Rating: 
Summary: I told you so! :-)
Review: I'm 80% done with Confusion, and I'm loving it! The success of this book rests on the much-maligned extensive exposition of its predecessor Quicksilver. Here in this book is the beginning of the payoff for wading through the exposition. I frequently find myself chortling over it: AHahhahahaha!!! There are a few dry sections, but they invariably end with a rich payoff, for example the statue that's planned in London for the Earl of Upnor! :-D To explain the "I told you so" title to this review, let me paste in my review of Quicksilver:
------------------
Quicksilver is just the first third of the novel
Reviewer: Brian Hobson from Raleigh, NC United States
I have read most of Stephensons previous work, I have read Cryptonomicon three times, and I just finished my second reading of Quicksilver. I have also read a lot of reviews here, many of them from people who loved Cryptonomicon but did not like Quicksilver. I might be able to provide a little perspective. One of the reasons I like Neal Stephenson as a writer is that his books are not an easy read, they are a bit of a challenge. I consult a dictionary more often when reading Stephenson than any other author I can think of. Cryptonomicon was NOT an easy read; it would have been very easy to put it down in the first 25 pages and it didn't really get rolling until after page 300, after the first third. The first third of Cryptonimicon was a lot of exposition and character development which was necessary to the unfolding of the story. Readers who got through that first third were rewarded immensely in the latter two-thirds of the book. I remind you that Quicksilver is the first third of the Baroque Cycle. It is stuffed full of exposition and character, somewhat to its detriment as a stand-alone book, but I submit to you that this is necessary to the unfolding of the story of the Baroque Cycle as a whole. After reading Quicksilver the first time I read some historical non-fiction about Cromwell, The Bourbons and the Stuarts, and an excellent biography of Isaac Newton that examined his explorations in Alchemy. I appreciated Quicksilver more on the second read with this better background; I understood better how well-researched Stephenson is and I was better able to absorb the story he is trying to tell. Remember Cryptonomicon: Stephenson is teaching us about the origins of modern computers. The lesson is not an easy one and requires some effort of its readers. In my opinion the negative reviews reflect not a weakness in the book but rather a weakness or impatience in the reader. Be patient, complete the cycle. I am confident that you will be rewarded for your efforts.
------------------ Sit back, enjoy your reward!
Rating:
Summary: If you've got the attention span, it's worth your attention
Review: If Daniel Boorstin, Tom Clancy and C. S. Forester had decided to collaborate on an epic novel, this would have been it, except they wouldn't have written one as racy as this one is. As made clear in "Cryptonomicon," Stephenson loves parallelism. This volume of "The Baroque Cycle" is two parallel but intertwined tales:
- one of The Cabal, a polyglot group of a group of one-time galley slaves who risk everything as they transport a cargo of gold literally around the world
- the other of The Junto, a pan-European collection of royalty, savants and merchants who accidentally devise the modern banking system in order to transport money without moving metal. Don't read these books if you're looking for subtle character studies (though there are some subtle and witty conversations to decode). However, if you've the kind of mind that's interested in everything and how it got that way, if you enjoy a hell-for-leather tale (or two) set in exotic locales and times, or if you like to watch a brilliant literary stylist construct a story as carefully structured as a well-done sonnet, then buy this book and set aside enough time to savor it.
Rating:
Summary: A Stunning Work
Review: It's rare to come across a work of such scope and depth, which challenges the reader, while remaining entertaining, and keeps up the pace for nearly over 800 pages, but the latest volume of The Baroque Cycle does all that, and does it with style. I've nearly finished it, and am already pining that it's almost over. Stephenson tells a story that is enormously complex. I admit to getting a bit lost at times regarding who's who amongst the minor characters, and occasionally being baffled by a plot thread or two. But the occasional 'confusion' just made me want to read more. Like admiring a work of baroque art, the mind cannot comprehend all the details at once: careful scrutiny is required. However, I often found myself too excited by the narrative to pause and gather my wits. Which is allright, because Stephenson has a knack for gracefully reminding the reader of what he may have missed. The structure of the tale is broken up, as the author explains in the preface, into two seperate books, interleaved with one another for the sake of clarity over continuity. But those "books" are woven together like warp and weft, forming an elegant brocade which, if seperated into its component parts, would leave us with something far less admirable. "The Confusion" is all at once an exciting adventure, an historical treatise, an exploration of the rebirth of science, a love story, a mystery, etc., and each of these is handled with enormous skill. Stephenson has written some of the most exciting pages I've ever read, and likewise some of the most intriguing and informative. I simply cannot recommend this book (and its predecessor, "Quicksilver") enough.
Rating:
Summary: A rich, enthralling adventurous book
Review: Neal Stephenson is at its finest, here. The charachterization, the storytelling, the historical reconstruction, are superb. You get to feel there, in the historical period, along with Jack and Eliza and the other wonderful charachters. Recommended for the lovers of historical novels, particularly the history of science (albeit even romance and adventure have their part,here).You'll get to know Newton and Leibniz as you never knew them, between a stormy voyages, amorous intrigues and treasure hunts. A masterpiece!
