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David reads Cryptonomicon
Cryptonomicon, like Fight Club, is one of these books that a lot of my chums have raved about to me and so eventually I thought I’d get around to reading it to see if it lived up to the hype. Unfortunately, like Fight Club, having read it I really can’t see what all the fuss was about. It’s a pretty solid tome, and so based upon my usual ‘by the kilo’ method of choosing reading matter a good buy. Certainly if exhaustive research, mathematic obsession, and plenty of spare time were enough to write a book, then Neal Stephenson would have written one of the great books of the last century. However he hasn’t, because writing a great book requires more than that. I’m not saying that it’s a bad book; in fact it has moments of brilliance – but it also had some catastrophic weaknesses, at least for this reader. The four primary ones I’ll list here:
1) The book relies almost on entirely on massive coincidence to advance the plot. So-and-so is a blood relative of so-and-so who knows so-and-so’s grandfather by chance and who just happened to find a over a ton of Nazi gold sitting in the jungle (like you do)…and so on. It doesn’t so much require suspension of disbelief as it requires that disbelief be trundled to the nearest gibbet and put out of its misery in order to let some of the plot-essential coincidences fly.
2) Characterisation, or lack thereof. The overriding theme of the novel is that everything, from human interactions to patterns of waves on the beach, is a vector for the transfer of information and the characters are simply active vectors of one form or another: they collect, collate, interpret, skew, obfuscate and act upon information and as a part of that process none of them require a personality. In fact, a personality would positively inhibit their ability to advance the plot.
The female characters are the least convincing. They are uniformly ciphers (pun intended) who are not only all improbably beautiful, but also they’re all wildly sexually attracted to men who are strong on mathematical ability but weak on social skills.
I don’t know about you, but my life has been remarkably short of encounters with real women like that.
3) It is a truism that nothing dates faster than the cutting edge. We now live in a world where even a fat luddite like me can not only create a web-based data system but also make money out of it, and so to have lead characters talking impressive-sounding techno-wank at each other in lengthy info dumps about doing just that – and make it sound is if they’re doing something exciting and impressive by doing so – simply dates the book as being charmingly quaint and twentieth century.
4) Inconsistency of tone. We lurch from serious digressions about the mathematical structure of crypto-analysis to astonishingly inept ‘comedic’ scenes (example: a parody of the Hebridean Islands, where all the locals speak a humourously incomprehensible dialect comprised entirely of consonants. Oh, how my sides ached).
Of course, it isn’t all weaknesses. It’s just that the weaknesses - for me anyway - are impossible to ignore. The amount of creative energy and obsessive research which has gone into the book mark it out as a remarkable achievement. However, I learned nothing about information transfer, cryptography and the history of computational development which I hadn’t already picked up from other, far more interesting and readable sources (Douglas Hofstadter is a great place to start, and even Dorothy L Sayers gives an interesting primer into codebreaking in ‘Have his Carcase’).
I’d like to like this book. Really I would. It’s impressive, well researched, intricately plotted, and jolly thick to boot. It’s just a shame that the flaws are too great to ignore and let the book wash over me.
Let’s face it, calling a major character ‘Bobby Shaftoe’ for no apparent reason other than as a crap joke (even if he does go to sea and then come back intending to marry me) is a sure-fire way of yanking the reader out of the narrative, slapping them about the chops and reminding them that it’s all just made up.
Conclusion: remarkably strong research, intricate plotting, but characterisation and dialogue of a standard so low George Lucas would blush to have written it.
1) The book relies almost on entirely on massive coincidence to advance the plot. So-and-so is a blood relative of so-and-so who knows so-and-so’s grandfather by chance and who just happened to find a over a ton of Nazi gold sitting in the jungle (like you do)…and so on. It doesn’t so much require suspension of disbelief as it requires that disbelief be trundled to the nearest gibbet and put out of its misery in order to let some of the plot-essential coincidences fly.
2) Characterisation, or lack thereof. The overriding theme of the novel is that everything, from human interactions to patterns of waves on the beach, is a vector for the transfer of information and the characters are simply active vectors of one form or another: they collect, collate, interpret, skew, obfuscate and act upon information and as a part of that process none of them require a personality. In fact, a personality would positively inhibit their ability to advance the plot.
The female characters are the least convincing. They are uniformly ciphers (pun intended) who are not only all improbably beautiful, but also they’re all wildly sexually attracted to men who are strong on mathematical ability but weak on social skills.
I don’t know about you, but my life has been remarkably short of encounters with real women like that.
3) It is a truism that nothing dates faster than the cutting edge. We now live in a world where even a fat luddite like me can not only create a web-based data system but also make money out of it, and so to have lead characters talking impressive-sounding techno-wank at each other in lengthy info dumps about doing just that – and make it sound is if they’re doing something exciting and impressive by doing so – simply dates the book as being charmingly quaint and twentieth century.
4) Inconsistency of tone. We lurch from serious digressions about the mathematical structure of crypto-analysis to astonishingly inept ‘comedic’ scenes (example: a parody of the Hebridean Islands, where all the locals speak a humourously incomprehensible dialect comprised entirely of consonants. Oh, how my sides ached).
Of course, it isn’t all weaknesses. It’s just that the weaknesses - for me anyway - are impossible to ignore. The amount of creative energy and obsessive research which has gone into the book mark it out as a remarkable achievement. However, I learned nothing about information transfer, cryptography and the history of computational development which I hadn’t already picked up from other, far more interesting and readable sources (Douglas Hofstadter is a great place to start, and even Dorothy L Sayers gives an interesting primer into codebreaking in ‘Have his Carcase’).
I’d like to like this book. Really I would. It’s impressive, well researched, intricately plotted, and jolly thick to boot. It’s just a shame that the flaws are too great to ignore and let the book wash over me.
