Sign in with Facebook
Conrad's Reviews > Cryptonomicon
Cryptonomicon
by
by
My friend Stuart's reading this and I stupidly started spoiling one of the best lines in the book (it pops up as Shaftoe's motto) and he was mildly irritated with me. Fortunately for him, he is vastly smarter than me so while he was quite generously acting annoyed he was probably thinking to himself, "Maybe one day I will spoil math and engineering and the details of Riemann zeta functions for Conrad." Now I'm rereading it out of sympathy and it's even better than I remembered.
Anyway, while I haven't yet approached the implosion that I know is coming toward the end, I am really even more impressed at the catholicity of Stephenson's concerns than I was the first time I read the book. He has insightful things to say about information theory, natch, but also Tolkein, postmodern literary criticism (OK, he's a little reactionary about this, but he's also right), the wisdom of joining the Marines, childrearing, Filipino architecture and urban planning, facial hair (can you tell I love Randy's diatribes about Charlene?), Ronald Reagan, the assassination of Yamamoto and associated dilemmas of cryptanalysis, Papuan eating habits, the 90s networking bubble...
If you don't like writers who have something interesting to say about everything, I don't know why you read. If it bothers you that Neal Stephenson uses his characters as mouthpieces to voice his well-considered opinions on everything from the prospects of economic growth measured against the likelihood of revolution in the Philippines, for example, to the details of Japanese tunneldigging, then you might as well settle in with your Danielle Steele and be done with it. Stephenson knows a lot about everything, and that's unusual and should be treasured. As a stylist, he's no Hemingway. His stories have beginnings and middles but the ends are usually catastrophically bad. So what? He reveals enough about his subjects that you usually leave his books behind with the feeling that your brain is now fused in a slightly different way. And good for Neal Stephenson, and good for us.
Anyway, while I haven't yet approached the implosion that I know is coming toward the end, I am really even more impressed at the catholicity of Stephenson's concerns than I was the first time I read the book. He has insightful things to say about information theory, natch, but also Tolkein, postmodern literary criticism (OK, he's a little reactionary about this, but he's also right), the wisdom of joining the Marines, childrearing, Filipino architecture and urban planning, facial hair (can you tell I love Randy's diatribes about Charlene?), Ronald Reagan, the assassination of Yamamoto and associated dilemmas of cryptanalysis, Papuan eating habits, the 90s networking bubble...
If you don't like writers who have something interesting to say about everything, I don't know why you read. If it bothers you that Neal Stephenson uses his characters as mouthpieces to voice his well-considered opinions on everything from the prospects of economic growth measured against the likelihood of revolution in the Philippines, for example, to the details of Japanese tunneldigging, then you might as well settle in with your Danielle Steele and be done with it. Stephenson knows a lot about everything, and that's unusual and should be treasured. As a stylist, he's no Hemingway. His stories have beginnings and middles but the ends are usually catastrophically bad. So what? He reveals enough about his subjects that you usually leave his books behind with the feeling that your brain is now fused in a slightly different way. And good for Neal Stephenson, and good for us.
Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read
Cryptonomicon.
Sign In »
Quotes Conrad Liked
Reading Progress
Comments Showing 1-8 of 8 (8 new)
date
newest »
newest »
Yeah, I guess my remark about Steele was a little ill-considered. Sorry. I'm just a little surprised that anyone doesn't like this, though, because reading it for the narrative misses the trees for the forest, I guess. Despite that, Cryptonomicon's far from an infodump, though, much as the Buh-roke Trilogy might be. People compare Stephenson to Pynchon because they both write about WWII, but I think he's a lot more like Dumas. I just really appreciate the vivacity of his prose, his many outlandish but ingenious metaphors (definitely the first writer to compare anything to a miasma of ipecac, and gets my vote for that reason), his chattiness and hyperbole, and that there's nothing too minute to reward his attention.I guess I can't tell you Stephenson eventually ties everything together because in some ways he really doesn't, but he does eventually tug at the heartstrings in a way that he doesn't toward the beginning. I found his single long work of nonfiction a lot more closely reasoned (read: wonkish) than his character's inner monologues in Crypto or Snow Crash, but it suffered from being even more opinionated without being as anarchic.
And I'm really torn between agreeing with Mulzer that you're pretty darn smart and defending Stuart as being vastly smarter than most of the world, as I am married to him and thus contractually obliged to do so.Maybe this should be decided by sudden death scrabulous.
oh, yes, that's it exactly. Stephenson is totally the techno-Dumas. and i *loved* the book exactly for those verbose random tangents.
Sorry to blunder into your review, but I felt something quite akin to Michael's description. Despite admiring Mr. Stephenson's skill and knowledge, I think he exaggerated a bit, sounding sometimes a bit arrogant (not the adequate word, my feelings were lighter than that) if you get my meaning. Matter of taste of course, as a good friend already pointed out, disagreeing loudly of my opinion. Anyway the book deserves reading, just swallow the extra fat. :)
Great review, Conrad, by the way.
Cheers,
Eduardo
Great review. Great comments. Great book!
"His stories have beginnings and middles but the ends are usually catastrophically bad." I could not agree more, thinking about it. But luckily his books (the ones I've read) has been about the path, not the ending so I
have not really cared.
Exactly. His novels read like they were written on amphetamines, and he eventually runs out of gas, but it is always an interesting ride.
That said, I'm going to try this one again. I just need to think of it as something other than a novel, maybe--an egotistical one-man show, a Michener for the modern age. Enough people I know love this guy that he deserves another shot, even if their praise smacks of cultism. My ever-lasting wish that he would get out of the way of his stories is probably just because of my utter d!e!v!o!t!i!o!n! to the swoony novels of Ms. Steele.
(Oh, and sorry about the finals of fantasy football.)