This book certainly does make me feel several different things at once. There are a lot of ideas that are put forward in the book that are very fantastic, but also have enough reality mixed in to really reach out to the reader. I am a person who is a pretty firm believer in capitalism so this text was of particular interest to me. I think that Stephenson takes this story a few steps past the point of plausibility, but it does make for some interesting thinking. One of the characters/settings that really stands out to me in this story is on page 62, when it talks about Hiro and Juanita and what they did with their money.
“It would be easy to say that Hiro is a stupid investor and Juanita a smart one, but the facts are a little more complicated than that… [Hiro’s situation]… So when his mother visits him the Metaverse, looking tan and happy in her golfing duds, Hiro views that as his personal fortune. It won’t pay the rent, but that’s okay- when you live in a shithole, there’s always the Metaverse, and in the Metaverse, Hiro Protagonist is a warrior prince.”
There are several interesting points that come out of this text for me. First off it is interesting to me that in this futuristic world of pure capitalism we can still see people who find value in non-material accomplishments. Hiro is very poor, but he is still able to see real value in putting his mom up in a place she likes.
Another point that I find really interesting about this section of the text is in the last sentence. It sounds like in this world there are a lot of people (although I do realize that this world does not provide Metaverse access to a lot of people) who are able to find escapism in the Metaverse. To be able to live out fantasy in a made up world is probably a requirement of their reality. This text talks about all of the people who managed to sneak on to the Metaverse by way of public access (libraries). Since there is such obvious disparity in wealth in Stephenson’s world, I would think that there would need to be some kind of escapism for people who are on the low end of the totem pole.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
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I enjoyed seeing this aspect of Hiro as non-materialistic--mainly, because to me he came across as the kind of guy who would do anything for money---maybe even sell his own mother. So, to see the opposite of that, that he actually gave all he had for her.. was really interesting.
ReplyDeleteI think it was a combination of the setting--which in the real world and the Metaverse I just saw as an overgrown Vegas and the way that the people treated each other and their regard for life seemed to base and limited--that when things had emotion or showed a sense of depth, I would be shocked and this scene was one of those scenes that shocked me into realizing that Hiro was a real person.