I’ve just finished Neal Stephenson’s The Confusion, the second volume in a projected trilogy. It’s a lot of fun, albeit a bit more sporadic than the first - a little patchy in the usual fashion of the middle volumes of trilogies where nothing is resolved. Stephenson’s intentions for the trilogy are becoming clearer. He’s making an argument about the historical sources of modernity. In the first volume as I read it, the key passage asks about the nature of the whirlwind, the invisible force not only impelling social and economic change, but also transforming our understanding of who we are, and our place in the universe. In “The Confusion,” Stephenson begins to articulate his answer to this question, when he places Jack Shaftoe in an alley in Cairo, which is perhaps the oldest marketplace in the world.
For this alley was the womb at the center of the Mother of the World, the place where it had all started. The Messe of Linz and the House of the Golden Mercury in Leipzig and the Damplatz of Amsterdam were its young impetuous grandchildren. Like the eye of the hurricane, the alley was dead calm; but around it, he knew, revolved the global maelstrom of liquid silver. Here, there were no Dukes and no Vagabonds; every man was the same, as in the moment before he was born.
For Stephenson, as for many economic historians, the invisible whirlwind is the market. It acts as a Universal Solvent, dissolving social bonds, and uniting an unlikely congeries of characters (including a Vagabond, a Dutch captain, an Armenian, a crypto-Jew, an Electress and a pirate-queen) in the pursuit of wealth. It works further alchemy as King Solomon’s gold and the wellsprings of credit become one and the same thing. The creation of complex financial markets conjures money from thin air, just as alchemists sought to transform lead into gold.
Stephenson’s history is, quite literally, a Whig one - the Whigs and merchants who seek to uproot the rotten pilings of the feudal order are the heroes of his narrative. This has clear costs in terms of historical veracity - Stephenson glosses over the corruption endemic in Whig politics. Yet he continues to succeed in carrying off the difficult task of taking economic history seriously while maintaining an entertaining narrative. Recommended.
Rumour has it that Confusion is the book where Stephenson shows that he has learned how to write an ending. Is this true? I feel disinclined to take the plunge, and my copy remains unopened, until I know one way or the other what to expect…
Well, The Confusion is midway through a trilogy, so it’s a bit of a slingshot ending, as you’d only expect. We have to wait for The System of the World before we really find out if he’s managed to make the conceptual breakthrough of Proper Endings.
he continues to succeed in carrying off the difficult task of taking economic history seriously while maintaining an entertaining narrative.
That’s nice, I guess. Has he learned to write an ending, a believable female character, dialogue between male and female characters, or a love scene not worthy of Bulwar-Lytton yet?
Yes, I’m bitter about having bought Cryptonomicon in hardcover, why do you ask?
he continues to succeed in carrying off the difficult task of taking economic history seriously while maintaining an entertaining narrative.
That’s nice, I guess. Has he learned to write an ending, a believable female character, dialogue between male and female characters, or a love scene not worthy of Bulwar-Lytton yet?
Yes, I’m bitter about having bought Cryptonomicon in hardcover, why do you ask?
Hmm. Well, I was disappointed by the lack of Wadham scenes in Quicksilver, but also by the lack of even the vague waving-at-an-ending you might expect from a first book in a trilogy. So Confusion actually sounds better…
I suppose this once I have to allow the possibility that Whig history and SF might mix, despite my own remarks a few days ago, but I reserve the right to define Stephenson out of SF. His last few books seem to be begging for it. Either way, I guess this means I ought to actually pick up a copy of Quicksilver.
OK, so The Confusion is the second book of a trilogy starting with Cryptonomicon, and Quicksilver is the first book of a new trilogy, is that it? I don’t want to get 800 pages into a book and still be worrying how it fits in with the first volume….
I’ve always found the idea that in the market, no man is a duke or a vagabond, terribly amusing. Anybody who looks at those markets sees one thing — credit. And credit, for the individual purchaser, was all about character and connections. To pretend that markets are about the eternal present of a currency is one of the more peculiar forms of phallogocentrism.
I’ve always found the idea that in the market, no man is a duke or a vagabond, terribly amusing. Anybody who looks at those markets sees one thing — credit. And credit, for the individual purchaser, was all about character and connections. To pretend that markets are about the eternal present of a currency is one of the more peculiar forms of phallogocentrism.
Scott, you might want to read the Stephenson interview in today’s Salon where he states that he still considers himself a science fiction author (and the book review listed right after says he’s mutated from a science fiction author to an historial one.) I’m about 1/2 through Quicksilver, due to the fact that I now have a 2 year old and my concentration isn’t what it used to be. Hope to finish it by the time the last volume comes out!
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