Pollen
by Jeff Noon
Crown
reviewed by Ron Hogan
Pollen
by Jeff Noon
Crown
reviewed by Ron Hogan
eff Noon's second novel begins with a two-page sneeze (that rivals the design work of Raygun and Bikini) and gets progressively weirder from there.
Pollen is set in the same world as last year's Vurt, a slightly futuristic version of the English city of Manchester in which the major form of entertainment is Vurt, feathers that induce vivid hallucinations when users stick them down their throats. Many critics and fans consider a decaying urban setting to be a sign of 'cyberpunk'. While Noon does little to actively discourage that interpretation, his work also displays a sense of literary experimentalism that very few 'orthodox' cyberpunk writers have attempted: a breakdown in the perception of reality (and the reality of perception) that has a lot more in common with the stories of Philip K. Dick than with William Gibson.
A massive cloud of pollen hangs in the air, inducing numerous fatal bouts of allergic sneezing. Two women, the shadow-cop Sibyl Jones and her daughter Boda, prove to be immune and embark on separate quests to discover the source of the plague. They end up in the heart of Vurt's dream worlds, confronting a surreal blend of Anglo-Saxon, Greek, and North American mythological archetypes. While Gibson hinted at the presence of the mythological within the technological in the latter parts of his Neuromancer trilogy, Noon makes the relationship explicit, and he also makes the stakes significantly higher. The surreal landscapes of Vurt, although created by dreams, are intricately connected to our own material reality. They possess a life and a vitality of their own, whereas, cyberspace in Gibson's novels (and most other cyberpunk stories) is entirely a construct of the human imagination, having no other existence beyond the mainframes which contain it.
The struggle of the "Vurtuals" to rid themselves of the humans they no longer view as necessary for existence lies at the crux of this novel, and is the basis for most of its surreal imagery. But that imagery would be merely indulgent noodling if it weren't for the emotional and psychological complexity of Noon's characters. Instead of a string of shallow bizarre events, Pollen, like its predecessor, is the compelling story of realistic people who are caught up in
events that are completely beyond anything that they've ever had to deal with before. Because those characters are interesting and identifiable, readers will be much more willing to place their faith in Noon once the weirdness starts. Going along for the ride is a good way to describe the act of reading Vurt or Pollen. It's a ride that will alternately amaze you with its audacity, dazzle you with its intricacies, and move you with its poignancy.
