Favorite novels

CL, by the way this discussion of history mixed with fiction reminded me of Cryptonomicon and your description of it as being 'important'. That made me even more eager to start, but in the end maybe I don't see why...

It's a fun book, especially if you're into math/probability, but can you clarify what you mean by 'important'? His political views were very much spread along the novel, is that what you mean? They reminded me a bit of StarValleyWy.

Originally posted by Palynka
CL, by the way this discussion of history mixed with fiction reminded me of Cryptonomicon and your description of it as being 'important'. That made me even more eager to start, but in the end maybe I don't see why...

It's a fun book, especially if you're into math/probability, but can you clarify what you mean by 'important'? His political views were ver ...[text shortened]... ch spread along the novel, is that what you mean? They reminded me a bit of StarValleyWy.

[anticlimax] Important = I've read it a bunch of times. [/anticlimax]

I'll get back to this this evening.

Originally posted by ChronicLeaky
[anticlimax] Important = I've read it a bunch of times. [/anticlimax]

I'll get back to this this evening.

No, really, that stuff about Ares and Athena was a bit too close to fascism for my tastes. The Greeks may not be the Romans, but the nod towards the classical imagery only made it worse.

Originally posted by PinkFloyd
I don't see a lot of similarity between the 2, but I do like Tommy. I find Amused to Death to be the best solo album Waters has done.

Well, Tommy is set in a post-WWI domestic framework, and The Wall is post-WWII, but the general plot is nearly identical. There should be no question that both are historically grounded fiction set to music, or as Pete Townsend insists on calling the work, "Rock Opera."

Amused to Death is terrific music, but lacks the clear story line of The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking. Perhaps that is why you prefer it. But, if you enjoy The Pros and Cons for its coherence, and not just the music as a sequence of songs, I would humbly submit that you are not as averse to fiction as you have made it seem.

Originally posted by Palynka
They reminded me a bit of StarValleyWy.

You mean he got high on crack and lost it on a Friday evening?

Ahh, those were the days.

Originally posted by Starrman
You mean he got high on crack and lost it on a Friday evening?

Ahh, those were the days.

Yes, it was good to quarrel with one who though stupid was not ignorant. No doubt SVW will return someday and troll hunting season will reopen.

Originally posted by Palynka
No, really, that stuff about Ares and Athena was a bit too close to fascism for my tastes. The Greeks may not be the Romans, but the nod towards the classical imagery only made it worse.

That's kind of a weird thing to get out of that passage. Via Enoch Root, Stephenson advocates an Athenian over a Martian approach -- this yields, in his example, the victory of an "Athenian" system over a Martian one in WWII as a corollary, but I don't recall* that bit saying that metis is necessarily derived from wars, or that we should organise ourselves around a martial goal of some sort for the sake of technological innovation. I thought the main drift of that part was that technology is sort of a special case of art ("goddess of effing macrame" or however it goes), and that the sort of society which allows the personal freedom needed for good art tends to have better technology, and that such societies can thus outcompete societies which are explicitly structured around violent competition. WWII, and especially some of the aspects of the war that show up in "Cryptonomicon", bears this out. I read that passage as anti-fascist. I'm not sure if Enoch Root is really a nigh-fascist character, since the other books which feature him are one big swirling bore-tex of TL;DR.

That said, Stephenson's "politics" as revealed by "Cryptonomicon" aren't exactly to my taste either, but there's a lot to sympathise with, e.g. Goto Dengo's speech to Randy and Avi over gold-dusted coffee.

*I gave my copy to someone a while ago and so can't verify this.

Originally posted by Wulebgr
Yes, it was good to quarrel with one who though stupid was not ignorant. No doubt SVW will return someday and troll hunting season will reopen.

SVW is not a troll. He's an interesting and excellent dude.

Originally posted by Palynka
CL, by the way this discussion of history mixed with fiction reminded me of Cryptonomicon and your description of it as being 'important'. That made me even more eager to start, but in the end maybe I don't see why...

It's a fun book, especially if you're into math/probability, but can you clarify what you mean by 'important'? His political views were ver ...[text shortened]... ch spread along the novel, is that what you mean? They reminded me a bit of StarValleyWy.

My biggest beef with "Cryptonomicon" is that it's rather sexist now and again.

Originally posted by ChronicLeaky
SVW is not a troll. He's an interesting and excellent dude.

When the last twenty or thirty threads have the same last poster, and the bulk of the posts state, "snark," that's trolling.

