Marketing
The main character in Pattern Recognition has a phobia of commercial market symbols and logos. This at first struck me as incredibly weird. I did not get it. I still don’t understand exactly why she is so sensitive to them. It gives me a weird thought process into the idea of marketing and branding and consumerisms. For example, in the first section of the novel Cayce discusses how her fear of labels started long ago when she was 6 with the Michelin Man. I can’t help but think as to why this affected her so much. I used to find mascots like that terrifying, but it never sent me into a complete fear of all such things for the rest of my life. It makes me question what is the purpose of mascots and labels. Because if their main purpose is to attract consumers, why is it scaring some people. Is this why she has her job of analyzing such things?
Mystery/Spy Genre
I had no idea what to think going into this book. I knew it was science fiction, but I didn’t know exactly what that meant. The thing that surprised me most is the mystery. You never know exactly what Cayce or Parkaboy or Dorotea is thinking about. They all have some sort of mystery as to how much they know about each other and the sources of their information. Behind the everyday plot in Cayce’s life, she has this cyber life going on with Parkaboy that relates back to Dorotea and it makes Dorotea out to be the bad guy in the situation. For example when Dorotea brings up her second design in the meeting with Cayce she shows an image that causes Cayce to have flashbacks to horrible memories, but we never find out exactly how Dorotea knows about her phobia. It is a strange theme of mystery in the book with Cayce’s trip to Japan and her mission with the F:F:F. The mystery behind it all makes the book very thrilling.
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