<\/p>\n

And Gibson did all this with a story that I’ve looked for, but not yet found anywhere.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Very, very satisfying.\u00c2\u00a0 The only downside, now, is that I suppose I’ll have to wait another four or five years for something new.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, that was a rather satisfying read.\u00c2\u00a0 I tried to stretch it out as best I could, but the story just wouldn’t wait.\u00c2\u00a0 And now that I’m done, I think I want to talk about it.\u00c2\u00a0 And then when I go somewhere to do just that – exclaim over the presence of Humbertus Bigend, or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t