Well I finally finished The System Of The World by Neal Stephenson. The System Of The World is the third and final book in The Baroque Cycle. I finished on the plane on the way to Australia. I say finally because I started it in October when it came out. Since I bought it I read a couple technical books and maybe one novel while TSOTW sat on my bedside table feeling sorry for itself. By the time Christmas came around I was about half way through the book and determined to finish it before I left. Well I almost did it. Had about 80 pages to go when I had to leave for the airport. I couldn’t wait three weeks for that last little bit.
The latter half is far more entertaining. I think it was about half way through before a certain Shaftoe finally made an appearance. When I read Cryptonomicon the first time (I’ve read it twice, I’ve only read a handful of books more than once), I was in Physics and Math, so I loved Lawrence Waterhouse and couldn’t wait for his “turn“ in the narrative. The second time I was in Computer Science so I could appreciate Daniel Waterhouse more, though he still wasn’t my favourite (Bobby Shaftoe, this time), because I understood the lingo better. The Baroque Cycle has a few characters like that, but only Jack Shaftoe truly shines. So I enjoyed the second of the three books, The Confusion, the most. However, I like how all the characters aged in the third book: Daniel Waterhouse was WAY more interesting the third time around.
The first I’d heard about the Baroque Cycle was that it was about the feud between Newton and Liebniz. There is a conversation between the two that takes place in TSOTW that I speculate Stephenson made up that could well have been the first thing written. I’m glad, though, that that wasn’t the topic of the books. That would have been boring. Instead the Baroque Cycle is a mixture of genres: swashbuckler, cyberpunk, historical fiction. While I can’t say it entirely worked, I’m glad I read them all. I rate historical fiction on the interest I take in the period generated by the novel. For instance, The Masters of Rome Series by Colleen McCullough, an epic, and accurate, account of the fall of The Roman Republic inspired me to read at least three non-fiction books and countless other fiction about the period (She’s the best, don’t bother reading others about the Romans). So if I rate The Baroque Cycle on strictly that, then I have to recommend it. I enjoyed it enough that I want to read more about Marlborough, Newton, Louis XIV and I want to at least try to sort out the royals of that period.
But as a Stephenson novel? I don’t know if I’d recommend the Baroque Cycle if someone were interested in starting his work. As you can probably tell, I agree with the rest of the world: Cryptonomicon was a masterpiece and his best work. He would have been hard-pressed to repeat it, and none of The Baroque Cycle does it. But you won’t be bored. And you may learn a thing or two.
Recommended if you like Stephenson; like the Scientific Revolution; want three big, pretty books with which to impress people on your book shelf.
