THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 8, 1997 TAG: 9701080628
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY RICKEY WRIGHT
LENGTH: 76 lines
THE IDORU is Rei Toei, a digital hologram of a pop star and national obsession of 21st century Japan. When the 40-ish human rocker Rez falls in love with her, the complications that power William Gibson's new novel, ``Idoru,'' are in place. After that, a cast that also includes a teenage Seattleite fan, several shadowy denizens of cyberspace, a vicious Australian bodyguard of Rez and a crew of Russian gangsters seems only natural. How Gibson masterfully bounces all of these people, and a good few more, around each other is part of the book's fun and surprise.
Gibson is back from a three-year absence - since his glowing novel, ``Virtual Light'' - having hardly lost a step. While not exactly distancing himself from the cyberworld he first envisioned 15 years ago, in ``Idoru,'' he concerns himself with tricky questions about the nature of love and reality. His conclusions are mostly happy ones, but the answers don't come until after nearly 300 pages of his trademark wry musings on pop culture (largely musical this time) and frenetically paced development of some interwoven story lines.
Two unlikely ``detectives,'' Colin Laney and 14-year-old Chia McKenzie, converge on the Idoru's secrets, as well as the Russians', from different angles. Laney is a dealer in black-market information whose work for a gossipy TV show has led to tragedy. As interested in survival as redemption, he goes to Tokyo to help ``solve'' the problem of Rez's infatuation with an idol who, by all appearances, is nonexistent.
Chia (named, yes, for the popular toy ``plant'') is in Japan on an ill-defined mission for Rez's American fan club. Her unintended clash with the gangsters and their smuggler associates leads to the story's ultimate resolution. Amusingly, Chia's takes on the world around her are like many a smart teen's, at once knowing and uninformed, aware and naive. By the end of ``Idoru,'' however, her education is much more complete.
As is Laney's. And if the reader feels that almost too much has taken place, a second trot through the thicket of ideas that Gibson navigates might prove even more enjoyable than the first. Gibson has long since passed his disciples on the road to the future, in part because he insists on holding on to the humanity of the present. ``Idoru'' is not only the usual first-rate thriller but also a moving treatise on the possiblities of nature, human and otherwise.
Cyber-writer Jeff Noon came to attention a few years ago with ``Vurt'' and ``Pollen,'' two trendy, barely readable novels centered around virtual reality. With his third, the young Brit has taken a surprising leap forward by stepping backward. ``Automated Alice'' updates Lewis Carroll's classic tales by bringing his heroine into an imagined 1998 where humans have melded with animals into hybrid creatures. While chasing her escaped parrot and solving a series of odd murders, this new Alice encounters talking termites, a Jimi Hendrix-like robot, Civil Serpents and, of course, her own computerized double.
Noon is on much surer footing here than in his previous, more obviously futuristic books. The tiresome slang he invented for his earlier characters is replaced by a delightful wordplay that honors Carroll's own whimsy as its essential silliness helps move the confection along. In the end, Noon's extension of the Alice stories proves a meditation on art, dreams and immortality.
The author himself makes a cameo near the end of the adventure, complaining to Alice of his poor treatment at the hands of certain literary insects. Let it be said, though, that ``Automated Alice'' wins this cricket's approval. MEMO: Rickey Wright is a Norfolk-based writer and critic. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
BOOK REVIEWS
``Idoru''
Author: William Gibson
Publisher: Putnam. 292 pp.
Price: $24.95.
Automated Alice''
Author: Jeff Noon
Publisher: Crown. 225 pp.
Price: $21.