-
03 November 2005
Thu, 03 Nov 2005 16:44:00 GMTThe Diamond Age
Neal Stephenson
Another excellent Neal Stephenson. Something about his novels just grabs me. I don’t know if it’s his severe techiness or his concurrent storylines or what, but after finishing the three I’ve read so far I’ve just been floored at how they ended up.
The book goes on about subverting the accepted culture. It takes place in a moderately future world, where enclaves have taken the place of countries, set by phyles (phylums?) organized by cultural/religous affiliation.
New Atlantis, up with the chinese and japanese phyles in terms of wealth and power, is host to a very proper society inspired by Victorian ideals. Very proper, Atlantans are embarrassingly chivalrous, and the Confucian, familial piety ideals dominate the two asian powerhouse societies.
Lord Finkle-McGraw, a very high ranking international (interphyllial) official, wants his granddaughter, Elizabeth, to be influenced by something other then her Atlantan peers and society. He commissions a project, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, which tells an interactive story with the point being to teach more then could ever be learned in school. To subvert the culture, and provide Elizabeth with what Finkle-McGraw was disappointed to have failed to pass on to his children.
What’s missing from traditional culture in Stephenson’s fantasy world is subtlety, the ability for children to handle ambiguity. They have their beliefs, and for the most part they life their life with those indoctrinated feelings sincerely without much thought.
But those who rebel and cast out their beliefs are little better then those who live a small minded existence with their culturally indoctrinated morals. Contradiction and ambiguity. Finkle-McGraw himself sees the obtuse insanity of his own culture only to enforce it and hope he can reveal it to a select few through his primer.
I couldn’t make much of an argument against the book, I loved it. I read through it quick, and couldn’t believe it finished when it did. I like how Stephenson cuts his novels short before any sort of conclusion is reached, I don’t know if he’s leaving room for secondary books or just wants to leave room for the imagination to come into play. Both I hope.
I think what makes Stephenson’s writing so engaging is that it’s just swimming in ideas. All of his books jump off with a technological idea – it was VR in Snow Crash and Cryptography in Cryptonomicon, nanotech here. They proceed to move along fairly quickly with good depth, with two or three concurrent plot lines.
My notes on Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, the two other Stephenson books I’ve read. I don’t know whether to continue with Zodiac or the Baroque Cycle, but the college library unfortunately doesn’t have either.
-
07 August 2005
Sun, 07 Aug 2005 09:47:00 GMTEnder's Game
Orson Scott Card
Somehow I managed to pick great books to read on my vacation. Ender’s Game is a fun novel about the life of a child prodigy bred in a military program to find a commander to win a war against the buggers, aliens from a far away galaxy who threaten the entire human existence.
-
Also somewhat recently
