Neuromancer

I just finished Neuromancer, again. But I think I got it this time.
The book hurts my head. The ending, Case as a character, so many things ring too close. The entire journey rings existential in an uncomfortably familiar way.

But, even if I don't read my other books for comparative analysis, I already know I'm going to own this paper. Neuromancer is hardboiled, without a doubt. It's all there: implied distrust for authority, the police, and the established order, the locational awareness of the writing, the 'smooth operator' main character, and an ending in which the protagonist succeeds, though in a hollow and possibly superficial way. Gibson actually kneaded that into you at the end, when Wintermute says "Things aren't different. Things are things."
There are clear stylistic considerations which give nods to Chandler's style of writing, but Case as a character owes more to Sam Spade, in my opinion. He has an emotional profile much closer to that of Spade, though there is one aberration where Case deviates from either Marlowe or Spade: Case is more self-interested than either, though this can be argued based on the way the book ends. It can go several ways, really, and if you really wanted to dig into the Chandler angle, you could even argue that Case's relationship with Wintermute takes on similar hallmarks to the relationship between Marlowe and General Sternwood in The Big Sleep. Based on the order of events in the story, it's difficult to tell exactly how self-interested Case is, since he gets paid after completing the job, though it's implied earlier that he would have gotten his pancreas fixed regardless at a certain point.
The book affected me profundly when I first read it, and it has again now, to a nearly surprising degree. I read it with much more patience this time around, and got to really see and understand the depth in all the characters, not just Case, but Molly and Armitage also, at the very least. Rereading the book gave me a fuller appreciation for Gibson as an author, and the cyberpunk genre as a whole.