Throughout William Gibson's novel, Pattern Recognition, there is always a mystery when it comes to Cayce's father, Win Pollard. He disappears on the morning of September 11 and no one knows what happens to him. No one knows whether he's alive or dead. There's that uncertainty in which leads to the mystery of it. Cayce has hired investigators to investigate the situation; yet, nothing was found regarding Win's disappearance. That then evokes more mystery. What could have happened to him? And then, there's Cayce and her dreams. Win appears in her dream once. Cayce was dreaming about seeing here father and the "twin towers of light" (227). He was "dressed as she's imagined him to have dressed in that morning" (227), extending his hand out and holding a Curta calculator and saying "Ask him [as in Hobbes/Baranov]....The dead can't help you and the boy's no good" (227). It may be that Win is really dead, for he did say in the dream that "the dead can't help you," in which he may be referring to himself. But again, he may not be dead, for there isn't sufficient information to make that conclusion. That is also a mystery along with why he's telling Cayce to ask Hobbes and suggesting that the boy is of no use, in which he may have been suggesting Boone Chu, for we do find out later that he was just into money and really didn't know anything. Win seems to be leading her in the right direction, but why and how is the mystery, since there isn't really any evidence as to what happened to him. So why and how is he doing this? Or in other words, why or how is Gibson doing this, not telling the reader what happened to Win, leading it to be a mystery that doesn’t get solved, even as the story ends.
Then there's the event where Cayce breaks away from the Dream Academy. She just kept on walking until she couldn't anymore and sat down during sunset, exhausted. As the stars starting coming out and as Cayce's eyes started to adjust to the lighting, "she realizes she can see two towers of light, off in the distance, in the direction she thinks she's been walking in" (323). It was just like in her dream when she was in London. And there and then, she sees her father, Win. She says to him, "You aren't supposed to be in Siberia" (323) knowing that he's really there. Yet, he's not really there, for he seems to be a "hallucination" (323). He even says that it's "hard to say" (323) whether he's really dead or not when Cayce asked him. He then leaves her, telling Cayce the reason, which is just to "listen" (324). That just leaves so many questions unanswered. Why was he there? Why didn't he know whether or not he was alive? What is Gibson doing portraying Win to be this sort of character, never showing his true colors to the readers? It may just be suggesting that even though we try to investigate a mystery to a certain extent, it may never be solved and that maybe we should just accept this mystery to be the way it is, Cayce certainly has, for when he leaves her, "she somehow knows [that it was], for good" (324).
In Pattern Recognition, there's also the mystery of who's the maker of the footages that have been gaining so much attention, leading Hubertus Bigend to hire Cayce and Boone. Bigend wants to know who the maker is. Cayce, too, wants to know who the maker is because she's lived her life on F:F:F, in which contains the footages and she absolutely loves watching them. Having accepted Bigend's job opportunity, she goes into this adventure of trying to find out who the maker is, where he/she is, and of course, whether the footages are a work in progress of not. Within trying to figure out these mysteries, she encountered many obstacles; yet, in the end, she was able to figure out who it is. She first had to go through so many things to get to where she was, in which suggests that along with the desire to solve mysteries, there can be a lot of complications. There is this interconnectedness from one mystery to another, even when only one mystery gets solved. This is fully demonstrated starting from when Cayce accepted Bigend's offer. From there, everything starts and she's on her way into finding out who is the maker. But from then on, she's also on the investigation of who is spying on her. It turns out to be Dorotea, just as she expected. But that mystery doesn’t end there, for there's an even greater mystery behind it all, in which turns out to be the Russians, who were keeping an eye on her. They have also entered her apartment where "devices were installed" (339), trying to monitor her. These were things she were unaware of; yet, in the process of investigate one mystery, she ended up encountering many others.
