Stephenson – Baroque Cycle

Stephenson, Neal

Quicksilver. New York: William Morrow, 2003. 927pp.

The Confusion. New York: William Morrow, 2004. 815 pp.

The System of the World. New York: William Morrow, 2004. 892 pp.

I finally finished Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle.
wow

This has been somewhat of an epic undertaking for me; I’ve been working my way through the Baroque Cycle during my lunch hours at work – an hour a day, five days a week – & have been doing so since some time in November. 2,600+ pages of dense prose where not a single word is wasted. I literally hung on every sentence – savoring each paragraph. Stephenson’s monumental work is worthy of every bit of praise you’ve read & much, much more.

But I get ahead of myself.

The Baroque Cycle is a 9 volume work split up into 3 books; Quicksilver, The Confusion & The System of the World. I heard about it through i09’s 20 Best Science Fiction of the Decade List. However, it doesn’t really feel like science fiction. It reads like historical fiction. Dense historical fiction. The ‘science fiction’ portions are subtle. In fact, if you the reader want to believe, as many of the characters themselves do, that the extraordinary elements of the story are all just fictions or coincidences, it would be easy to do so. The story takes us from the middle of the 17^th century through the first couple of decades of the 18^th – & bears witness to many monumental acts of history, but is chiefly concerned with the birth & flowering of the Enlightenment. Though the main characters are fictitious, the story includes such Baroque luminaries as Isaac Newton (who, because of Stephenson’s depiction, I have Taken a Disliking To), Louis XIV (to whom, for similar reasons, I am now Fond Of), Gottfired Liebniz & Robert Hooke (both of whom now top my Favorite Natural Philosophers Ever list), & Charles II (towards whom my emotional response remains pretty much unchanged). The main characters include: Daniel Waterhouse; the son of a (fictional) puritan radical, friend of Isaac Newton & esteemed natural philosopher; Eliza; a former slave girl & commercial genius; & Jack Shaftoe, a noted Vagabond. Through the lens of Daniel, Stephenson examines English religion & politics & the birth of modern science. Eliza’s character explores the end of mercantilism, cryptography, & Baroque nobility & Jack literally circumnavigates the globe; showing us glimpses of the late 17^th-century Europe, the Middle East, India & America – then returning to England to delve into numismatics.

And yet, somehow, though Stephenson is inundating us with all these facts, we’re thoroughly distracted by a hugely entertaining story along the way.

Rarely did I put The Baroque Cycle down without wanting to look something up; was that real or did Stephenson make it up? As Mark Twain predicted, most of the really weird stuff is real. Stephenson’s use of language is a pure delight & he presents a wonderful variety of words that we take for granted as they might first have been used – investing the simply idea of a clue (a “clew”) with a whole weight of meaning that I had never even before considered.

As I write, I realize that I could go on & on & on about how great this story is, so instead I’ll wrap it up with this:

Now that I’m finished, I find myself in withdrawal – The Baroque Cycle is one of those rare epic stories that we stumble upon by chance, but that completely takes us along for the ride. I stretched it out as long as I could – I really didn’t want it to end. When it did, I had become so emotionally invested in the characters that if it hadn’t ended well… well, I don’t know what I would have done. I would have been crushed. I can think of no complement so great as to say this: Daniel, Jack & Eliza have become as enduring & iconic to me as any literary figure I can think of. They’re as moving as Romeo & Juliet & as compelling as Captain Ahab. They are characters I will carry with me for the rest of my life; vital, moving & unforgettable.