Reading: Neal Stephenson - inside / outside.
As living beings, we exist in a physical world, and we make our mark on that world. Strong fiction writing draws a vivid word picture of the two-way relationship between the individual and the environment. This is especially important in science fiction, which explores the ways man attempts to master his world, and the consequences - expected and unexpected - of those attempts. I'll refer to this as "inside/outside technique".
Neal Stephenson is absolutely amazing at inside/outside. While 'The Baroque Cycle' may not be "science fiction" in the conventional sense, it is a story about (among many other things) the history of science; and what Stephenson does really well, page after page, is to put you, the reader, in the middle of the character's world: the sights, sounds, smells, and sensory impressions of the environment as experienced by the character, and the thoughts and feelings and memories they elicit from his or her consciousness. Stephenson sees the world with a scientist's eye, and uses that insight in the service of his art.
Stephenson does not simply write: "Eliza stood on the beach in Holland. The seashells were very pretty." Nor: "Bob stood in Huygens' apartment. There were a lot of clocks. They ticked but did not chime." Instead, you get Eliza's meditations on the inscrutable motion of the waves, the chaotic distribution of shells upon the shore, and her past experiences as a captive and her wish to make a mark upon the world. You get Bob's heightened awareness, as a career soldier, of quiet noises (which might presage "enemy miners tunneling under the fortifications" or "an infantry regiment marching into position outside of town") among the suspiciously chimeless clocks (which were made to facilitate Huygens' astronomical studies). And you get each character's sense of his or her place in a vast, unknowable world, in an environment shaped by forces of nature and culture from the distant past and places far away.
And so, standing on the coastline of the world's leading trading power in 1685, what Eliza sees is not simply "seashells" but:
... cockle shells in colors and patterns of such profusion and variety that they must have given the first Dutchman the idea to go out into the sea and bring back precious things from afar. [343]
Neal Stephenson is absolutely amazing at inside/outside. While 'The Baroque Cycle' may not be "science fiction" in the conventional sense, it is a story about (among many other things) the history of science; and what Stephenson does really well, page after page, is to put you, the reader, in the middle of the character's world: the sights, sounds, smells, and sensory impressions of the environment as experienced by the character, and the thoughts and feelings and memories they elicit from his or her consciousness. Stephenson sees the world with a scientist's eye, and uses that insight in the service of his art.
Stephenson does not simply write: "Eliza stood on the beach in Holland. The seashells were very pretty." Nor: "Bob stood in Huygens' apartment. There were a lot of clocks. They ticked but did not chime." Instead, you get Eliza's meditations on the inscrutable motion of the waves, the chaotic distribution of shells upon the shore, and her past experiences as a captive and her wish to make a mark upon the world. You get Bob's heightened awareness, as a career soldier, of quiet noises (which might presage "enemy miners tunneling under the fortifications" or "an infantry regiment marching into position outside of town") among the suspiciously chimeless clocks (which were made to facilitate Huygens' astronomical studies). And you get each character's sense of his or her place in a vast, unknowable world, in an environment shaped by forces of nature and culture from the distant past and places far away.
And so, standing on the coastline of the world's leading trading power in 1685, what Eliza sees is not simply "seashells" but:
... cockle shells in colors and patterns of such profusion and variety that they must have given the first Dutchman the idea to go out into the sea and bring back precious things from afar. [343]