SVW did not do that often, but he did do it.

Usually, he was interesting.


My one game with him was embarrassing. He played so badly that I was certain he was trying to lose, and maybe running an engine so he could laugh when I did not find the most efficient continuation. It was awful, and I read fewer of his posts after that performance.

The point is this: the word "excellent" just does not enter my consciousness when I think about SVW. Interesting I can agree though.

Troll I should retract, or qualify somewhat. It rarely applies to SVW.

Originally posted by ChronicLeaky
I don't recall* that bit saying that metis is necessarily derived from wars, or that we should organise ourselves around a martial goal of some sort for the sake of technological innovation.

That's not what I meant. I'm not sure where you get the 'art' from, but personally I thought it was mostly about war and why nations go to war. The fact that he uses two war gods to illustrate it makes it pretty clear. Sure, he talks of the 'crafts' part of Athena but he doesn't justify it very well, in my opinion. You interpreted it as 'art', while I interpreted it as different types of technology (constructive vs destructive). Regardless, good motives they may be but the main beef I have with it is because it's mainly drawing a line between "us" and "them", the noble warriors vs the ignoble warriors, the enlightened vs the brutes, the free vs the enslavers, Athena vs Ares.

Personally, I don't like this type of dichotomy one bit and it's exactly what reminded me of SVW. This imagery, that makes demons out of "them" and avatars out of "us" is dangerous and, frankly, shallow thinking.

Originally posted by ChronicLeaky
My biggest beef with "Cryptonomicon" is that it's rather sexist now and again.

I didn't see it. 😕 Randy is basically the passive member in his relationship with Amy and seems willing to do basically whatever she wants. Can you give examples?

Originally posted by Palynka
I didn't see it. 😕 Randy is basically the passive member in his relationship with Amy and seems willing to do basically whatever she wants. Can you give examples?

My (slight) beef is that he doesn't develop female characters (even Amy Shaftoe) nearly as well as he does male ones, which gives the impression that he considers the female human experience more different from the male one than it actually is, enough to give the impression that he's got a similar sort of "us/them" mentality genderwise to the one you alluded to in your other post.

On the other hand, I'm basing this on what I remember of how it's written, and could be confusing it with the sexism-complaints from the person I gave it to. Specifically, this is based on the potentially false fact that the reader gets much more first-order exposure to the minds of the male characters. I looked through the other Stephenson novels I have; this phenomenon is not present in "The Big U" (which is his best novel, IMO) and "Zodiac", so I'm certainly not making blanket sexism-accusations against Stephenson.

Originally posted by Palynka
That's not what I meant. I'm not sure where you get the 'art' from, but personally I thought it was mostly about war and why nations go to war. The fact that he uses two war gods to illustrate it makes it pretty clear. Sure, he talks of the 'crafts' part of Athena but he doesn't justify it very well, in my opinion. You interpreted it as 'art', while I interp ...[text shortened]... "them" and avatars out of "us" is dangerous and, frankly, shallow thinking.

I don't like that aspect of it, either, but I (perhaps mistakenly) didn't see that Root is putting himself in any sort of "us" category; he's pointing out that some societies organise their collective "metis" around war, while for others, the ability to wage war when necessary is an incidental side-benefit of their broader metis-motivations. However, I agree with you that, broadly speaking, Stephenson is fond of artificially clear-cut ethical distinctions between groups of people.

I also agree with the SVW-comparison. What do you think of the Secret Admirers? They are part of what I think is important about the book; the character Sangomon Taylor in "Zodiac" is important for the same reason, as are the real-life ELFs and WOMBLES and Theodore Kaczynskis and Anonymous. The kind of thinking you mention is shallow and also scary, and present all over the book. Part of why I consider the book important deals with trying to distil the positive part of the Secret Admirer/SVW mentality, leaving out the us/them business, and perhaps I'll elaborate tomorrow, since this post is pretty content-free.

Originally posted by Palynka
You interpreted it as 'art', while I interpreted it as different types of technology (constructive vs destructive). Regardless, good motives they may be but the main beef I have with it is because it's mainly drawing a line between "us" and "them", the noble warriors vs the ignoble warriors, the enlightened vs the brutes, the free vs the enslavers, Athena vs ...[text shortened]... out of "them" and avatars out of "us" is dangerous and, frankly, shallow thinking.

'Techne' means 'art', doesn't it?

After reading this discussion, I don't feel so bad about not being able to slog through the book.