First Review
Oct. 8th, 2005 04:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI am reading an excellent book at the moment - Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson, which is likely to spawn an ongoing review process, since I'm only 200 pages in (out of 900) and I want to talk about it already.
Things I have learned from the book so far:
- what pieces of eight are
- where the word cabal comes from
- Isaac Newton was a loony
- natural philosophers did very unpleasant things to dogs in the mid 1600s
Aside from being educational, the book is also fascinating, impressively detailed and beautifully written. Stephenson has a wonderful turn of phrase, and it's been a while since I've been consistently delighted by the language and imagery of a new book. Also, anybody who can sustain a plot (especially one as complex and historically rich as this one) for 900 pages has my respect. He brings the people and society of the periods he writes about vividly to life and I'm certainly keen to find out what happens next.
There's so much to it that it takes a lot of concentration to read it (at least for me) but, so far, it's well worth the time and effort. There are aspects of the plot that are somewhat absurd, but I'm very glad of them as otherwise I think I would find the whole thing a bit too weighty. Of course, it probably helps if you have some knowledge of the 17th century, as I'm not always certain which characters are real historical figures and which are fictional, but that hasn't lessened my enjoyment of the book, except perhaps by highlighting my criminal ignorance of history.
It only remains to be seen if I will be quite so enthusiastic in 700 pages' time!
Things I have learned from the book so far:
- what pieces of eight are
- where the word cabal comes from
- Isaac Newton was a loony
- natural philosophers did very unpleasant things to dogs in the mid 1600s
Aside from being educational, the book is also fascinating, impressively detailed and beautifully written. Stephenson has a wonderful turn of phrase, and it's been a while since I've been consistently delighted by the language and imagery of a new book. Also, anybody who can sustain a plot (especially one as complex and historically rich as this one) for 900 pages has my respect. He brings the people and society of the periods he writes about vividly to life and I'm certainly keen to find out what happens next.
There's so much to it that it takes a lot of concentration to read it (at least for me) but, so far, it's well worth the time and effort. There are aspects of the plot that are somewhat absurd, but I'm very glad of them as otherwise I think I would find the whole thing a bit too weighty. Of course, it probably helps if you have some knowledge of the 17th century, as I'm not always certain which characters are real historical figures and which are fictional, but that hasn't lessened my enjoyment of the book, except perhaps by highlighting my criminal ignorance of history.
It only remains to be seen if I will be quite so enthusiastic in 700 pages' time!
The others!
Date: 2005-10-09 11:32 am (UTC)Have you read any of his others? Snowcrash, Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon are quite amazing, I loved them all, so detailed. Snowcrash especially paints a frigthening realistic vision of a capalist world without governments. Do you know how it compares?
Also, Amazon reckons that Quicksilver is just the first of a triology, that also forms the backdrop to Cryptonomicon, so there could be a few thousand more words to go, if you felt like it!
Simon