They sent a slamhound on Turner’s trail in New Delhi, slotted it to his pheromones and the color of his hair. It caught up with him on a street called Chandni Chauk and came scrambling for his rented BMW through a forest of bare brown legs and pedicab tires. Its core was a kilogram of recrystallized hexogene and flaked NT.
He didn’t see it coming. The last he saw of India was the pink stucco facade of a place called the Khush-Oil Hotel.
Because he had a good agent, he had a good contract. Because he had a good contract, he was in Singapore an hour after the explosion. Most of him, anyway. The Dutch surgeon liked to joke about that, how an unspecified percentage of Turner hadn’t made it out of Palam International on that first flight and had to spend the night there in a shed, in a support vat.
It took the Dutchman and his team three months to put Turner together again. They cloned a square meter of skin for him, grew it on slabs of collagen and shark-cartilage polysaccharides. They bought eyes and genitals on the open market. The eyes were green.
[...]
In Heathrow a vast chunk of memory detached itself from a blank bowl of airport sky and fell on him. He vomited into a blue plastic canister without breaking stride.
William Gibson, Count Zero (Cap. 1, Smooth Running Gun, pag. 1)
* * *
Asa incepe al doilea roman din trilogia cyberpunk Sprawl City, Count Zero. Dupa Neuromancer, William Gibson isi continua delirul rece, controlat, taios si elegant ca o katana. Prima pagina este un exemplu clasic de cum trebuie sa inceapa un roman ca sa te prinda, sa te bage in priza, sa te agate, sa te faca sa nu-l mai lasi din mina.
Iar fraza asta ma termina, ori de cite ori imi amintesc de ea: "He vomited into a blue plastic canister without breaking stride."
Auzi tu: "without breaking stride". Cita economie de cuvinte. Ce izbire de cuvinte pe retina. Cit de plastic si de inevitabil si de neasteptat si de rau si de neo-noir.
Without breaking stride...
vineri, 22 octombrie 2010
Without breaking stride
Scris de Turambar at 17:37
Etichete: Cyberpunk, English, Literature, Scriitura, SF, Stari si zile
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4 comentarii:
esti inca tanar in simtiri...
gibson. aham!
Ba din contra: ma simt boshorog, de vreme ce citez din romane scrise in anii 80, pe vremea cind pustii astia atomici care vin pe-aici de-abia se nasteau.
Si cind mai ma gindesc si ce muzica ascult, chiar ma apuca disperarea.
The sky was the colour of a TV set tunned to a dead channel.
Mama ei de memorie inutila.
:(
"The last he saw of India was the pink stucco facade of a place called the Khush-Oil Hotel."
Parca vezi - prin lentila camerei de filmat - cum strada aglomerata se rastoarna, fatada hotelului mai persista o secunda si totul se inegreste.
Am cumparat romanul de la unul din primele magazine particulare din Craiova care aducea romane tiparite in franceza si haine second laolalta. M-am chinuit pret de vreo doua capitole, dar combinatia jargon cyberpunk cu franceza a fost mai puternica decat vointa mea. L-am terminat dupa cativa ani, la aparitia editiei in limba romana. Dar erau anii 90, facultate, demonstratii, jos iliescu, betivaneli prin camere de camin, asa ca erau atatea de facut ...
Comportamentul lui Turner din convalescenta mi s-a parut tot timpul ca seamana cu felul inconsistent de a fi al eroului din Strainul lui Camus.
Pentru detalii suplimentare, poftiţi vă rog şi pe aici:
http://tesatorul.blogspot.com/2007/11/william-gibson-count-zero-1986.html
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