Quicksilver 314
| Quicksilver: Volume One of the Baroque Cycle | |
| author | Neal Stephenson |
| pages | 944 |
| publisher | William Morrow |
| rating | 9 |
| reviewer | Christina Schulman |
| ISBN | 0380977427 |
| summary | More than you ever wanted to know about the English Restoration and the invention of calculus, with lots of explosions, syphilis, and piracy thrown in for good measure. |
First, let's make it clear that Quicksilver is not science fiction. It's historical fiction, occasionally about science, for people who like science fiction, i.e. geeks. It has math, optics, and vivisection, but no computers, no code, and no high-speed pizza delivery.
This is also not a book that gets anywhere quickly. It's 900-plus pages, and it's not padded so much as it is fractal. Stephenson wanders down side tracks, stages elaborate adventures and morality plays, explores philosophical issues and geometric proofs, assembles obscure puns, and drags in all manner of famous people and events, purely for his own amusement. Either you sit back and enjoy the game, or you hurl the book (with effort) at the wall somewhere in the first few hundred pages.
Daniel Waterhouse is a seventeenth-century geek; his father's a prominent associate of Oliver Cromwell, but Daniel's more interested in Natural Philosophy than in decapitating kings and Catholics. At Cambridge, he befriends Isaac Newton; later he becomes sort of a grad student and chief bottle-washer to the Royal Society. He starts out as naive observer of London politics, but over a few decades, gravitates into the intrigues of both the Court and the European intelligentsia. Just as Lawrence Waterhouse befriended Turing in Cryptonomicon, Daniel Waterhouse orbits Newton and Leibniz. It seems to be the fate of Waterhouse men to be brilliant thinkers eclipsed by the geniuses of their age.
Jack Shaftoe is a legend in his own time, a thief and mercenary who propels himself around Europe on sheer balls and avarice. He bumbles into and out of ridiculous scrapes, including an ostrich-chase at the Siege of Vienna that results in his rescue of the slave-girl Eliza from a Turkish harem. Eliza's business savvy draws the pair back across Europe to Amsterdam, where Eliza becomes entwined in both the Dutch stock exchange and the court of Versailles.
Cryptonomicon readers will remember the improbably long-lived Enoch Root, who shows up occasionally to nudge the plot along. Most of the story takes place between 1655 and 1689, but it opens with Enoch in Massachusetts in 1713, interrupting Daniel's efforts to found MIT by presenting him with a summons from England. Daniel spends the next several weeks being chased around Plymouth Bay by the pirate Blackbeard, only to have his plot thread left dangling with no apologies. Either it will be picked up in the sequel, or Stephenson is attaining a new degree of sadism.
Where Cryptonomicon was about secrecy and deception, Quicksilver is about revealing the hidden and the unknown, and the free dispersal of ideas and money. Stephenson uses quicksilver as an unsubtle symbol of the scientific discovery that was beginning to percolate through the known world. He highlights the dichotomy between the religious viewpoint, of a world that began in perfect knowledge and order and has steadily decayed since the Fall, and the scientific viewpoint, of a chaotic world that is slowly being brought into order and the reach of understanding. Much of this understanding was accomplished through the efforts and correspondence of the Royal Society, which operated in a state of excitement, enthusiasm, and confidence that they would decipher the mechanisms of nature: an attitude not unlike that of the dot-com startup era, but fueled more by wonder and less by naked greed.
Lesser writers dump blocks of expository prose into the narrative; Stephenson shamelessly shovels it into his dialogue. As a result, much of the dialogue is stilted, and the banter is painfully odd. You get used to it. Some bits are more blatant than others, such as a dialogue between Waterhouse and Newton and a Jewish prism-merchant, in which Stephenson trots out a brief overview of European coinage of the time, while cycling through a catalogue of synonyms for "Jew."
