Comments on: Winged Mercury

By: Tom Runnacles

Tom Runnacles — Wed, 03 Dec 2003 20:55:30 +0000

Strangely enough, Stephenson was recommended to me just last week, and I’m now tearing through ‘Snow Crash’ and ‘Cryptonomicon’ in parallel – he’s absolutely amazing, and I look forward to ‘Quicksilver’. (I can’t help but admire a guy who puts Perl scripts into his novels. It’s clearly the right place for them.)

By: Mike Kozlowski

Mike Kozlowski — Wed, 03 Dec 2003 15:23:10 +0000

From where comes this bizarre notion that Stephenson can’t write realistic characters? Randy Waterhouse was one of the most spot-on, nuanced, and insightful portraits of a maturing adult geek that I’ve seen in fiction. Waterhouse in Quicksilver was a well-developed and realistic character, too; hell, most of the Royal Society members were drawn with superb deftness. I’m just not getting this complaint at all. (I do understand people who bitch that Quicksilver doesn’t have a plot, because… well, it doesn’t. It very much reads like fictionalized history, in which things happen at narratively inconvenient times, promising plot leads peter out, major characters die before their plot arc is done, and the storyline is just all over the damn place.)

By: Carlos

Carlos — Wed, 03 Dec 2003 06:51:30 +0000

Josh: I don’t think many people read Stephenson for psychological realism (though a few suspects come to mind), but I do think much of the disappointment many people have had with Quicksilver comes from unfulfilled expectations along those lines. Which is odd. The English language novel has been both historically and recently an overstuffed grab-bag freak show of weirdness. “Yeah, let’s put in a long digression on the semiotics of whiteness! Then a chapter done in the style of teenage girls’ magazine articles! Then a dream sequence about a harmonica falling down a toilet! Then some stuff about bears. White bears. A lot of stuff. If I should see a white bear, what should I say? If I should never see a white bear, what then? Did my father, mother, uncle, aunt, brothers or sisters, ever see a white bear? Is the white bear worth seeing? Is it better than a BLACK ONE?” Pass the Cap’n Crunch.

By: s.e.

s.e. — Wed, 03 Dec 2003 01:46:39 +0000

I think there are very real differences between invented systems and observed ones, as between rational systems and practical ones. I assume the world is more complex than any image we can make of it, so I’m interested in plotting the past before predicting the future. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think the assumption is that we’re not able to predict beyond a small number the the future impacts of a ball moving at a constant rate across the surface of a pool table. Makers of logical systems always seem to end up leaving things out of their equations. Rational actor theory; vulgar Marxism; Positivism; Objectivism; Modernist ~~as opposed to merely modern~~ architecture; science and speculative fiction; are all simplifications to be reapplied over complexity. The usual, historical, function of art is the opposite of this, to get bogged down in the details of observation and of what is being observed. Art and in a sense the study of history is predicated on a sort of Zeno’s paradox: From a detail, to a detail of a detail, to a detail of a detail of a detail, to a detail that is relevant to us but which may not have been important to… and on and on. That’s certainly Jane Austen’s relationship to her time. That’s the relationship of Shakespeare to his. Pick a name out of the past. The patterns are the same. I don’t think any Science Fiction novel, defined by the specifics of what is considered distinct in Sci Fi, will ever be as subtle ~~as intellectually subtle~~ or as historically important as Hamlet. Why is this so? What’s the difference? It’s that Shakespeare did not plan or ‘create’ or ‘design’ systems, he observed and twisted and played with the ones he knew. Religious and conservative critics of science understand this, but for reasons of dogma are unable to make their arguments in secular terms.

By: linsee

linsee — Wed, 03 Dec 2003 00:26:37 +0000

Try “An Instance of the Fingerpost” by Iain Pears for a philosophical mystery novel set in this intellectual period

By: CJ

CJ — Tue, 02 Dec 2003 22:08:25 +0000

Analytic phlilosophers prefer creation to observation? What does that mean? Also, what is a “witless Tolkien fan”?

