September 24, 2003

Wiksilver

Posted by Henry

Eugene Volokh sez

Work? Blogging? Sleep? Or Quicksilver? I say Quicksilver.

Quicksilver junkies will want to know about the Quicksilver Wiki that Neal Stephenson has set up, which will allow people collectively to annotate the book, its characters, ideas, and whatever odd tangents they find interesting. Via BoingBoing.

Posted on September 24, 2003 01:23 PM UTC
Comments

And I say “Quicksilver”, meaning the bike messenger movie starring Kevin Bacon.

Posted by Norbizness · September 24, 2003 01:56 PM

I’d like to turn this comment-thread into a referendum on Stephenson’s literary value. My initial impression: vastly overrated.

Posted by Chun the Unavoidable · September 24, 2003 08:44 PM

Chun—

A (female) friend of mine describes Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon as “masturbatory nerdboy fiction. figuratively and literally.” Which perhaps supports your claim that Stephenson’s work has little literary value. However, it also supports a different claim: that his writing has plenty of entertainment value. And that’s all that it requires. Nobody’s trying to claim that Stephenson is the next Shakespeare or Dostoevsky. Read him and enjoy him, or go watch tv and let the rest of us read in peace.

Posted by Murph · September 24, 2003 11:03 PM

Murph,

You’ll note that I didn’t write that Stephenson has little literary value. Instead, I claimed that his literary value is highly overrated.

I don’t believe in a distinction between literary and entertainment value. Would you care to elaborate on what you think it is?

Posted by Chun the Unavoidable · September 24, 2003 11:10 PM

Everything is overrated if you have an unusually high set of expectations. Stephenson is writing for a particular audience, is he not?

Posted by Shai · September 25, 2003 01:07 AM

No, Shai, as Dr. Johnson would remind you, he’s writing for money.

Posted by Chun the Unavoidable · September 25, 2003 01:48 AM

Count me as a vote for “absolutely appalling”. This is one of those things where I just have a completely different view from the rest of the world; not even entertainment value. He’s terrible. Just terrible. It’s like being cornered by a pub bore whose cousin was in the SAS and whose brother works for Slashdot.

Posted by dsquared · September 25, 2003 11:34 AM
Followups

→ New Streams.
Excerpt: Thanks to Random Garble, Rants, and Musings for turning me on to a whole sluice of information which started at What does place mean to the connected? proceeded to A New Set of Social Rules for a Newly WirelessSociety andRead more at City Comforts Blog

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.