So, is Quicksilver worth the effort? On the one hand, it's an insightful look at both the Scientific Revolution and the Glorious Revolution. On the other hand, it's got plague, pirates, astronomy, sex, explosions, daring rescues, religious strife, and the profound effect on European history of stockbrokers and syphilis. It's a terrific book, but don't expect it to resemble Stephenson's prior books in anything but ambition and length.
You can purchase Quicksilver from bn.com -- the official release date is September 23rd. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Somewhat ironic summary... (Score:5, Interesting)
Damn you Neal Stephenson! (Score:2, Interesting)
Hallelujah, Stephenson is back! (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm still reading Cryptonomicon... (Score:3, Interesting)
I enjoyed "Diamond Age" quite a bit and started in on "Cryptonomicon" shortly after finishing it, but I have to say that the characters are so complex in this book that I have trouble keeping their background straight. I do feel that once in awhile he (Stephenson) takes the character for a ride but forgets to take us along, too. That's not to say that I don't enjoy the stories; far from it. I think he's able to create quite a tapestry in his stories, and I just can't remember all of the individual threads (much like real life).
Looking forward to reading this novel when I finish "Cryptonomicon" several weeks from now.
- Leo
Some shocking statements for a '9' (Score:4, Interesting)
The 900-pages consist of a plot 'not padded so much as it is fractal' and apparently 'purely for his own amusement.'
I prefer novels written for the amusement of readers, thank you.
Lesser writers dump blocks of expository prose into the narrative; Stephenson shamelessly shovels it into his dialogue. As a result, much of the dialogue is stilted, and the banter is painfully odd. You get used to it.
After 900 pages 'you get used to it' is hardly is glowing endorsement.
Looking forward... mostly (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's hope his research was better this time around.
Re:I'm still reading Cryptonomicon... (Score:2, Interesting)
What helped is getting a small notebook that I keep rubberbanded to 'Cryptonomicon'. Every character gets a page with the highlights. It makes it easy to get back into, and I think it makes me pay more attention as a reader. Anyways, this suggestion might be helpful to you.
Re:Looking forward... mostly (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Some shocking statements for a '9' (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Eco Book (Score:2, Interesting)
"Island..." I didn't care for so much.
Re:Looking forward... mostly (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe I skipped a page or something, but wasn't there a "Bad Guy" that had a nuclear explosive implanted in him or something? so that a Good Guy couldn't fight him or shoot him or some similar contrivance?
Didn't they kill the Bad Guy later? did they ever take that thing out of him?
Hopefully I just missed it. That confused the hell out of me.
Re:BN Link (Score:5, Interesting)
When the article appeared on Slashdot, lo and behold, the Amazon.com link was now a Barnes and Noble, with enough info in the URL to indicate that someone was making a buck.
I believe that
Stephenson == very educated avantgardistic writing (Score:4, Interesting)
He is consequently ignored by the 'big' literature critics - allways a clear sign of quality - and still manages to fascinate and grip the fun reader and the thoughfull one alike.
Personally, I'm looking forward to this new one from him.
Has Neal been reading jwz? (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyone else suspect a connection between Randy's wisdom-tooth episode and this [jwz.org] blog entry from Jamie Zawinski on the same subject? Or is it just my own experience with dental surgeons that makes me cringe at both of these?
Re:G4 (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry this comment didn't quite rate a "+5 Funny". But it may not be that Slashdot is trying to confuse your poor little mellon. It may be more the case that in this wonderful little essay [barnesandnoble.com] Stephenson wrote about a few years back Stephenson reveals himself to have been at one time a real Apple fiend.
In it, he describes how he sadly left the Apple fold after his beloved blackbird powerbook ate a story he was working on. It was (according to him) irretrievably lost. He then embarked on a journey through other operating systems (including BeOS and WinNT)that culminated into a real enthusiasm for Linux.
But that essay was written a while ago, so maybe since the move to OS X he's come back to Apple.
