Glacial Floe of the Philosophick Mercury
Neal Stephenson is my favorite writer.
It's not that the topics he chooses are so interesting. He's not an idea person per se (which is crazy given the fact that he predicted -- specifically -- much of our experience of the Internet many years in advance). He writes about skateboarding girls, pizza delivery boys, and... Isaac Newton's fictionalized college years. At his best, Stephenson is simply the finest stylist in contemporary fiction, dizzying in his ability to write in the present tense with great velocity and consistency, weaving emotion, weight, and scale into what should seem like sarcastic or even purple prose. As a reader, he is a delight; as a writer, I am wowed and ruined both.
The first Stephenson book that I read was Cryptonomicon, which was very personally important to me at the time because it is about the Philippines and generations and heroic computer nerds who are into fantasy games and may or may not have a legal bent, and when I, a formerly lawyerly gaming nerd from the Philippines, was reading it, my daughter, my next generation, was popping out of my beloved Katherine. Cryptonomicon very quickly became one of my favorite books, and jumped to the short list alongside The Sirens of Titan, The Sparrow, and The Shipping News. It being my first Stephenson book, I wasn't really aware of his "the confusion"-style endings, so I was dissatisfied with the last bit, but I still loved the novel as a whole; only later did I come to realize that my dissatisfaction with the ending was intentional on Neal's part, and a shortcoming or manipulation of mine, me, rather than any failing of the novel.
My next Stephenson book was Snow Crash; Katherine chided me when I said I liked it even better than Cryptonomicon. The ending in Snow Crash is also very confusing and abrupt, but the key difference is that you don't really have any unanswered or frustrating questions... Neal just leaves you wanting more, which is about the best thing you can say about an ending (at least an ending that isn't as good as, say, The Shipping News, which is just perfect and would make Asimov or Shakespeare blush). I also loved The Diamond Age which Stephenson wrote between Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon; interestingly it has an ending of the confusion exactly between those two books: not as certain but longing as Snow Crash, but still pretty clear in its intentions and its characters' destinies... a mile from Cryptonomicon, certainly.
Quick aside / question: What do you think a book called Quicksilver would be about? Interestingly it is actually about quicksilver, that is, the slippery stuff mercury, as well as a so-called "philosophick" mercury being explored by the great thinkers of Baroque-era Europe.
It is odd, anyway, given that Stephenson is my favorite writer, that it took me so long to get around to Quicksilver. First, the points of dissatisfaction:
Quicksilver, the first of the Baroque Cycle trilogy, is a giant book on the order of Cryptonomicon, as well as a sort of prequel to it. Cryptonomicon comes in a big paperbound version (the one I have), but was later printed in a little paperback (like Don Lim has). Quicksilver just came out in a little paperback... or so I thought. I bought it, and it turns out that this is just the first 1/3 of the gigantic first 1/3 of the trilogy. Tricky marketing Neal! I wouldn't be so annoyed except that the Big Quicksilver : Little Quicksilver price point ratio is the same as Big Cryptonomicon : Little Cryptonomicon, with Little Quicksilver being 1/3 of a book and Little Cryptonomicon being a full giant book, so I call bullshit. Rather than bilking me for King of the Vagabonds and other such phantom novels, this tactic will in all likelihood just end with my borrowing the big Baroque Cycle versions from Tuna rather than my buying them all (for shame).
Quicksilver, even the little one I have, is a very dense and difficult book. It concerns 17th Century Europe, and innovations in optics, calculus, law, and so on by very smart people using very limited means. It took me a long time to read... Too long, Tuna thought... But then I did something odd (for his part, Tuna took a month for the first 250 pages, but then blew through the rest of the trilogy; Josh didn't finish Quicksilver at all, despite being a huge fan of Stephenson too). The minute I finished the book, I went back to the first page and started over again. At my pace it will take me about 10 days of subway rides to re-read. I studied all kinds of scanning, speed reading, and re-reading techniques a few years back, so I am re-reading at a slightly greater pace -- and with considerably greater comprehension -- than the first time around. I felt I had to do this because my knowledge of the basic plot points driving the story were not sufficient to the intricacy of Neal's work, and I felt I owed it to both of us to make the effort.