Rating:
Summary: Buckling your Swashes Like Crazy
Review: Neal Stephenson is definitely a writer whose brain is so busy that he has to wear a cap with little aluminum cooling fins sticking out. I couldn't more strongly recommend the "Barock Trilogy" for any American who would like to learn more about this convoluted and corrugated time of world history, but from a more modern perspective -- as well as have a good time doing it. This guy is a James Michener with an attitude, a Leon Uris with a fake nose/moustache.
As always, I felt that Neal's writing is more about events and ideas than about feelings; he is not an extremely sympathetic writer, and so his characters all share a tendency to talk much like a bright cyberpunk writer after his first double espresso of the day. The humor is brilliant, ever-present, and nervy. The fresh ideas jump out of every page. But a Dostoesvsky he is not.
Bearing that little caveat in mind, and focusing on the events of the story and the turbulent time in which you find yourself, along with "Half-Cocked" Jack, Eliza, and Daniel Waterhouse (the man fortunate enough to be Isaac Newton's college room-mate, or unfortunate as the case may be,) this is one grand adventure, steeped so thoroughly in historical details as to provide a better general education in world history than many factual texts, and also providing a general essay on the history of finance, even making it fascinating to us art majors. (Quite an accomplishment there.)
Largely the backdrop of this novel is a Europe ripped by its growth from feudal aristocracies into more modern institutions. It is becoming apparent that the mad obsession with gold which to a great extent drove the colonization of the Americas has some underlying occult motivations. Just what is this occult fascination, and how deeply does it pervade the controlling nobility at the turn of the 18th Century, is the question begging to be answered in the last novel, which I have yet to purchase here at Amazon.
The novel is also a 17th-18th C world tour taken by Half-Cocked Jack Shaftoe, our protagonist vagabond/trader/pirate, whose misadventures keep sending him further east, through all of Egypt, Asia, the Americas (all through the eyes of a bright young cyberpunk novelist working on his second double espresso.) Swords, sorcery (or sham sorcery, if you know Jack) pirates, plenty of dancing and fighting.
And I did once read or hear Neal say that an overall theme of this trilogy involves the idea that taking a hands-on approach to life, the universe, and everything, is the root of all true genius. I could hardly think of a more inspirational message for any book to give to a young person who has a growing mind, or really to any person at all.
This book has a handful of rather adult language and scenes, but Neal is definitely not focused on sex or violence. It's more that a somewhat adult mind is required to understand some of what is going on, and a rather well-read one too.
Rating:
Summary: Masterful book
Review: Not much to add to what everyone else has said; for those of you who recognised the promise of Quicksilver, it pays of here, and for those who didn't, I'd perhaps give Stephenson a second chance. However, what other book can transform the image of French 18th century nobility sitting around, playing cards, into an hysterical comic scene and a lesson into market forces and financing? For that reason alone, this is worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: The sequel to Quicksilver is here!,
Review: Stephenson's very long historical novel, the sequel to Quicksilver is here! Confusion courses with Stephenson's scholarship but is rarely bogged down with too much historical detail. Stephenson is especially impressive in his ability to represent dialogue over the evolving worldview of seventeenth-century scientists and enliven the most abstruse explanation of theory. Though replete with science, the novel is as much about the complex struggles for political ascendancy and the workings of financial markets. Further, the novel's literary ambitions match its physical size. Stephenson narrates through epistolary chapters, fragments of plays and poems, journal entries, maps, drawings, genealogic tables, and copious contemporary epigrams. Stephenson has matched ambition to execution, and his faithful, durable readers will be both entertained and richly rewarded with a practicum in Baroque science, cypher, culture, and politics as the story continues. I'm always sad to finish long novels, because life seems so mundane afterward. For fun, if you are open minded and looking for those books begging for its pages to be turned...look no further. I just read a copy of Edgar Fouche's 'Alien Rapture,' which also blew me away. Perhaps, most of all, it was because Fouche was a Top Secret Black Program 'insider', whose credibility has been verified over and over. I also really liked Dan Brown's 'Angels and Demons.' Want to be shocked, check out Dr. Paul Hill's 'Unconventional Flying Objects,' which NASA tried to ban. The possibility of NASA and Government cover-ups makes truth stranger than fiction, which is based on someone's truth. Anyway great reading all.
Rating:
Summary: The Plot Thickens: Suprises: The characters develop.
Review: The book being reviewed here is one of three books which are from the Baroque Cycle Trilogy by Neal Stephenson. Since there does not yet appear to be one title under which I can post my review, I have triplicated this review and placed the same review under all three titles. The sequence is Quicksilver, The Confusion, and the System of the World.
