-
04 November 2006
Sat, 04 Nov 2006 16:11:48 GMTQuicksilver
Neal Stephenson
There isn’t really much that I can say. Here’s some previous stuff on Stephenson, who’s hands down my favorite fiction writer.
I’m pissed that the last 35 pages of Quicksilver are the first chapter from the next in the series. The ending just ran up behind me and bashed me over the head. Not that it was stunning (a fault lots of people find with Stephenson’s books), but there was still a good chunk of pages between my right thumb and forefinger that threw me.
The second I got done with it I hopped onto amazon to order the next two. It’s been awhile since I’ve really read at a good pace, much less stuff as good as Stephenson. They pull you through just like pulp/trash novels do, but after reading a Dan Brown or a John Grisham you feel almost guilty because reading the book doesn’t really get you anything. I’ve read a few, and they all just blur together. (If you want, you can switch the pronoun you for me in the rest of this…)
Stephenson won’t just blow you away for the few days it takes to get through the book (I read 80 pages thursday, ~250 yesterday, and 100 today), but you can actually tell one of his novels from another. Which is a plus. I take it as a sign that they didn’t just rot my brain.
If I had to describe Quicksilver (I can’t), I’d say it was history/science/fiction. All three about balanced. Its going on in mid 17th century england, featuring scientists at the genesis of the Royal Society in London. Daniel Waterhouse makes friends with Netwon, Liebnitz, and plenty of other bigwigs; not to mention sails through a flotilla of pirates in the second, temporally distant plot line. I’m not describing any more than that, you should read it.
-
01 April 2006
Sat, 01 Apr 2006 18:54:00 GMTUtopia
Thomas More
The book in which the term utopia was first turned, a look at what was wrong with 16th century english society and how the hidden society of Utopos was better.
The book is a set of conversations between Raphael Hythloday (“peddler of nonsense”), a traveler who chanced upon the hidden society of Utopos and lived among it’s peoples for 5 years, and Thomas More, the author fictionalized within his own work.
Utopos is a society in which everybody is equal, everybody is made equal by the abolition of private property. Everyone has what they need drawn from the collective labor of the Utopians, so how could they possibly want anything more?
There are a few disturbing aspects to the society, thus the dubbing of the greek “u-topia” and “eu-topia” meaning no place and godly place. The thing about More’s Utopia is that there’s no way to get from here to there – ‘the institutions cannot be introduced unless they have already been introduced’ xv.
But actually, my dear More (to tell you what I really think), it seems to me that wherever there is private property, where everything is measured in terms of money, it is hardly ever possible for the common good to be served with justice and prosperity, unless you think justice is served when all the best things go to the worst people or that happiness is possible with everything is shared among very few, who themselves are not entirely happy, while the rest are plunged into misery. Hythloday, 46
For why should anyone be suspected of asking too much if he is certain the will never lack anything? Certainly fear of want makes all kinds of animals greedy and rapacious, but only mankind is made so by pride, which makes them consider their own glory enhanced if they excel others in displaying superfluous possessions; in the Utopian scheme of things there is no place for all for such a vice. 68
Indeed they are amazed that any mortal can take delight in the dubious sparkle of a tiny gem or precious stone when he can look at a star or even at the sun, or how anyone could be so insane as to imagine that he is nobler because of fine-spun woolen thread, since that wool (however fine-spun) was once worn by a sheep, which was at the same time nothing more than a sheep. 78
The utopian understanding of god:
unknown, eternal, infinite, inexplicable, diffused throughout this whole universe not physically but by his power, in a manner that is beyond human comprehension. 116
From my observation and experience of all the flourishing nations everywhere, what is taking place, so help me god, is nothing but a conspiracy of the rich, as it were, who look out for themselves under the pretext of serving the commonwealth. 132
-
Also somewhat recently
