Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle

Cafe Society
1

Ok, so I liked Snowcrash. I was looking for something new and different to read and this looked interesting. I am now on page 79 and have a question for anyone who has read this trilogy.

When does it get interesting? I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t read it yet, but I am waiting for several things to become clear: the exact purpose of Enoch, why we should care at all about Daniel and when o when does the excess verbiage stop?

IOW, is it worth it to keep slogging through this --will it get good? Good as in some type of PLOT, with some sort of ACTION, and some CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT?

Or should I just move on?

Just finished a Swanwick (I think that’s the name–too arsed to get up and check)–something about time travel and dinosaurs. It was awful. He was more interested in describing the dinos than in fleshing out his characters-it started off well and then petered out. Sort of like the dinos themselves. *

*note to all geeks–that was a joke. Please don’t come in and explain how I’ve got the extinction of dinos wrong.

2

Half-Cocked Jack Shaftoe has an action-packed story all the way through, trust me. So does Eliza. Even the intellectuals and scientists come in for their share.

3

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]

IOW, is it worth it to keep slogging through this --will it get good? Good as in some type of PLOT, with some sort of ACTION, and some CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT?

[/QUOTE]

I’m a little ways into the second book. I can’t discern an overall plot, but there’s plenty of action and enough character development to keep me interested. Not so interested that I want to read the three books straight through, but interested enough that I do want to finish them.

I don’t think these are plot books so much as an immerse yourself in the time period books. I love the detail, the snappy smart dialogue, and the Shaftoe characters, and Eliza.

4

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
When does it get interesting?
[/quote]

I admit, I borrowed it from the library once, then returned it unread. But then, I got it again, and found it very interesting but I couldn’t tell you exactly when in the book it happened. I enjoyed it immensely once I got into it. But hey, it took me several tries to get into Fellowship of the Ring, too, but it was worth it. Think of it like that.

I don’t think it ever really does in the Baroque Cycle, but it’s discussed in Cryptonomicon.

Of the 3 protagonists, he was my least favorite. I did grow to care about him, though, and he’s relevant to Cryptonomicon too.

This kind of comment reminds of when the Emperor tells Mozart in Amadeus, “There’s too many notes.” It’s Neal Stephenson! I mean, I liked pretty much all the words. If you don’t, well, it’s not going to get better or anything. The style is consistent throughout.

Tons of unbelievable, globe- and decade-spanning action, incredible character development, and amazing plot that actually teaches you a lot about a period of history that I personally did not know much about… if you can deal with not knowing exactly what Enoch is about, Daniel Waterhouse as a main character, lots of verbiage, and slogging through the first couple hundred pages as the whole thing is set up.

Like I said, it took me two tries to get into it but now it’s on my list of favorite books of all time. I hope you can get through it, because I think it’s worth it. I’m sure someone will be along shortly who totally disagrees with me.

5

Ok–I’m not much of one for action novels anyways. I will stick with it. I don’t mind period pieces or “immersion” type novels, but I think I was misled by Snowcrash and assumed that this would be fast paced etc.

It is kind of fun to have met Ben Franklin as a small boy.

Have not even met Shaftoe or Elizabeth yet.

I can see what Enoch is supposed to be, in a way–a device that gets us into certain “scenes” that we need to know about etc. Daniel isn’t horrid or anything, but I’m kind of meh about him.

The verbiage is new to me–I don’t recall Snowcrash being so well, pompously wordy. I am irked by the tic “phant’sy” instead of fantasy, for one example. But all that will go away (I hope) if I can get to a character I can latch on to. I will keep trying. Thanks!

6

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
Have not even met Shaftoe or Elizabeth yet.
[/quote]

Jack and Eliza are worth the read, so at least wait until you meet them before you give up on it. They form 2/3 of the narrative and Daniel is the other third. His father is a very interesting character, actually.

7

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
When does it get interesting? I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t read it yet, but I am waiting for several things to become clear: the exact purpose of Enoch, why we should care at all about Daniel and when o when does the excess verbiage stop?
[/quote]
There’s no real explanation of Enoch. Stephenson is one of those people who resists tying up all the loose ends because we in the real world don’t have everything explained to us. It’d be too clean, and therefore too unrealistic, to explain everything. I’m of the same persuasion, so I relished the mystery, but I can understand it would be bothersome to others.