By starting to solve the mystery of who the maker of the footages is, Cayce was also able to find out who Parkaboy really us. She finally got to meet him, not just talk to him on the phone or email him. The same goes with Mama Anarchia. Dorotea ends up being Mama Anarchia and that mystery was solved as well, when Dorotea, herself, revealed how she worked it, having graduate students help her. But then by starting to solve the mystery of the maker, another mystery also arises. Did Bigend already know who the maker is? Cayce did take this into account, too, of course, for "she wonders about Bigend, and Volkov, and whether Bigend could have known from the start that the maker, makers really, were Volkov's nieces" (355). Even though this is a possibility, she chose not to believe in this since she "always comes back to Win's dictum of there needing to be room left for coincidence" (355). This certainly another mystery, but Cayce chooses not to treat it as one and comes up with another reason for it not to be one, leaving it just as it is and nothing more.
Then there's the event where Cayce breaks away from the Dream Academy. She just kept on walking until she couldn't anymore and sat down during sunset, exhausted. As the stars starting coming out and as Cayce's eyes started to adjust to the lighting, "she realizes she can see two towers of light, off in the distance, in the direction she thinks she's been walking in" (323). It was just like in her dream when she was in London. And there and then, she sees her father, Win. She says to him, "You aren't supposed to be in Siberia" (323) knowing that he's really there. Yet, he's not really there, for he seems to be a "hallucination" (323). He even says that it's "hard to say" (323) whether he's really dead or not when Cayce asked him. He then leaves her, telling Cayce the reason, which is just to "listen" (324). That just leaves so many questions unanswered. Why was he there? Why didn't he know whether or not he was alive? What is Gibson doing portraying Win to be this sort of character, never showing his true colors to the readers? It may just be suggesting that even though we try to investigate a mystery to a certain extent, it may never be solved and that maybe we should just accept this mystery to be the way it is, Cayce certainly has, for when he leaves her, "she somehow knows [that it was], for good" (324).
In Pattern Recognition, there's also the mystery of who's the maker of the footages that have been gaining so much attention, leading Hubertus Bigend to hire Cayce and Boone. Bigend wants to know who the maker is. Cayce, too, wants to know who the maker is because she's lived her life on F:F:F, in which contains the footages and she absolutely loves watching them. Having accepted Bigend's job opportunity, she goes into this adventure of trying to find out who the maker is, where he/she is, and of course, whether the footages are a work in progress of not. Within trying to figure out these mysteries, she encountered many obstacles; yet, in the end, she was able to figure out who it is. She first had to go through so many things to get to where she was, in which suggests that along with the desire to solve mysteries, there can be a lot of complications. There is this interconnectedness from one mystery to another, even when only one mystery gets solved. This is fully demonstrated starting from when Cayce accepted Bigend's offer. From there, everything starts and she's on her way into finding out who is the maker. But from then on, she's also on the investigation of who is spying on her. It turns out to be Dorotea, just as she expected. But that mystery doesn’t end there, for there's an even greater mystery behind it all, in which turns out to be the Russians, who were keeping an eye on her. They have also entered her apartment where "devices were installed" (339), trying to monitor her. These were things she were unaware of; yet, in the process of investigate one mystery, she ended up encountering many others.
By starting to solve the mystery of who the maker of the footages is, Cayce was also able to find out who Parkaboy really us. She finally got to meet him, not just talk to him on the phone or email him. The same goes with Mama Anarchia. Dorotea ends up being Mama Anarchia and that mystery was solved as well, when Dorotea, herself, revealed how she worked it, having graduate students help her. But then by starting to solve the mystery of the maker, another mystery also arises. Did Bigend already know who the maker is? Cayce did take this into account, too, of course, for "she wonders about Bigend, and Volkov, and whether Bigend could have known from the start that the maker, makers really, were Volkov's nieces" (355). Even though this is a possibility, she chose not to believe in this since she "always comes back to Win's dictum of there needing to be room left for coincidence" (355). This certainly another mystery, but Cayce chooses not to treat it as one and comes up with another reason for it not to be one, leaving it just as it is and nothing more.
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