By Neal Stephenson
Praise! Praise! I finally finished this behemoth last night, a scant 139 days since I started reading it. That's quite an investment in time and effort, and I have mixed feelings about this book. Let me try to explain without spoilers.
First of all, this is a dense book with Stephenson going all over the place with different literary techniques. Some work well, some not so well. It's also oozing with details that soak into almost every paragraph. It's hard to imagine the effort that must have gone into writing this book ... and it's only 1/3 of the story! The sequels (The Confusion : Volume Two of The Baroque Cycle to be released in April 2004 and The System of the World : Volume Three of The Baroque Cycle to be released in September 2004) promise to extend this story set in late 17th-early 18th century Europe. That's almost 3,000 pages. Oy!
Okay, here's my big problem with the book, and in the words of lame break-ups throughout the world, "the problem is with me, not you". The problem is that I feel like I only truly appreciated about 50% of the book because of my almost total ignorance of European history. If you have read Cryptonomicon, then you know that one of Stephenson's strengths as a writer is how he can weave his story and fictional characters into the proper historic context and personalities. His ability to do this rewards the knowledgeable reader, who is able to recognize the cleverness with which the story is being told and definitely provides a much more satisfying reading experience.
Well, since I have never taken a course in European history (I think that class was made a requirement when I was a sophomore in high school so I was grandfathered in and didn't have to take it) nor really read anything about that time period, I missed out on that entire layer of the experience. The kings, the queens, the battles, the dissidents, the entire political landscape: sure, I could read about them and understand (for the most part) what was going on in the book, but since I often didn't even know the fictional characters from the real ones, I didn't get the opportunity to chuckle to myself at how clever the plot was being intertwined with factual situations.
If I put that frustration aside, there was much to enjoy from this book. The stories that relate to this incredible age of scientific discovery were wonderful: the accounts of the early days of the Royal Society and the personalities of Isaac Newton, Leibniz, Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke (at least I knew who they were!) were my favorite parts of the book. I remember thinking that this trilogy was really going to be a prequel to Cryptonomicon, but the connections are tenuous at best and I personally don't think you need to have read it to enjoy this book.
So, am I going to read The Confusion when it comes out in a couple of months? Yes I will -- I'm invested enough in the characters that I want to follow their progress. Am I looking forward to it? Sort of. I wish the book wasn't so damned big so I could travel with it. Until then, I think I'm going to spend some time on the Quicksilver Metaweb to try to fill in the voids of my understanding.
Thus endeth the saga of myne reading.
Previous entries
From 9/30: Currently reading this book ... I thoroughly enjoyed Cryptonomicon, so I'm looking forward to this "prequel" of sorts.
Update 12/9: Thanks to Marc for the comment, which reminds me to provide an update. Believe it or not, I'm still reading this book and enjoying it. I'm almost halfway through, which is a laughably slow pace, but the book is so frickin' huge I can't bring it with me on the train, so I only get about 10-15 minutes a night to read before I nod off. I look forward to those 10 minutes every day!
