Cyberpunk and Postmodernism

On Thursday, we watched the play And They Dance Real Slow in Jackson.  In case you didn't attend the play, I'll write a quick summary.

The main character, Elizabeth Ann Willow, suffers from polio and is effectively an outcast in her small Southern town.  While she is good-natured and constantly attempts to connect with others, she is continually rebuffed and discussed behind her back.  When she asks Skeeter to prom, for instance, he rejects her despite appearing to like her.  Soon after, she goes down to the river and is attacked by a mob of frightened children who have convinced each other that she can take off her leg braces ("metal legs") and send them walking.  This results in a complete withdrawal into her mind.

One of the most interesting features of the play was the way that information about what happened to Elizabeth was slowly revealed.  Based on several perspectives (Elizabeth as a 24-year-old, trapped inside her head; Elizabeth as an 18-year-old; and the townspeople, observing her condition at 24 years old), the audience is able to slowly understand the full scope of the story.  This reminded me considerably of something that we read last year.

The Things They Carried also jumped around a lot, changed narrators, and used surreal storytelling techniques.  The overall impressions I received from the two works were similar; confusion was the first response, followed by gradual comprehension and an abrupt ending.  Similar techniques were used in other books I've read, like Cloud Atlas and If on a winter's night a traveler; these I've discussed previously, so I won't waste space reiterating my points.  However, I haven't discussed Neuromancer.

If you're not familiar with the novel, it's a disjoint account of a hacker's attempts to crack a highly-developed AI.  The setting is quite foggy, and few details are given, contributing to a sense of unreality; the narration is also disorienting, and makes less and less sense as the plot progresses.  However, by the end of the book, a good number of the hanging ends have been resolved, and even without understanding exactly what has happened, a reader can feel a sense of completion.

Still, I didn't deeply enjoy any of the above works.  Perhaps it's an effective use of reader response theory-- but I can't say this kind of manipulation of confusion particularly appeals to me as a reader.