Quicksilver
Dec. 23rd, 2003 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pmcrayAfter more than two months, I finally finished "Quicksilver" last night.
And to think, I'm going to have to do it all over again when "The Confusion" comes out in April and "The System of the World" in September.
It's not really fair to Stephenson to review "Quicksilver" on its own. It would like reviewing "The Fellowship of the Ring" on its own. Suffice to say that it held my interest throughout most of its vast length and I learnt a great deal about the history of the Baroque period
Stephenson is, at least some of the time, a wonderful writer, but in a novel of this length, it is inevitable that even he occasionally nods. One can also criticise some of the character developments. Eliza is the archetypal NS superwoman character. Fair enough, but although Jack is certainly a dude, it was unclear to me why he was the King of the Vagabonds (he doesn't actually spend a great deal of time with them), much less why his exploits should have been immortalised in prose.
It could be argued that "Quicksilver" would be twice the book at half the length. Certainly, although all of Stephenson's obsessions are there, this is a much more leisurely ride that his previous books. Nevertheless, until we have the whole, it is best to reserve judgment.
Perhaps in Volume II, we will find out what happened to the ostrich feathers, although I suspect that Eliza for one will no longer have need of the money they raise. I'm also looking forward to finding out just what is so unusual about the Minerva. And hearing more of Isaac Newton's side of the story.
And it seems fairly clear that Enoch Root is some kind of supernatural being.
And to think, I'm going to have to do it all over again when "The Confusion" comes out in April and "The System of the World" in September.
It's not really fair to Stephenson to review "Quicksilver" on its own. It would like reviewing "The Fellowship of the Ring" on its own. Suffice to say that it held my interest throughout most of its vast length and I learnt a great deal about the history of the Baroque period
Stephenson is, at least some of the time, a wonderful writer, but in a novel of this length, it is inevitable that even he occasionally nods. One can also criticise some of the character developments. Eliza is the archetypal NS superwoman character. Fair enough, but although Jack is certainly a dude, it was unclear to me why he was the King of the Vagabonds (he doesn't actually spend a great deal of time with them), much less why his exploits should have been immortalised in prose.
It could be argued that "Quicksilver" would be twice the book at half the length. Certainly, although all of Stephenson's obsessions are there, this is a much more leisurely ride that his previous books. Nevertheless, until we have the whole, it is best to reserve judgment.
Perhaps in Volume II, we will find out what happened to the ostrich feathers, although I suspect that Eliza for one will no longer have need of the money they raise. I'm also looking forward to finding out just what is so unusual about the Minerva. And hearing more of Isaac Newton's side of the story.
And it seems fairly clear that Enoch Root is some kind of supernatural being.
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Well, I think it is fair to comment on it..
Date: 2003-12-23 07:21 pm (UTC)It reminded me very much of 'The Diamond Age', which was a waste of a rather good title. The Diamond Age could have better been cut down to
1) Nanotechnology is pretty damn cool
2) The Church-Turing thesis is also pretty damn cool
3) The Victorians had the right idea about keeping women in their place (*)
Quicksilver, on the other hand can be summarised as
'You may think that the technological changes over the last 50 or so years were pretty damn amazing, but let ME tell you, they were AS NOTHING compared to the enlightenment (AND men were men and women were grateful)'
(*) Stephenson clearly 'has issues', which come out particularly in Cryptonomicon the stuff about Randy's girlfriend Charlene and their mutual friends, which I thought was pretty poisonous stuff. This seems to have come on post The Big U, Zodiac, Snow Crash and Interface. It is definitely there as a subtext in The Cobweb, thought it is somewhat more subtle (in The Cobweb it takes more the form of approval of the social values of the Mid-West and the Muslim graduate students rather than straw-(wo)men as in Cryptonomicon.
Incidentally, 'The Cobweb' is very good, it appears to be out of print and the 2nd hand values reflect a certain sought-after-ness (though not as much as The Big U did when I bought it for 250 odd dollars).
Re: Well, I think it is fair to comment on it..
Date: 2003-12-24 08:02 am (UTC)As in Interface, the other novel he co-wrote with his uncle as 'Stephen Bury'. I've certainly seen it on sale in a new edition as by Neal Stephenson, so perhaps The Cobweb may see the light of day again (in some ways it is very dated, but in others extremely topical).
MC