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Sunday, Jul 5, 2009
Neal Stephenson's sprawling, intricate "System of the World" caps a vast trilogy of historical and philosophical splendors.
Sep 22, 2004 | Mount Stephenson is casting a shadow on my computer monitor: four giant works of fiction stacked on each other like the layers in a Titan's wedding cake. At the base, two imposing hardcovers, resplendent in their silver and tan jackets: "Quicksilver" and "The Confusion," Volumes 1 and 2 of "The Baroque Cycle." Then, up past the tree line, where the air begins to thin, one dog-eared galley, Volume 3, "The System of the World." Finally, at the summit, scraping the roof of heaven, a morbidly obese paperback, "Cryptonomicon."
I have weighed them: 11 pounds. I have added up the pages: 3,775. I have estimated, taking into consideration the different average number of words per page of hardcover, galley and paperback, a total word count just shy of 2 million.
I've read every one of those words, some of them more than once. As a Neal Stephenson fanboy dating back to the publication of 1988's "Zodiac" I have considered this my solemn duty and obligation. I have even, like the dot-com start-up execs in "Cryptonomicon," exercised careful due diligence. After completing "The Baroque Cycle's" three volumes of late 17th century adventure, intrigue and philosophy, I returned to 1999's "Cryptonomicon," to which the Cycle is a mighty prequel, just to make sure I hadn't missed anything.
This places me in possession of some hard-won, rare and very odd motes of Stephensonian trivia.
"The System of the World" (Vol. 3 of "The Baroque Cycle")
By Neal Stephenson
William Morrow
944 pages
Fiction
For instance, I am now cognizant that in both "Cryptonomicon" and "The System of the World," Stephenson devotes perhaps more attention than is proper to a sordid Greek mythological tryst in which Hephaestos attempts to rape Athena but succeeds only in ejaculating on her leg. Athena, we are told, wipes the semen off with a rag and squeezes it into Mother Earth, who then gives birth to Erichthonius, an early king of Athens, said to have introduced the world to the use of silver money.
If I was as clever as the author, I would use this recurring Erichthonian interlude as an opportunity to introduce several themes of Stephenson's recent work. Most obvious is his obsession with money, in all forms, whether as substantial as gold or as newfangled and wafty as credit. "The Baroque Cycle" lovingly details the birth of modern capitalism -- it is one of the many new "systems" featured in "The System of the World."
Less central to the plot, but equally inescapable, we see in Hephaestos' failed coitus evidence of Stephenson's mildly discombobulating passion for human bodily fluids. "The Baroque Cycle" does not devote as much space to male masturbation as does "Cryptonomicon," but this is more than made up for by frequent references to shit and piss and stinking sewers. Stephenson enjoys flinging turds -- and apparently, during the Enlightenment, there was plenty of ammunition at hand.
Finally, we must consider Athena, goddess of wisdom, and according to Enoch Root, the one recurring character in all four volumes, the muse of technology. Ever since his breakthrough novel, 1991's "Snow Crash," Stephenson has staked out a convincing role for himself as one of technology's most ardent poets, or propagandists, or prophets -- take your pick. It is no accident that "The System of the World" begins and ends with the invention of the steam engine, or that even in the early days of the 18th century, one of his characters is trying to build a computer. For Stephenson, technology has a clear spiritual force. If, as another of his characters declares, understanding how the world works brings us closer to God, then so too does making the world work for us, because that smoothly operating machine is the ultimate proof of our comprehension, of the world, and of God.
But really, I'm not that clever. Staring at my 11 pounds, 3,775 pages, roughly 2 million words of Stephensonia, I feel the queasiness of a boa constrictor who has rashly swallowed not one, not two, not three, but four water buffalo. This act of digestive hubris has paralyzed me. How is all this to be reduced to manageable size? Where does one begin? Stephenson doesn't just care about technology and money and excrement -- he cares about the intersection of God and science, the emergence of democracy, the rethinking of religion, the birth of the digital computer, and the abolition of slavery. All are mixed in with a love story, an action thriller, the search for Solomon's gold, an intellectual duel to the death between Gottfried Leibniz and Isaac Newton, and the rise and fall of kings and nations.
As I look back on my previous attempts to wrestle this herd of buffalo to a standstill, "clever" is not the word that springs to mind to characterize their sagacity. In my review of Volume 1, I said Stephenson didn't seem to care about plot. I was wrong. Plot abounds, and Volume 3 delivers a multilayered payoff that would not have been possible without the avid and thorough preparation wrought in Volumes 1 and 2. Villains get their comeuppance, true love perseveres, mysteries (well, most of them, anyway) are explained, a new world order is birthed, and the ending of it all is most satisfactory.
Furthermore, I implied in my review of Volume 2 that its focus on the exploits of Jack the Vagabond King and Eliza, the former harem slave turned Duchess of Qwghlm, made it more satisfying than Volume 1 because fewer pages were devoted to the natural philosopher Daniel Waterhouse, who, in Volume 1, was always mooning about, obsessed with free will and heresy and the architectural reimagining of London.
But Volume 3 is Waterhouse's revenge, and it is a triumph. If Jack is the ultimate man of action, then Daniel Waterhouse is the paradigmatic man of reason, the moral and technological core of "The Baroque Cycle," its true hero. Let us pause for a moment and let Stephenson do the writing. Listen to Waterhouse, the scion of royalty-beheading Puritans, account for himself to a courtier of the Princess of Hanover, who is about to ascend to the English throne.
"Listen to me. I did not wish to be summoned by your Princess. Summoned, I did not wish to come. But having been summoned, and having come, I mean to give a good account of myself. That's how I was taught by my father, and the men of his age who slew Kings and swept away not merely governments but whole Systems of Thought, like Khans of the mind."
Like Khans of the mind! A mere five words out of nearly 2 million, and yet they are minted of the purest gold. I stare at Mount Stephenson threatening to tumble down upon my keyboard, and my only wish is that it was higher still.