Let’s face it, calling a major character ‘Bobby Shaftoe’ for no apparent reason other than as a crap joke (even if he does go to sea and then come back intending to marry me) is a sure-fire way of yanking the reader out of the narrative, slapping them about the chops and reminding them that it’s all just made up.
Conclusion: remarkably strong research, intricate plotting, but characterisation and dialogue of a standard so low George Lucas would blush to have written it.
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1) Surely that's true of all stories? If Wimsey hadn't been friends with Parker, he'd never have heard of Harriet. If Miss Climpson hadn't been in that tea shop at the right time, she wouldn't have found the will in time. Non-coincidental meetings are unnecessary tangents in many stories,a nd it takes a *very* good writer to make them non-irritations.
2) I thought the cipher-like personalities part of the story. *Shrugs* It seemed to work for me; and face it, most wildly skilled mathematicians are fairly cipher-like in their personality.
2i) Stephenson repeats personalities / character names / archetypes in many of his books. It's odd, but nice in a "Golly, they have Tetley teabags in Outer Mongolia!" kind of reassuring way. No relevance to your point, but more comment anyway.
2ii) And you never attract "real women like that" because you aren't wildly strong on mathematical ability :p
3) What's wrong with sounding dated? So is Sayers' work; that's reminiscent of the Thirties just as this is of the turn of the century.
4) I thought the tone shifted with pov & era. It certainly didn't irritate me.
As a thought (no insult intended) - did you actually sympathise / identify with any of the characters? I know I did (as did
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2) I dunno - thanks to H's circle of fiends I've met some quite startlinging clever people who usually seemed to be eccentrics more than cyphers.
2ii) Didn't say I didn't atract women like that - I said I've not met many :)
3) True enough. But then again, I'll never be a dapper gentleman 'tec, no matter how hard I try :)
4) I don't know about that - the interesting Crypto and the comedy Hebrideans were both from the 1940's Waterhouse POV - and they jarred against each other for my tastes. I have to say I almost stopped reading when the comedy scots appeared.
I didn't relate to any of the characters - the men all seemed at least borderline Aspergers, and the women would have been no less convincing if they'd bee replaced by girl-shaped cardboard cutouts with tape-recorders playing their dialogue.
And what was with the gunfight in the jungle at the end? Was it a reference to one of his other books I haven't read? It seemed to come from nowhere for no reason. I was completely confused by that.
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2) Much as if you're rich and odd you're eccentric, and if you're poor and odd you're crazy, they're eccentrics if you like them, and one-dimensional bores if you don't.
2ii) Unless you've taken to hanging around Imperial College, the best mathematicians you know are me, your brother and Jason. *That* should say everything necessary... :p
I disagree about the male characters. Possibly because pure maths is so hard to relate to unless you have the right mind for it? Remember, I made cassette compilations using the deg / min / sec function on my calculator - that seemed perfectly *right* to me, and I was astounded that nobody else did it. Being very, very talented at something doesn't mean Asperger's (not that you need telling that). Still, I can see why it might seem so more for a mathematician than for, say, a History genius.
Regarding the female characters, I think that's just a sign of the book being written by a man, and the women being viewed from the points of view of the male characters. Women authors seem much nmore willing to write average or dull female characters; male authors aim more for the extremes of comic-book gorgeousness, or Stephen King revulsion.
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I like authors who make me feel cleverer than most of the population :)
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Clearly the wooing Is failing. Without commenting on your use of "we sexy people", you *didn't* get into the sciences...
Maybe offering "one free girlfriend with every split atom" would get physicists to buck up their ideas?
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IMO, obviously.
*"If I were an electron, what would I do?"
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We agree that the subject can be sexy, and that the way it's put across to people can make the teacher appear sexy. But that's charisma rather than appearance (to risk dragging D&D into this and ruining all attempts to reconcile ot with attractiveness...). I want physicists (or engineers,or computer programmers, etc) who'd stop traffic or get wolf whistled on a red carpet. It's a shallow sexiness - wher you could show a photo to someone who'd never heard of $person and have them reply, "Gosh, they're all right, aren't they?".
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Back to my orignal review, you can hardly say that the characters in Cryptonomicon matched your criteria, can you? I mean, the 1990's Waterhouse, from his description, seemed as fat & beardy a computer geek as you would find in any of the more pungent corners of GenCon - another reason I couldn't relate to him as a character.
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The best mathematician I know is probably Anthony, who not only has an enourmous, pulsating brain, but is also possessed of tremendous social skills and is a peer of the realm.
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This is a bit disappointing, as I thought Snowcrash and The Diamond Age were well worth reading -- but since then it seems to have been one steaming heap of smuggery after another, each more irritating than the last.
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1. the cycle is a pretty good rollicking read
2. I will lend them to you so its FREE!
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I was loaned the hardcover of Cryptonomicon just long enough to get hooked. The hardcover wasn't available at any of the local shops by the time I went to get it, and my softcover is on loan in Seattle.
I will most likely get the first book of the cycle shortly, but I'll have to buy those. (Yes, I haven't actually read them, but I had a nudge to "pay attention to _______," and wondered how anyone would think I could've missed that.)
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except maybe Richard Hammond and David Tennant, an hotel room, 12 hours and a vat of condensed milkno subject
(Anonymous) 2005-06-27 06:04 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
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(Anonymous) 2005-06-29 04:30 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
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(Anonymous) 2005-07-01 02:41 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
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(Anonymous) 2005-07-03 11:13 pm (UTC)(link)Suffer more, yeah.
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Profoundly disappointing, especially as I thought he was leading up to something.
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N
ps will be friending you because the post above made me bust a gut laughing.