Magic Podcasts by me and BDM
It's not that the topics he chooses are so interesting. He's not an idea person per se (which is crazy given the fact that he predicted -- specifically -- much of our experience of the Internet many years in advance). He writes about skateboarding girls, pizza delivery boys, and... Isaac Newton's fictionalized college years. At his best, Stephenson is simply the finest stylist in contemporary fiction, dizzying in his ability to write in the present tense with great velocity and consistency, weaving emotion, weight, and scale into what should seem like sarcastic or even purple prose. As a reader, he is a delight; as a writer, I am wowed and ruined both.
The first Stephenson book that I read was Cryptonomicon, which was very personally important to me at the time because it is about the Philippines and generations and heroic computer nerds who are into fantasy games and may or may not have a legal bent, and when I, a formerly lawyerly gaming nerd from the Philippines, was reading it, my daughter, my next generation, was popping out of my beloved Katherine. Cryptonomicon very quickly became one of my favorite books, and jumped to the short list alongside The Sirens of Titan, The Sparrow, and The Shipping News. It being my first Stephenson book, I wasn't really aware of his "the confusion"-style endings, so I was dissatisfied with the last bit, but I still loved the novel as a whole; only later did I come to realize that my dissatisfaction with the ending was intentional on Neal's part, and a shortcoming or manipulation of mine, me, rather than any failing of the novel.
My next Stephenson book was Snow Crash; Katherine chided me when I said I liked it even better than Cryptonomicon. The ending in Snow Crash is also very confusing and abrupt, but the key difference is that you don't really have any unanswered or frustrating questions... Neal just leaves you wanting more, which is about the best thing you can say about an ending (at least an ending that isn't as good as, say, The Shipping News, which is just perfect and would make Asimov or Shakespeare blush). I also loved The Diamond Age which Stephenson wrote between Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon; interestingly it has an ending of the confusion exactly between those two books: not as certain but longing as Snow Crash, but still pretty clear in its intentions and its characters' destinies... a mile from Cryptonomicon, certainly.
Quick aside / question: What do you think a book called Quicksilver would be about? Interestingly it is actually about quicksilver, that is, the slippery stuff mercury, as well as a so-called "philosophick" mercury being explored by the great thinkers of Baroque-era Europe.
It is odd, anyway, given that Stephenson is my favorite writer, that it took me so long to get around to Quicksilver. First, the points of dissatisfaction:
Quicksilver, the first of the Baroque Cycle trilogy, is a giant book on the order of Cryptonomicon, as well as a sort of prequel to it. Cryptonomicon comes in a big paperbound version (the one I have), but was later printed in a little paperback (like Don Lim has). Quicksilver just came out in a little paperback... or so I thought. I bought it, and it turns out that this is just the first 1/3 of the gigantic first 1/3 of the trilogy. Tricky marketing Neal! I wouldn't be so annoyed except that the Big Quicksilver : Little Quicksilver price point ratio is the same as Big Cryptonomicon : Little Cryptonomicon, with Little Quicksilver being 1/3 of a book and Little Cryptonomicon being a full giant book, so I call bullshit. Rather than bilking me for King of the Vagabonds and other such phantom novels, this tactic will in all likelihood just end with my borrowing the big Baroque Cycle versions from Tuna rather than my buying them all (for shame).
Quicksilver, even the little one I have, is a very dense and difficult book. It concerns 17th Century Europe, and innovations in optics, calculus, law, and so on by very smart people using very limited means. It took me a long time to read... Too long, Tuna thought... But then I did something odd (for his part, Tuna took a month for the first 250 pages, but then blew through the rest of the trilogy; Josh didn't finish Quicksilver at all, despite being a huge fan of Stephenson too). The minute I finished the book, I went back to the first page and started over again. At my pace it will take me about 10 days of subway rides to re-read. I studied all kinds of scanning, speed reading, and re-reading techniques a few years back, so I am re-reading at a slightly greater pace -- and with considerably greater comprehension -- than the first time around. I felt I had to do this because my knowledge of the basic plot points driving the story were not sufficient to the intricacy of Neal's work, and I felt I owed it to both of us to make the effort.
Magic Podcasts by me and BDM