And don’t expect an end to the verbiage. He’s not trying to create a perfect facsimile of 17th century prose. Far from it, in fact (there are some hilarious cross-century puns), but he was heavily influenced by the style of the period. If you don’t like it, it’ll be a tough read.
[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
IOW, is it worth it to keep slogging through this --will it get good? Good as in some type of PLOT, with some sort of ACTION, and some CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT?
[/quote]
There’s a helluva lot of action when the book shifts focus to Half-Cocked Jack Shaftoe for the main character. Jack is a big-balled, short-dicked, heavy-duty, grade-A, capital-B Badass. He swings into and out of danger with style, flair, and ridiculous amounts of luck and violence. He is, in two words, wicked awesome, though he does not get the girl in the conventional sense because of an unfortunate lack of bodily equipment.
[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
Or should I just move on?
[/quote]
Well… maybe you should give it up. I hope you don’t, though. I love the books, love 'em to death, but I understand the digressions from the “plot”, as it were, are so numerous and wordy that it soon becomes apparent that they are an essential part of book, kind of like reading Moby-Dick.

Some people get frustrated with this sort of narrative style, where the scenery is ultimately more important than the destination. But the scenery really has to be the focus of the Baroque Cycle. I mean, this is a historical novel, after all, so the real big questions are all answered. Daniel believes he’s in a struggle to save civilization itself - but hell, we already know how that went. He “succeeded”. The enlightenment happened, and mankind eventually invented Leibnitz’s machine. Go, humans!

So if you’re wanting a rip-rolling roller-coaster ride, you maybe should just skip to Jack Shaftoe’s section of the book and see if that high octane adventure plot succeeds in grabbing you in a way that the more reflective section with Daniel does not. You won’t be getting the whole experience, which might fuck up with your understanding of Jack’s adventures. But then again, it might not.

Another suggestion: You might want to pick up Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon and see if you can enjoy it. I found the Cryptonomicon less satisfying than the Cycle (there are no well-developed female characters, and the ending bothered me), but a lot of people enjoy it more because the pacing is much swifter.

I hope you stick with it, but I understand if you don’t.

8

Make no mistake, these books are very, very heavy. Heavy with knowledge and ideas.

But no true Doper would ever admit to shying away from that! :wink:

9

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
I am irked by the tic “phant’sy” instead of fantasy, for one example.
[/QUOTE]

I liked phant’sy. In fact, I’m sorry it hasn’t made its way into the language. I’m too much of a chicken to use it myself though. ::Cockney:: “Puttin’ on airs, is she now? Tryin’ to be lit’ry. Who does she think she is?”

10

Yeah, it is all about the words. Stephenson is a fantastic writer. He can create living breathing worlds from a few pages of research better than anyone I’ve ever read. (He makes the Tower of London into a world of its own.) And it’s all about the history. And all about the ideas. And he does it by taking a few characters, making them impossibly ubiquitous, giving them superhuman knowledge and abilities, and letting them carry the weight of all those words and history and ideas for an impossible 2700 pages.

I didn’t read all of them myself. I happen to hate Jack’s character, although I love Eliza and identify with Daniel.

I’m not sure that it matters that I didn’t read all of all three volumes. (Eight in paperback.) There’s no real ending, any more than history ends at the passing of a decade or the death of a king. I got tremendous amount out of it. I keep wanting to cite his chapters on the growth and development of capitalism in Holland because they’re better than the books I’ve read on the period.

But I keep coming back to the words. It is an invented style, just as Tolkien invented one for his fantasy. Unlike Tolkien, Stephenson puts in a deliberate anachronism on practically every page, sometimes as a pun, sometimes hidden in the background as a reward, sometimes for the sheer glee of doing so. You have to accept it just as you have to accept the digressions and the endless descriptions and the lengthy lectures. It is what it is.

The books were written remarkably quickly. The 900 small type pages of Cryptonomicon were published in 1999, four years after The Diamond Age. The 2700 pages of the Cycle saw print in 2003 and 2004, after another four years.

Another four years have passed and a new novel is due. How long could it possibly be? Wiki doesn’t say.*

Yes, Enoch Root makes an appearance.

*But Amazon does. 960 pages.

11

[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
I don’t think it ever really does in the Baroque Cycle, but it’s discussed in Cryptonomicon.
…
Of the 3 protagonists, he was my least favorite. I did grow to care about him, though, and he’s relevant to Cryptonomicon too.
[/QUOTE]
In fact, IMO the OP would be better off reading Cryptonomicon first.

