I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone explain the end of Gibson’s seminal novel Neuromancer. Gibson answers a discussion group question on his blog today to provide that explanation:

And his voice the cry of a bird
Unknown,
3Jane answering in song, three
notes, high and pure.
A true name....

As to what the word is, well, I never considered it to be a word, really, though 3Jane, teasingly, calls it one. It is in fact three “notes”, something akin to birdcall. The key to the cipher, that is, is revealed as being purely tonal, musical, rather than linguistic. Case’s “cry”, a species of primal scream, the voicing of the emotionality he’s been walled off from throughout the narrative (and his life), torn finally from the core of his being, is what actually forces 3Jane to give up the key. Call and response, of some kind. Hearing him, she can’t help herself. When she taunts him (“Take your word, thief.”) she’s in fact daring him, and assuming he can’t -- just as she was, a moment before, daring Molly to kill her.

So Neuromancer as therapy narrative. A new category of theses is born.

Dare Obasanjo: “I really need to stop futzing around with XML and go back to school to work on getting an MBA so I can actually get paid to have these conversations with myself.”

Let me know how that works out, Dare. Or if you have recommendations for how to make it work. I know a lot of MBAs (including myself) who would love to know. :)