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[personal profile] mmcirvin
Anyway, I was thinking about those stupid "what is science fiction/fantasy" definitional issues lately because I just finished being the last person on the continent to read Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver, which incidentally is probably his best novel since Zodiac (though it definitely suffers from First Part of a Gigantic Trilogy syndrome).

If you compare Cryptonomicon and Quicksilver to the books they obviously most resemble, Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and Mason and Dixon respectively, the Pynchon books have more fantastic content than Stephenson's by a considerable margin, but it's also the Pynchon books that are more likely to end up on the "fiction/literature" shelves rather than "science fiction/fantasy". It's not worth getting outraged over, though, since these are primarily marketing categories (and the Pynchon does sometimes get shelved under science fiction!)

Actually I shouldn't be so certain about Cryptonomicon, since after two attempts I've never been able to get more than halfway through it. The World War II parts are great, but the parts set in the quasi-present day bore me to tears for some reason; I was reading in the wake of the tech-bubble crash and I think those parts already seemed painfully dated as a result. Maybe I should try rereading them as historical fiction.

Date: 2004-03-11 09:08 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] flummox.livejournal.com
You know, I had the opposite reaction to both Quicksilver and Cryptonomicon. Cryptonomicon is far and away my favorite book by NS. I can easily identify with the modern day Waterhouse family, and find the whole WWII era Bletchly Park story fascinating. I throughly enjoyed most of the little "aha" moments when one of the principal characters happened upon one of the historical moments that I already knew.

With Quicksilver, however, I had a very hard time getting into the story. I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason for this (other then a distaste for the 17th century vernacular) is that I lack the background to appreciate the history. The "aha" moments, when I could recognize them, served to annoy rather than engage me. That and the character list that's a mile long... there was quite a bit of page flipping involved for me to remember the context for everyone. All in all, a frustrating read.

Date: 2004-03-11 02:45 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mmcirvin.livejournal.com
It probably does have to do with how much you like reading about that period of history. I'd just been following the serialization of Samuel Pepys diary (http://www.pepysdiary.com/), and learning a lot about life and politics in Restoration London from that; I'd had a slight handle on the Glorious Revolution from going to a college named after William and Mary; I absorbed a bunch of stuff about Louis XIV in high school; I live in the land of fled Phanatiques today, and of course as a physics guy I'd always been interested in the intellectual life of the era and all those people who collectively invented modern science. Where I did find the story hard to follow was near the end, in Eliza's flight across the politically scrambled region inland of Belgium, but I think that the confusing nature of that episode was part of the point.

Stephenson's use of language was interesting-- he was basically writing in early 21st century English, with lots of goofy deliberate anachronisms, but with 17th century usages thrown in haphazardly for flavor. Pynchon went more the whole hog in Mason & Dixon, even capitalizing like an early-18th-century writer, but made his anachronisms all the wilder to compensate, throwing in references to things like Mr. Spock and Popeye the Sailor Man.

Date: 2004-03-11 09:42 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] paracelsvs.livejournal.com
Me, I've tried reading Gravity's Rainbow twice now, and I haven't gotten further than page 15, while I had no trouble reading Cryptonomicon. I just don't have the attention span to sit around piecing together meaning from four-page rambling sentences, I guess. I found the writing style horribly pretentious.

I might try again, if someone can convince me it's actually worth it, only I lent my copy to a friend and he's saying he'll burn it if he ever finishes it, to save other people from having to read it.

Date: 2004-03-11 06:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mmcirvin.livejournal.com
Gravity's Rainbow is written in a very surreal and expressionistic style, yes; not something that's quite as popular today or to everyone's taste. Mason & Dixon is actually a much more straightforward and less frustrating read, though it's written in a simulation of 18th century English.

Date: 2004-03-11 06:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mmcirvin.livejournal.com
Also, The Crying of Lot 49 and Vineland are relatively decipherable, though I didn't like the latter all that much. V. is in much the same vein as Gravity's Rainbow, not quite as extreme but close.

Date: 2004-03-11 06:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mmcirvin.livejournal.com
Actually, I'm thinking now that if I tried to read Gravity's Rainbow today I might not like it at all; at the time I was much more into bizarre and extreme acts of literature and had a lot of time on my hands.

Date: 2004-03-11 06:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] doctroid.livejournal.com
I've read Gravity's Rainbow twice -- the first time took me nearly a year, obviously in fits and starts punctuated by entire other books.

I think it's misleading to speak of its style in the singular; the style jumps around a lot. The first time I thought the first roughly 1/4 was a much harder slog than the rest. The second time it didn't seem so much different. So I don't know. But there certainly are tough passages to slog through, funny ones that are a breeze, sections where he discusses things I'd on the whole rather not think about, yadda yadda yadda. Worth reading? I thought so. In some ways I liked it better the second time... in some ways I liked it less. I probably won't give it a third read for quite some time if ever.

In any case, anyone who'd take up two pages of a novel with that story about DeMille and his young fur-henchmen can't be all bad. (BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!)

Lot 49 is a fun read -- though apparently Pynchon himself thinks very little of it. Well, what does he know?

I've read V and Vineland but they didn't leave a big impression one way or the other. Somehow I missed even hearing about Mason and Dixon until now.

Gravity's Rainbow

Date: 2005-01-10 11:51 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
I was a college freshman back in 1973 when Gravity's Rainbow first came out and couldn't get past page 15 either. Every few years or so I'd pick it up again but couldn't do it. Finally, last year, I read Vineland first, then V., and Crying of Lot 49, and THEN tackled Gravity's Rainbow. I used Weisenberger's Companion as I worked through the book and it took me about four months to read. I'm glad I finally did. It seems ol' Pynch has been having a bit of fun with his readers by making the first 80 or so pages a bit obtuse, and then easing back for the remainder of the book. There are sections of the book that are sheer brilliance and definitely worth the hard work. I've read thousands of books and by far Gravity's Rainbow is probably one of the greatest books I've ever read.

Best regards,
Craig
http://www.control-z.com

Date: 2004-03-11 10:45 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sanspoof.livejournal.com
I haven't yet read Quicksilver, and Zodiac is one of my favorites of Neal Stephenson's stuff as well... so I guess I ought to, eh?
(I still remember how cool it was to work out that the IHOP the protagonist visits at that one point was the one that we went to from work all the time. And now I pass Polaroid on the way to work, as well, unamazingly.)
Must read Mason & Dixon also, and Pattern Recognition, and all that other stuff piled up next to my bed.

Date: 2004-03-11 06:01 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mmcirvin.livejournal.com
Quicksilver also begins in Boston, though the episodes set there occur decades after the main action, and the payoff for them is presumably in future volumes of the trilogy. It was nifty comparing Boston in the 1710s to the town's much larger and flatter layout today; Stephenson's description seemed pretty consistent with the old maps I've seen.

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