Cayce is a woman who only wears neutrals and has a unique sensitivity to brands and logos. When she is taken on by an agency to help with a new shoe logo, she also reluctantly takes on a job concerning online video phenomena. Her job is to find the origin of the film, and essentially, its maker. She gets a tip that a Japanese hacker found a watermark on the video. She receives it; yet as soon as she gets it two men attempt to steal the watermark from her. She escapes with the watermark to London where she gets a lead on the company that made it. Dorotea, we find out, was hired to follow her and ensure that she take down the job in hunting down the video’s origins.
Cayce purchases a Curta calculator from Voytek Biroshak. With the calculator she is able to find the email address of the buyer of the watermark. This turns out to be Stella Volkova. Her sister, Nora, is the maker of the videos. She is brain damaged and this is the only way she can express herself. She then gets in a slight mix-up with the Russians after she had mentioned on the site that it might be the work of the Russian mafia. The ending tied together nicely when she comes to terms with her father’s absence when the Russians turn over all the information about his disappearance to her.
Pattern Recognition was a bit harder to read than the other books. The author’s language can be a bit wordy in some areas. It also goes into a lot of side stories and tangents throughout. Sometimes, this made it hard to follow but the overall story was a fun ride. It took a while to get the story moving in the beginning but then picked up a bit after they went to Tokyo. Although it was a modern novel, from 2003, I found a lot of similarities or inspirations from some of the earlier novels. The ways things are described are sometimes similar. Comparatively, I think that this novel proved to be a little confusing at parts, whereas the Maltese falcon proved to be an easy follow-along. Besides that, some of the language was like music to my ears. I loved some of the imagery that William Gibson provided in this novel.
Pattern Recognition was essentially about finding meaning in seemingly meaningless data. People strive for purpose and meaning and through advertising and industrialization, this becomes ever more apparent. I think this novel touched on issues of what it means to not just see advertisements but to feel it. We all have a sensitive reaction, no matter how large or small. It happens to the best of us. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in the art or advertising world, as well as suspense novels, modernism, and introspective themes. I give this book 3 out of 5 stars.
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