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Sun, 9 May 2004

Quicksilver. Book One of the Baroque Cycle

— SjG @ 4:40 pm

Neal Stephenson, 2003, William Morrow Publisher

Gosh, what a mess. Stephenson dishes out nine hundred and forty-four pages of rambling story that take us hither and yon, romping around in and through history, and spares us no detail on the mechanics of … well, anything, really, whether it’s monetary systems, or European palace intrigue. It’s unfocused and goes off on countless side roads, from only some of which it beats its way back through the undergrowth.
And yet, it’s a fun ride. Stephenson’s greatest gift is also his greatest detriment. He loves storytelling, and this part of the telling reminds him of another story, which, half-way through, reminds him of another … and so on. Individually, these stories vary in quality between highly amusing and awfully contrived; woven together, they form a tapestry that is both fun and tremendously tiring. Really, with the aid of a good editor, this could have been a great book. It makes real some of the early characters (charicatures, perhaps) of early modern science and medicine and it paints a picture of European politics that feels plausible. As a historical novel, it provides context for many famous people, all the while winking and nodding anachronisms for the benefit of the science fiction fans who make up much of Stephenson’s fan base.
The Baroque Cycle is aptly named. In all, Quicksilver is probably best compared to one of Mad King Ludwig’s crazy baroque castles — there are individual pieces of it that are appealing, attractive, or fascinating, but as a whole it’s overwhelming and leaves you with a sense of squandered wealth.

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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

— SjG @ 4:39 pm

Mark Haddon, 2004, Vintage Press

“The first important book with an autistic hero” trumpets a review on the front jacket of this book. Yet by my reckoning, looking at the story from that standpoint would make it too easy to dismiss the book as a gimic. Hey — there haven’t been any popular novels told from the perspective of an autistic kid — what a niche! While this may have come into Haddon’s mind at some point, it would be missing the point to summarize the book thusly.
This is a story of discovery from the viewpoint of an unreliable narrator. The narrator is a boy discovering the circumstances of his parents’ marital troubles. That he is an autistic boy, and that his autism contributes to the tension and events, just makes the journey of discovery more complicated and more involved. That he’s high-functioning (as autistic boys go) makes the story tellable, and reduces the requirements for suspension of disbeleief; yet it could just have well been told from the perspective of some other clueless kid of around the same age, and still been a good story.
It’s an easy book to read, and has the added educational benefits of describing some of the characteristics of autism in a way that’s accessible and comprehensible. I found myself sympathetic to the narrator, even to the extent of his hatred of the color brown (which, after all, is too close to the dreaded color yellow).

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The Secret Life of Bees

— SjG @ 4:39 pm

Sue Monk Kidd, 2002, Penguin Books

I found this to be a strangely beautiful book, less for the larger plot arc, which was a little too pat for my taste, but for the richness of the characters and their indiosyncracies.
Kidd has a really good eye for ritual and people’s relationship to traditions. Some of the beekeeping rituals, like the draping of the hives in black after a death, seemed too natural to not be old traditions.

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