“[A] window into the city’s underlying fabric”: Bouncing at the edge of the global metropolis in William Gibson’s Bigend Trilogy

Abstract

In the article, I examine the descriptions of the globalized urban landscape found in William Gibson’s Bigend Trilogy (Pattern Recognition (2003), Spook Country (2007), Zero History (2010)) and argue that in the socioeconomic reality Gibson projects the global metropolis functions as both a global facilitator and a global bouncer acting on the premise of selective inclusiveness. In the article, I first argue that in the Bigend Trilogy cities act as the enablers (or enforcers) of the global flows, and, what is often overlooked, are thus complicit in all the grounding (and often villainous) processes of globalization. Subsequently, I develop some critics’ ideas about Gibson’s presentation of the urban consequences of global exchange, and conclude that in the trilogy global metropolises are the frontline for the confrontation of globalization and local idiosyncrasies, and portend the advancing global homogenization. Finally, I compare Gibson’s analyses of the post-millennial metropolis and the 20^th-century edge city. Just like once edge cities, I propose, the global metropolis prides itself as the new Territory of American civilization; the opportunity it offers, Gibson illustrates, is, however, equally illusory and reserved only for the privileged minority.