Wednesday, May 05
La Confuzzlement
The Confusion, which constitutes books 4 and 5 of Neal Stephenson's
Baroque Cycle (
Quicksilver being books 1 through 3), is a rather better-written and more cohesive work than its predecessor.
Indeed, in many ways it is clear that the main purpose of Quicksilver was to set the scene for The Confusion and the concluding volume (to come), The System of the World. A 900-page introduction is still rather on the wordy side, but I agree with what others have said: That The Confusion retroactively improves Quicksilver; and indeed, the way the ending of the former points towards the opening of the latter (and yes, I meant it that way) is rather neat.
In fact, I am now even willing to give Cryptonomicon another go.
(Neal Stephenson's web site, on the other hand, sucks.)
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
08:25 AM
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1
Really? I thought the India and Mexico bits were kind of slow and silly, although I still liked the book. I suppose it was because it felt as if Stephenson's shaggy-dog-story habits were closer to the surface than he usually got with the Turkish and European sections.
Posted by: Mitch H. at Wednesday, May 05 2004 08:47 AM (tVSJJ)
2
Yes, but this time you didn't have to wade through 30-page wads of 17th-century epistlery to get to the good bits. Only a third of
The Confusion needs to be edited out, rather than (as in the case of
Quicksilver) one half.
Sometimes I'm in the mood for a wandering tale like this, but even then
Quicksilver pushed my limits.
I think this one was more of a story, and less trying-to-be-important, which was why I liked it. That and the endless pages of letters in Q. Still, I'd love to see what a writer with, say, Fritz Leiber's skill could have done with the tale.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, May 05 2004 08:58 AM (+S1Ft)
3
Personally I love Stephenson, and at least in part because of the digressions rather than in spite of them. They add character to the story, in my mind. The opposite would be someone like China Mieville (also highly recommended, especially if you like steampunk) who paints in broad strokes and very rarely gives you more than a hint of what he is talking about.
Amazon UK has eaten my copy of Q, so I have no opinion on that as of yet, but I have read most of the rest of the Stephenson canon, and like the later, more prone to digression books more than the earlier ones.
Posted by: Dominic at Thursday, May 06 2004 10:04 AM (0h0BM)
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