The Pandemonium Of The Sun

I’ve been a big fan of Neal Stephenson since I first read Snow Crash back in the mid 90′s. Since that time, Stephenson has evolved from a cyberpunk pioneer to a master of the modern conspiracy novel. Quicksilver is a prequel of sorts to his Cryptonomicon. To call Quicksilver sprawling would be to do it an injustice. It actually comprises three novels and is part of the larger three volume Baroque cycle. Mostly set in the late 1600′s, it deals with the period when humans were really starting to figure things out.With a cast of dozens, if not hundreds, it is often dizzying. Like Cryptonomicon, it deals with codes and ciphers, but also such diverse subjects as optics, architecture, calculus, and currency. The first three hundred or so pages are breathtaking. The the problems start. The second novel completely resets the action, and for the next three hundred pages you get a entirely new cast of characters. All the narrative flow is disrupted It isn’t until the final three hundred pages that the two narratives begin to intersect. By that point I had already lost interest, as I found the middle third a bit of a chore to get through. I’m not the only one. Reading this along with co-workers, I’m the only one that stuck with it until the end.Most of my reading these days is done during my lunch hour, so everything is done in ten to twenty page chunks, and the middle third of the book isn’t conducive to this type of reading. All of that said, the longer my distance from the book (I finished it several weeks ago), the more I keep thinking about it, second guessing my original thoughts on the novel.

At the very least, I think Quicksilver is worthy reading, if only for the first part. It’s a time in history I would love to have lived in and Stephenson vividly brings it alive.

My co-workers and I are going to tackle another monstrous work. We are going to do all of Proust’ Remembrance Of Things Part, separating each volume with a contemporary work. First up is the recent Lydia Davis translation of the first volume, Swann’s Way. Other than long, often very, very long, sentences, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Fortunately, after the first volume, we’re all still ready to go through the rest. The first volume has a very lyrical quality. I often found myself having to re-read passages, certain I had missed something, only to find out that yes, the narrator is still going on about the same thing for the tenth page. But when Swann’s Way is good, it is incomparable. For example, the several pages where Swann is frantically traveling all over Paris, trying to find Odette are amazing. The writing on Swann’s jealousy is likewise breathtaking. I’m looking forward to the next volume.