By: s.e.

s.e. — Tue, 02 Dec 2003 20:37:31 +0000

phallacy?? I’m thinking too much. I’m sure this one will haunt me for a while

By: s.e.

s.e. — Tue, 02 Dec 2003 20:35:13 +0000

The question is not about whether novels are about characterization or not, but whether literary works- prose or poetry- are or ‘should be’ given the strengths and limitations of the medim about ideas divorced from the means of communication. Most novelists, whatever their subject, will tell you they’re interested primarily in language. The issue is one of form and content. Illustration is the presentation of information. Art is the creation of a unified whole according to the logic of the maker. ‘Artists’ ~~and scare quotes are needed here~~ whatever they may or may not say in public, in the end choose the creation of unity over the presentation of assumptions. Critics and historians supply meanings after the fact. The intentional phallacy rules supreme whether we like it or not. I’m no fan of Tolkien, or at least I don’t take him very seriously, any more than I take speculative fiction seriously. it’s all illustration of one sort or another. And Pynchon, by the way, although he is a big fan of illustration, is not an illustrator. I think analytical philosophers,and those in the sciences prefer creation to observation. It leads to their interest in art forms that are thought of as marginal within their field. Historians and writers prefer observation. I think think this is also a limitation of analytic philosophy itself.

By: Henry

Henry — Tue, 02 Dec 2003 20:06:07 +0000

Patrick – glad that it’s given you the heart to continue (for the record I’m a witless Tolkien fan too). Mind you, I’m fascinated by the history of science, so I was an easy sell for a book like this. Doug – I think that you’re right for the most part – but there’s an interesting genre of fiction that doesn’t have much in the way of characterization, but that succeeds on its own terms. Borges and Calvino are obvious candidates; in SF there’s Olaf Stapledon’s chillier stuff, which seems to me almost to constitute a genre of its own.

By: Josh

Josh — Tue, 02 Dec 2003 18:38:33 +0000

The immediate question that jumps out at me, if you are right in your description of the book’s intellectual intention, is whether a novel is the right format to make that attempt. Precisely. The core material Stephenson’s interested in doesn’t need the garnish the novel form gives it; it’s fascinating on its own. And it’s not like Stephenson has shown he can’t write interesting non-fiction. Carlos: there are people who read Stephenson for psychological realism? Oy.

By: Doug Turnbull

Doug Turnbull — Tue, 02 Dec 2003 14:31:47 +0000

The immediate question that jumps out at me, if you are right in your description of the book’s intellectual intention, is whether a novel is the right format to make that attempt. And, if it is, whether Stephenson has done a good job at it. I don’t think high intellectual aspirations frees a novelist from the responsibility for writing an interesting book with realistic characters, etc. The trick, if you want to be a good novelist, is to design a situation such that the ideas you want to explore flow out naturally from the behavior of the characters you’ve created, and such that the story you’re telling is interesting enough to draw in the reader. If you can’t manage that, then you’re just writing a bad novel with good ideas.

By: s.e

s.e — Tue, 02 Dec 2003 13:01:35 +0000

Is there a difference between art and illustration?

By: Nabakov

Nabakov — Tue, 02 Dec 2003 11:38:48 +0000

Hank babe, if I was the kind of person who wrote book reviews, that is exactly the kind of book review I’d write – and come to the same conclusion about the same book.

By: Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Patrick Nielsen Hayden — Tue, 02 Dec 2003 06:13:40 +0000

You’re giving me heart to continue. I bogged down somewhere shortly after the Great Fire of London, but I have to admit, if I’d been simply regarding it as nonfiction, I’d have continued. So I’ll do so. Of course, I am one of those witless Tolkien fans, so who knows what ghastly aesthetic enormities I might endorse.

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 02 Dec 2003 02:42:30 +0000

I think Mr. Stephenson can at least make a good go at tackling this invisible monster of a premis, maybe not as well as some but far better than many. While The Diamond Age was not well recieved I thought it was brilliant and I have dreams about Snow Crash.