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Eric Hill
Dr. Koster
Writing 510
7 November 2008
Of Eyre and Magic
The Eyre Affair and Neuromancer differ in their portrayal of how technology will affect
the reader of the future and literature as it is understood. One claims technology as an aide to
reading a book, whereas the other portrays the destruction of traditional literature—and the birth
of one altogether new and liberating.
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde portrays a society that glorifies the past, specifically, the
literary past. The existence of “Literatecs” as a special-forces bureau for the British government
in the novel portrays the emphasis placed upon books and written intellectual property (Fforde).
Despite the elevated nature of the traditional book in The Eyre Affair, Fforde portrays technology
as complimentary to books, not an overwhelming force meant to replace books. Consider one of
the characters of the book, Mycroft, who creates a device, known as the “Prose Portal”, capable
of allowing him to ‘enter’ into a text, whether it is a poem or a novel (Fforde 125). Part of this
invention involves what Mycroft calls “bookworms,” or small maggots that have DNA encoded
with information from various written texts (Fforde 100). Just like the human bookworm, who
finds himself constantly engrossed in the literary environment of a book, Myrcroft’s worms are
genetically engrossed in a literary environment. These bookworms, capable of not only storing
vast amounts of written information but also opening a portal into a written realm, do nothing
more than what an interested human could do. With the use of the imagination and with an
attention to detail, a human can, with no more than some time and a good book, open a mental
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portal into the world of literature, creating a dialogue between their own thoughts and those of
the characters within the book. Yet though the bookworms Mycroft create do nothing more than
a human bookworm, Mycroft’s invention is still a technological marvel. After all, moving into a
different realm literally is a feat of considerable proportions. Thus, technology in this novel
augments the literary world, providing for the reader a way to actually come in contact with the
characters and interact with them in a way that mental projection, i.e., imagination, cannot
achieve.
Neuromancer, by William Gibson, portrays literature very differently, showing
technology to have overcome and replaced literature, rather than augment it. In the
Neuromancer world, Case, the protagonist of the story, is engulfed in a scheme to free an AI
from programming restraints. The AI’s name is Wintermute, and can take on different
‘personalities’ in order to project itself as a conversation-capable entity to beings that are actually
alive. Yet Neuromancer is not the destruction of literature, but rather a metamorphosis of the
traditional written word into something much more malleable. Consider the title of Gibson’s
work, Neuromancer. The title is reminiscent of a much older word, necromancer. As Robert
Crossley says, “the title of Neuromancer glitters with possibility and irony. Its author announces
himself as a new romancer…” (Crossley 913). Yet, as Crossley astutely notes, there is also a
notion of history present in the title, “for the title chimes with necromancer to suggest a crossing
of science with magic, of cutting-edge cybernetics with an old-fashioned sense of the
marvelous…” (Crossley 914). Thus, the name Neuromancer shows the death of traditional
literature—and its resurrection as well. In Neuromancer, books really do not exist in any
substantial form. Whereas in Fforbes’ world books were lauded and recognized as landmarks of
historical and cultural value, Gibson’s book depicts a world that one might say is particularly
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lacking in any substance of culture, where people are either addicted to drugs, vain, or the
controllers of such vices. Men now have the capacity to plug in to “cyberspace,” a surreal world
of computers and networking (Gibson). Yet though traditional literature has died, a part of it has
moved on to form something new. Neuromancer is a new word entirely, and yet it is also a word
that has its roots in necromancer, just as the new world Gibson has created has done away with
literature, but still has a form of storytelling all its own. The new form that literature has taken
involves not merely diving into a work to interact with the story, but instead involves actual
storytelling that anyone can do. Consider the AI construct Wintermute, who creates an actual
world so that he can converse with Case. As Wintermute claims, “this is all coming to you
courtesy of the simstim unit wired into your deck” (Gibson 116). Thus, an individual can fully
partake in a completely digital reality, one that is completely responsive and interactive to the
individual’s actions, needs, and desire. When Case shoots the desk and even Wintermute, the
environment reacts according, as Wintermute says, to “certain internal logics,” meaning that
there are laws of reaction, just like in the real world (Gibson 116). Yet if an AI is capable of
creating a virtual world that humans can actually partake in, then humans, the creators of AI, can
do so as well. Thus, stories become more than just written words, reading books becomes more
than just an internal dialogue and an environment created by one’s imagination. Instead, the
reader becomes both the protagonist and the author of the story, directing the flow of the plot and
eventually deciding where the story goes.
Both Fforde and Gibson have something to offer their reader, and that is a possible
solution to the question ‘what exactly is technology going to do to the book I read?’ Yet
Fforde’s response is one that I think is more descriptive of the way we read books now;
technology for Fforde is part of a metaphor for the human mind. Though Fforde does clearly
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show technology working in conjunction with the reader to create a greater and more enhanced
experience than what readers have today, it is essentially the same scenario: a man picks up a
book, gets sucked into it, and feels, in a sense, as if he is partaking in the story he is reading.
Gibson’s work, however, presents a much more elaborate prediction; in his world, technology
has overridden every aspect of human existence, down from the way people eat to the way
people perceive their reality. Neuromancer provides an explanation of what technology could
possibly do to literature; instead of bringing classic characters like Mr. Rochester back to life,
Neuromancer posits that people will become characters in their own story. In a sense, then,
Neuromancer, and perhaps the entire genre of cyberpunk, is a “process of detournement” (Fair
94). Detournment, as defined by Benjamin Fair, is “the practice of turning something away from
its officially sanctioned meaning toward one’s own purpose” (Fair 94). Fair contends that the
Rastafarians in Gibson’s novel also represent this idea, and “Glenn Grant asserts that the process
of detournement is a prevalent practice in Neuromancer, as well as a distinct feature of the
novel” (Fair 94). Thus, Neuromancer posits the idea that literature is no longer something a
reader reads and an author writes, but something a reader takes an active part in making. The
Eyre Affair also posits this idea with the main protagonist, Thursday, going into Charlotte
Bronte’s Jane Eyre and taking an active role in fighting Acheron, The Eyre Affair’s villain, along
with Rochester. Yet Thursday’s story is still taking place within the confines of someone else’s
novel, whereas Case creates his own story in response to Wintermute’s actions.
In conclusion, Neuromancer portrays literature as being liberated by technology, with the
traditional social roles that people are bonded to cast asunder. In a setting where people can
change their bodies and be exactly what they want to be, Gibson provides a possible future in
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which the reader is capable of not only taking part in literature, but creating his or her own
literature with the tools necessary to do so provided by technology.
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Works Cited
Crossley, Robert. “Review: Fiction and the Future.”College English. 55. 8. (Dec. 1993). 908918. JSTOR. Dacus Library, Rock Hill, SC. 5 November 2008. <http://0-www.jstor.org.
library.winthrop.edu/stable/378790?seq=7&Search=yes&term=Neuromancer&list=hide
&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DNeuromancer%26x%3D0%26
y%3D0%26wc%3Don&item=8&ttl=147&returnArticleService=showArticle&resultsSer
viceName=doBasicResultsFromArticle >.
Fair, Benjamin. “Stepping Razor in Orbit: Postmodern Identity and Political Alternatives in
William Gibson’s Neuromancer.” 46. 2. (2005). 92-103. JSTOR. Dacus Library, Rock
Hill, SC. 5 November 2008. <http://faculty.winthrop.
edu/kosterj/WRIT510/readings/POliticsinNeuromancer.pdf>.
Fforde, Jasper. The Eyre Affair. New York: Penguin Books, 2001.
Gibson, William. Neuromancer. New York: Ace Books, 1988.