From Kirin to Yakitori, this novel is influenced by Japanese culture, but this isn\u2019t the Japan we know today. It\u2019s filled with expatriates, cowboys, and a bartender named Ratz. The setting of the book is not your average city; in fact, it\u2019s everything far from perfect. Case personifies the city through his low life character, and the reader gets a real life glimpse into his drug obsessive vision of the world. He\u2019s a thief, and for two years he has been dealing drugs because of his bad actions.\u00a0 Gibson vividly describes the digital dystopia that Case lives in, even calling beds \u201ccoffins\u201d. However, I\u2019d like to address the things that hit home for most people reading this book, rather than the overly futuristic jargon that Gibson uses.<\/p>\n
The items that are mentioned in this novel are either made up, or very familiar. But this can vary from person to person, depending on how much Japanese culture one has been exposed to. To an American audience that is not well versed in beer, Kirin may come off as a futuristic drink that is exclusive to the novel; however it\u2019s actually the most popular beer in Japan. This distinction between foreign objects and futuristic objects can be very unclear throughout the novel, but I feel that Gibson does this on purpose. Instead of keeping a familiar setting, he takes it further and chooses Japan, which in most cases is considered one of the most outlandish cultures in the world. Good for Gibson, but confusing for others. The reader is left to decipher between futuristic and Japanese elements, something that is hard to distinguish, especially because Japan has the non-negative stereotype of being very technologically forward.<\/p>\n
The whole novel\u2019s setting may seem like a large anachronism. Case is a lowlife character in a fast pace world, where one would assume safety from criminals. It has come to my understanding though, that this is why the novel is so revolutionary. The combination of high tech with low life has created a new genre called cyberpunk. The line, \u201cshe put a booted foot up on the dust-covered Kandinsky coffee table\u201d really hits the spot, because like novel, Kandinsky\u2019s artwork was also considered progressive and avant-garde, which may have influence Gibson to write novels like Neuromancer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From Kirin to Yakitori, this novel is influenced by Japanese culture, but this isn\u2019t the Japan we know today. It\u2019s filled with expatriates, cowboys, and a bartender named Ratz. The setting of the book is not your average city; in fact, it\u2019s everything far from perfect. Case personifies the city through his low life character,<\/p>\n