12

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
Ok, so I liked Snowcrash. I was looking for something new and different to read and this looked interesting. I am now on page 79 and have a question for anyone who has read this trilogy.
[/QUOTE]

I didn’t catch if you had read The Diamond Age yet, which is much closer in feel to Snowcrash.

13

I found quicksilver to be a major disappointment, such that I didn’t read the next 2 in the trilogy. He’s a fine writer, and it’s never a hardship to read his books, but I was expecting something amazing following cryptonomicon. I thought the signs were there that he was developing into one of the leading US writers in any genre.

That didn’t happen at all, and quicksilver is a very regressive effort IMO. His great writing strengths of character, wit, ideas etc are submerged under his great weakness of shambolic and baggy structure and excessive rambling distractions. The book is actually boring for long stretches, which is not something I’d ever thought I’d say about NS.

14

[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]
Yes, Enoch Root makes an appearance.
[/QUOTE]

Where did you hear that? He’s said the story is unrelated. I assume NS will return to the story at some point, but anyone who reads the Baroque books before Cryptonomicon has to strongly suspect that they were written first, or at least Quicksilver was. Crypto is littered with internally consistent references. Though it’s been four years for us, it may have been longer for NS. I wouldn’t be surprised either way, but I’d like to know if NS has given up the actual goods on Anathem somewhere.

  1. Enoch hasn’t been explained, unless someone has broken the secret code that is assumed to exist in Cryptonomicon, 2) Daniel’s a tedious blank slate and that won’t change, and 3) the verbiage remains constant. Snowcrash was originally written to be a graphic novel, Baroque Cycle consists of actual books.
15

[QUOTE=Busy Scissors]
I found quicksilver to be a major disappointment, such that I didn’t read the next 2 in the trilogy. He’s a fine writer, and it’s never a hardship to read his books, but I was expecting something amazing following cryptonomicon. I thought the signs were there that he was developing into one of the leading US writers in any genre.

That didn’t happen at all, and quicksilver is a very regressive effort IMO. His great writing strengths of character, wit, ideas etc are submerged under his great weakness of shambolic and baggy structure and excessive rambling distractions. The book is actually boring for long stretches, which is not something I’d ever thought I’d say about NS.
[/QUOTE]
I pretty much agree.
Plus he still indulges in his didactic ‘let me try and demonstrate this somewhat interesting idea in practice.’ Now, when he does this on a science/math subject, I know when he’s getting it wrong (and he usually does, in order to make the story better), but I never know when he’s screwing up the history (either general history or details of daily life), which makes it hard for me to enjoy it.

16

[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]
There’s no real ending, any more than history ends at the passing of a decade or the death of a king.
[/QUOTE]

Actually, I don’t think this is strictly true. Jack and Eliza definitely get an ending to their story. I won’t say any more, but it’s worth reading to get to that ending.

17

[QUOTE=Grossbottom]
Where did you hear that.
[/QUOTE]

I was positive I read it in one of the links off the Wiki page, but all I can find now is speculation about his appearance.

I withdraw the comment.

18

I read a couple of the books, but got bored with it. The writing was fine, but the story was just too disjointed and trivial to hold my interest.

19

I posted something quite similar to the OP here several years ago, and folks advised me to keep on with it. It was good advice. I was about a third of the way through Quicksilver and found that parts were tedious. I have a feeling that I would feel the same if I read it again. Just get through it if you can, because the next two books open up quite a bit. I find that they become more interesting as (the history of) London becomes more interesting. You should know by the end of the first book whether you want to continue.

And as much as I love science fiction, I have to admit that it irks me to no end to find this book and Cryptonomicon both filed under that designation. The Baroque Cycle is historical fiction, and Cryptonomicon is close enough to current times and technology as to make no difference.

20

[QUOTE=Plynck]
The Baroque Cycle is historical fiction, and Cryptonomicon is close enough to current times and technology as to make no difference.
[/QUOTE]

This is entirely apocryphal and my post is my cite. But at some point I read about another sci-fi author’s conversation with Stephenson, where that author inquired as to what the deal was with the character of Enoch Root. Stephenson responded with approximately, “That’s why it’s science fiction.” I personally hope Stephenson is just bullshitting about Anathem being unrelated.