Signal & Noise: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A good novel -- but I wonder how much history.
Review: Few things satisfy like a well-written, engrossing, factually dense historical novel. As a lover of both history and fiction, I find such books scratch two itches simultaneously, making the history far more memorable by being told through clever story, and assuaging one's guilt for reading novels (as opposed to, say, mowing the lawn) with the self-explanation (or is it delusion) that one is really learning something.

John Griesemer's Signal and Noise, a novel about the laying of the trans-Atlantic cable in the 1850's and 1860's fits the bill nicely. Greieser nicely sets forth both the technology and finances (much of the plot follows a sort of circus side-show put together to impress prospective investors), while doing so in the context of mesmerism, illicit loves, the American Civil War, and derring-do. Gresemer manages a large, but not overwhelming, cast of characters and an extended scope of both time (twenty years) and distance (both England and North America) in a way that both moves the story briskly and explicates his history.

Where Griesemer falls down - and this is not a small frustration - is his failure to provide any sort of "Forward" or "Author's Note" explaining for the reader which characters and events were real, and which were made up for purposes of story and drama. Such omission in a historical novel is close to unforgivable; I do not know whether only his dates are to be trusted (if even those) , whether the cable failed as many times and for the reasons Greisemer's characters suggest, and whether any (or all) of his characters were "real" or based on historical personages. Taken on its face, and without taking into account its "historical" nature, I give Signal and Noise high marks for plot, character and writing. As a purportedly "historical" novel, however, Griesemer's book frustratingly leaves more questions than answers.

Rating:
Summary: A Remarkable Epic
Review: I couldn't b elieve I could be so captivated by what is considedred to be an "epic" novel. I just want to say that the characters were fully drawn, I cared so much about them, the adventures were awesome, and the writing was exceptional. I f you want a book to savor over a period of time, just go ahead and enjoy Signals & Noise....truly terrific.

Rating:
Summary: one of the better books this year
Review: it's always a pleasure to jump into a book that decides to take on so much. In this case, the laying of the transatlantic cable, the Civil War, the sewage plight of London, the spiritualist fad, and then more personally, grief over the death of a child, failed marriages, falls from a height, and more. There is a wealth of plot and an even greater wealth of character and Griesemer succeeds in handling it all with ease and aplomb. The history and technological details are interesting in their own right, but they never overshadow the characters and their own stories. Griesemer takes his time in this work and therefore everything that happens to these characters, everything that serves to make us laugh or moves us or surprises us is earned. In such a large, sprawling work it would have been easy to have entire sections weaker than others, but that is not the case. The book holds at a high level from beginning to end. One of the best reads I've had this year.