A significant theme in William Gibson’s “Pattern Recognition” is the functionality of dysfunction. Cayce, as the protagonist, establishes this as an important subject. She is cursed/blessed with strong reactions to corporate logos. This sort of ability is frequently problematic for her. Some logos are so offensive that they stimulate a physiological reaction in her. Ultimately, her ability functioned like an allergy in her younger years. When she first saw the Michelin Man in a magazine when she was a child, she puked. And it still affects her that way. When she “finds a Michelin Man, it’s white rolls executed in felt, garroted to the doorknob with a thick black cord. Starts to scream but catches herself.” (101) Clearly there Cayce loses some amount of control because of her ability. For instance, she frequently has to comfort herself with the mantra “He took a duck in the face at two hundred and fifty knots.” (101) Really, her reactions seem a lot like psychosis, or some form of OCD. However, the book presents the notion that these dysfunctions are really an asset. Cayce’s father starts the trend. He was severely paranoid, but he saw his paranoia as a source of information. He controlled his paranoia , and let it tell him things which ultimately helped him in his job. Cayce then develops her father’s train of thought further. She believes that there is more information processing happening in the brain that what people are consciously aware of, and she believes that for her, the mammalian brain provides insights which are more than she could manage with just her consciousness. These violent reactions she has are actually the results of another process which she isn’t entirely aware of, but which yields effective analysis of corporate logos. And, amazingly, this analysis is apparently very valuable to corporations, and provides her with a career in which all she needs to do is give her impressions of logos. Cayce’s dysfunction is seen as a benefit to her in this book, because of how it is actually a very functional dysfunction. It is a commodity to both her and the companies she freelances for. This portrayal creates the impression that functionality takes precedence over most other things, including Cayce’s own comfort. It reveals that an oddity can be highly valued as long as it creates value.
This, however, is contrasted by another theme in the book, which is the value of something that isn’t functional. This emerges most blatantly in the existence of the math grenades. These are mechanical calculators, which, for their rarity and oddness, are extremely valuable. They are effectively, completely obsolete, because of the advent of electronic computing, but they have value despite that. The math grenades have value because they are historical a peculiarity, rather than anything functional. This dynamic creates the impression that functionality and history are somehow at odds.
I think this also relates to the issue of soul. A philosophy which focuses on functionality seems like a cold “soulless” one, while one that embraces history seems more empathetic and “soulful”, because it is concerned about roots and origins. It seems to me that this conflict between functionality and history is paralleled by some conflict in Cayce’s mind about soul. She repeatedly talks about how jetlag is the results of the soul being left behind, but when asked if she believes in the soul early in the book, she doesn’t know. It seems that she is struggling to understand whether existence is truly compassionate, or whether it’s truly as lonely and cold and functional as it seems to be when she first arrives at London.