Perhaps he was writing his new book on his new Apple hardware and thinking to himself "Title...title...hmmmm...what to all this wonderful new story of mine...ah-HA!"
Re:Has he....? (Score:3, Interesting)
[has Stephenson learned to write] a sex scene that doesn't make one cringe
Doesn't it make you cringe when you see a lion chase and tackle and dismantle an errant zebra who couldn't escape with the rest of his herd? How about watching a snake envelope a rabbit and slowly suffocate it, then unhinge its jaw and begin swallowing it whole?
That's what makes a Stephenson sex scene so great. It's described for what it is, a guttural, instinctive, animal act.
Sure he could have sugar coated it with this talk of romance and love, but it's so much more funny to portray it for what it is: people shooting DNA at one another.
Re:It's a ridiculously contrived plot device, (Score:3, Interesting)
I disagree. You're forgetting the most important rule of coincidences -- context.
If the Shaftoes and Waterhouses crossed paths by running into each other at an airport bar, when one both were travelling to different places, and they struck up a friendship, yeah, that'd be a crazy coincidence.
But in this case, you had Avi selecting Manilla harbor for very specific reasons, and then Waterhouse running into Douglass MacArthur Shaftoe working in that very harbor, doing exactly the kind of work they needed. That's not as crazy, especially since the work DM Shaftoe was doing was very much in character for himself and his family, and his choosing to do the work in Manilla was reasonable, given his family history there.
That is, it was inevitable that they'd run into each other.
If DM Shaftoe had decided to go into investment banking, though, and Avi pulled his firm's name out of a hat, and coincidentally ended up with Shaftoe as his firm's stock manager, then that'd be harder to accept.
Good read, if you can get through it. (Score:5, Interesting)
1) If you did not (like|understand|pretend to get|claim to have read) Cryptonomicon, this is not the book for you. I can't imagine Mr. Stephenson was looking to expand his fan base with this book. This book is easily an intellectual achievement and as such, is written to satisfy an audience of 1: Neal Stephenson.
2) Generally, Stephenson's books are best after multiple readings. If you don't like reading books over again, you should steer clear of this author altogether. Quicksilver is no exception. There is a lot going on and, if the other books serve as guides, you will get more out of them a second time around.
3) After reading parts of this book you are going to want to track down articles on (wikipedia|everything2) to refresh your memory about late 17th century European history. Even so, this book is not "late 17th century European history." This is a book about 17th century hackers and, if you believe the premise, how much and how little things have changed. Either way, this book merits a Companion guide.
4) The sixth paragraph above is a pretty big spoiler. Don't read it.
5) I don't think Christina Schulman, the reviewer, (and despite the Epiphyte reference) made it through the book. The Quicksilver metaphor is important in the first book. The second and third books in the Quicksilver volume go on to other metaphors.
6) don't expect it to resemble Stephenson's prior books in anything but ambition and length. Ummm, I disagree. The parallel story line method is Stephenson's trademark, whether you are reading The Big U, the Diamond Age, or most noticeably Cryptonomicon. This book is more of what Stephenson does best, but in a very different setting.
7) Despite having a proof copy, I'm getting the hardcover of this sucker. Stephenson is worth it.
8) The Real Character puzzle from the website was only a glimpse of what was to come in the book. Given the time and effort (and application of programming skills/OCR) I don't expect to be disappointed.
Bottom line, if you're new to Stephenson, you'll want to try Cryptonomicon first. Quicksilver can be a page-turner but it is by no means a quick read. I usually fly through books but have taken over a month on this one. This book represents an incredible amount of effort and cements Stephenson's position top among the most versatile, intelligent, (Linux friendly) authors today.
Re:Somewhat ironic summary... (Score:2, Interesting)
Ah.. but oh so completely consistent with Complexity Theory, Julian May and the theology of Pere Teilhard de Chardin.
Re:How did Randy read Japanese plaintext? (Score:3, Interesting)
Besides, how can someone monitor a communication medium if they don't know it exists?