to the 17 year old girl from indore, india, the girl who commits suicide after receiving a text message, a text message mistakingly informing her that she has failed her final exams – apparently a common mobilephone service in india, informing students of their exam results – to that girl we want to quote don delillo who asks: is cyberspace a thing within the world or is it the other way around? which contains the other, and how can we tell? and to that girl from indore, india, this quote won’t make the slightest arse of a difference, because she has decided one way, life has decided for her one way, the mobile phone company mistakingly informing her of her failure has decided for her one way, she is gone, eventhough she has passed the exams, in her reality space she has not, and virtually she failed, she is dead now and remains just a news item in cyberspace, sniffed out by searchbots over the next couple of months, popping up on a screen here and there, like that…
[quote from don delilllo: underworld which i am finally done reading woo!]
> don delilllo: underworld which i am finally done reading woo!
Congrats! For this is not an easy on, IMHO.
And this one quote raises actually another question for me: why did all the new technologies of information and communication fail – so far and on average (*)- to raise more critical sense and self-thinking, unlike the promises that accompagny them?
(*) this, of course, being not aimed at you – on the contrary…
so true, klav, if anything these once so promising technological advances have only raised the level of anything-goes-ism, which is the stick and the carrot AND the one following them of this day and age…
its all gone so flicking blah, huh. whatever blah. the glorious pomo brainfry.
[and yes: that book was a sucker. and still once done reading it: a sense of accomplishment and the feeling of having been deeply moved somehow. delillo sort of saves his ass in the last 3 pages actually]