What am I missing about Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver?

December 9, 2003 9:18 AM

Quicksilver. What am I missing? (more)
posted by heather to Media & Arts (13 answers total)

Response by poster: The first book had me gently snoozing, the end of the second book had me gnashing my teeth and by the third, I didn't much care. Is there much hope for Volume Two, The Confusion?

Oh, where for art thou Cryptonomicon?
posted by heather at 9:18 AM on December 9, 2003

With *all* Neal Stephenson books I've had this problem: The first few chapters are boring and confusing, and then about a quarter of the way into the book the story will suddenly grab me and I won't be able to put it down.

I had to put Quicksilver aside. It never grabbed me. I'm very interested in whether others ever got to the good part, or, since this is a three book trilogy, is the entire first book the preliminary boring part.
posted by y6y6y6 at 9:30 AM on December 9, 2003

Yeah. I didn't even make it to page 300. Now it sits on my floor, a tiny, expensive ottoman. Sometimes I do put my feet on it, and I think, "I paid thirty dollars for this mother." Then I look over at my copy of Cryptonomicon, and shout at the ottoman, "Why can't you be more like your brother?!"
posted by Skot at 9:39 AM on December 9, 2003 [1 favorite]

I don't have anything helpful to add here, but just needed to say that Skot had me laughing so much that my husband had to come over to see what was so funny...

I haven't been able to get my hands on Quicksilver yet (geographically challenged), but I've read Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash, and Diamond Age. Cryptonomicon is by far the best, but I also enjoyed Diamond Age for the nicely handled steampunk bits (especially the primer). I will read Quicksilver when I can, though, simply because after Cryptonomicon, I don't have a choice anymore; I have to read whatever Stephenson writes. Just in case.
posted by taz at 10:00 AM on December 9, 2003

I quite enjoyed Quicksilver. I'm not sure how to compare it to Cryptonomicon and Diamond Age, because they're completely different books, but I never felt particularly bored until I hit Eliza's long, long letters. That said, it was certainly a lot more harder-going to read than any of his previous novels.

Perhaps it's because I studied Natural Sciences at Trinity College, but I loved the feel and the description of the world and science in the 17th century. Makes me feel like I've learned something :)


posted by adrianhon at 10:22 AM on December 9, 2003

My review of Quicksilver (I put it in the last comment but buggered up the html).
posted by adrianhon at 10:23 AM on December 9, 2003

ed! ed! how can you compare my favorite book in the world to the dirge that is quicksilver! sigh.
posted by judith at 1:16 PM on December 9, 2003

I loved Quicksilver, it was just entertaining as hell to me and made me think and laugh out loud and sent me off in different directions researching stuff that piqued my interest. Pretty much the ideal reading experience. Don't forget the Quicksilver Wiki!!!
posted by vito90 at 1:24 PM on December 9, 2003 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: someone must promise me that jack isn't going to end up as jack ended up at the end of the second book.

it's not that i mind the length (though trying to read it in bed caused a few good thumps on the head when i nodded off)... it's all so... erm, grim. thank heaven it's not scratch and sniff!

then again, having just finished dark matter, i'm somewhat confused between that sane newton and quicksilver's less sane newton.
posted by heather at 2:25 PM on December 9, 2003

ok, now we're in agreement, ed. mostly about the need for an editor, but also about the general affection for dystopian visions (yay, womack!) and the last 200 pages of quicksilver...
posted by judith at 3:00 PM on December 9, 2003

I'm almost done reading it. Will sit down tonight and finish it off.

I tend to dig on references between different books, and so the whole premise of Quicksilver (and the next two) had me excited, and I've been pretty satisfied so far with the analogies that have shown up between Cryptonomicon and Quicksilver. But then, I'm also stoked by the way Stephen King has been wrapping his other stories into Dark Tower, so that's just me.

But I haven't found the book boring at all. Slow in spots, but entertaining even then -- I rather liked the letters from Eliza.

Also, I'd like to suggest Snow Crash as an excellent rebuttal to the (otherwise pretty goddam accurate) assertion that Neal starts his books slow.
posted by cortex at 4:25 PM on December 9, 2003

My whole issue with Quicksilver [I am on page 400 or so and trying to decide if I should even finish it, I've got David Fuckin' Wallace's book on infinity in the chute....] is that too much of it seems like sort of precious inside jokery and I don't know enough history to get the jokes until they're stale. So I spend a lot of time reading the book and then thinking "Would I understand this if I knew what was going on in England/Vienna/Massachusetts at the time?" "Is this character acting strangely because he's a Real Person that Stephenson has appropriated to make some point?" [I found the character index yesterday] and most importantly "Who cares?"

It's not that it's not a well-written book full of neat stuff, it's that it's not delightful in the way all of Stephenson's other books were [and I'm even including the Big U here]. It's heavy and plodding and diverges often into what always seem to be these shaggy dog stories that take 10-15 pages to bring one plot point home. I find myself skimming and I rarely skim. It just seems to be many facts, little plot, whereas I felt that Cryptonomicon, as an example, was all plot with characters added as an afterthough. It seems to offer the promise of great reward for those who understand all the political and social and character-bound implications the text presents, and I don't feel like I'm up to it.
posted by jessamyn at 6:14 PM on December 9, 2003

I am on page 400 or so and trying to decide if I should even finish it, I've got David Fuckin' Wallace's book on infinity in the chute....

Man. At first, I thought you meant Infinite Jest, and so I was going to remark on the irony of not finishing a book so that you could read IJ, and, hoo boy. But that's not the book you mean. But I had to share.
posted by cortex at 6:58 PM on December 9, 2003