I read voraciously of both fiction, non-fiction and that in-between category of historic fiction in which one can learn considerably about the age but still enjoy the plot of an ideal narrative, or, in the case of the Baroque Cycle, an intertwining of several narratives. In the last say, three years, I have read literally hundreds of books and I can unequivocally name the three most influential works (apart from "Postcards of Nursing," the one I wrote myself, of course,) during that period. They are the 20 Aubrey/Maturin historic novels of Patrick O'Brian, "Shantaram," by Gregory David Roberts, and the three books in the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson.
I find it hard to critique Stephenson's work. His writing and research genius is so far beyond my poor abilities that if I come across an aspect of his writing which gives me pause, I have to look to my own deficiencies rather than his. But nowhere did I find the book to be condescending. And the subtle (and not so subtle) humor was superb.
And the characters: Ah the characters. When I had finished the books, I felt I *knew* Isaac Newton, Leibniz, Hooke, and Wren. Half-Cocked Jack and Dappa were real to me. Eliza lived and breathed.
Also, I began to discover that I was beginning to understand the international monetary system and the trappings of power surrounding it. I began to appreciate the conventions of letter-writing, the mind set when years might go by between a correspondence and its reply. I felt I understood something of the tangled tapestries of royal affairs in the 18th century. I was transported. Utterly. Words fail me.
Each book in the trilogy was better written than its predecessor, and the first one was superb. When I was reading O'Brian's novels, and was on say, novel #5 in the series, I was in heaven, knowing that I had 15 and a half (so to speak) more novels to go. When I was finally finished with 20, I started grasping at straws. I went to see the movie which, to my delight, showed me something of the ship HMS Surprise, but to my extreme disappointment, miscast Maturin so badly that it robbed the film of its portrayal of one of the most complex characters in literature. I read the unfinished #21. Not enough. It was only when I came across Quicksilver that I began to let go of the O'Brian characters and came to "invest" in Stephenson's.
And yet, by the time I was halfway through the "System of the World," the final of the three books, I began anticipatory grieving. I knew I might not see these folks again in such a personal light. They had become my friends. The fact that I had already read Cryptonomicon, a work by Stephenson based in part on one of the descendants of Dr. Waterhouse, was not a consolation. I miss those folks. I will probably read the books again in a year or two, but until then, since O'Brian is dead, and since probably Roberts will not top his first novel, I will have to wait for another of Stephenson's books. By the way, and this is not a spoiler, the resolution of the Baroque Cycle is thoroughly complete and intensely satisfying. It's just too bad it's over.
Rating:
Summary: Really Awesome, but the not so awesome Quicksilver is first
Review: The Confusion follows two separate plots: that of the galley slave turned pirate Jack Shaftoe, and that of the off-and-on fabolously rich French noblewoman Eliza. As Stephenson leaves one plot to cover the next he leaves a cliffhanger, so you have to keep reading through the other plot to get back to the first and find out what happens. This isn't annoying or obvious since both novels are good and they tie in with each other - both are taking place simultaneously and Jack and Eliza have history together.
I eagerly read the prequel to this book, Ouicksilver, when it came out only to be bored and disillusioned. The earlier book drags, and in a 600+ page book, thats bad. This is the biggest flaw of The Confusion: I am not sure if someone could read The Confusion and know what was going on without first having read Quicksilver. The plot is pretty complex and I had read the setup. I think skipping Quicksilver could be done, but wouldn't be best for someone trying to read and enjoy.
The Confusion is an excellent historical science fiction novel. It is a very awesome book. However the previous book in the trilogy drags and would likely have to be read first. So there is a good book here, but you have to get to it via some route or other.
Rating:
Summary: A great Confusion that's entertaining
Review: The Confusion is a wry, sometimes serious, sweeping adventure story in which much of the action resembles a cross between The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Wall Street, with a bit of Master and Commander and The Three Musketeers thrown in. True, there are pages and pages of scientific discussions, as well as hints of building a computer, plus more financial dealings than Donald Trump could keep track of. There's also a tender and globetrotting love story that reminds one of a tragicomic Cold Mountain, as well as more gutsy, educated, daring women than can be found in either Tolkien or Jordan. There's Eliza, the female protagonist who makes Martha Stewart look like a homemaking hobbyist, the Satanist Duchess of Oyonnax, the brilliant precocious Princess Caroline, the pirate queen Kottakka and let's not leave out Jack Shaftoe and his gutsy band of slaves turned entrepreneurs.
To try to describe the plot in this review does the book an injustice. The battle scenes supply grit, blood and guts galore, the political and financial intrigues make our dot-com fueled stock market look tame and Bush and Kerry's economic plans straightforward. There are failed and successful invasions, battles over lost love, worries over budgets and currencies, battles on the high seas, and women and men seducing each other for king and country, and sometimes for love. There's even a custody battle. As the French say, plus ça change, plus ça reste la même chose.
Although I had not read the first volume, I found The Confusion not confusing, but a delightful linguistic and suspenseful alchemy by a master.
|
