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frasersimons 's review for:
Anathem
by Neal Stephenson
2.5 rounded up
This is about primarily about Erasmus, a monastic monk in a futuristic, Roman Empire allegory society where science is so feared and anti-intellectualism gained such traction, that these monks were contained in monasteries called Concents. Depending on the type of science they do, they are sorted into different orders, all of which only open up to the outside world every so often. From every year to ten years to one hundred years to one thousand years (if I recall correctly). Thus sort of siloing each cluster to not be able to do much “damage”, a rejection to when a more than even a nuclear bomb was invented.
When a small group of contrarians spot a UFO on the sky and try to figure out what the heck is going on, the plot spins off from there. Of course, that particular inciting incident for the plot to begin is about 150 pages into this 968 page book. So we spend most of our time familiarizing ourselves with the world and the characters up to that point.
Perhaps it’s to be expected that this book is one of a couple interesting ideas that uses paper thin plot and characters to convey the ideas and explore them (somewhat). After all, I did subject myself to Snow Crash and The Diamond Age previously and those are very much like this, in that respect. But I was told this was much more intelligent and more interesting.
The ideas are actually much better articulated and somewhat less trite, but it by no means uses the form of the novel as a an exceptional vehicle for the ideas being explored. At a thousand pages and heralded as an “idea” focused book, you then also have to compare the form chosen to other ways to examining and articulating the ideas. The whole point of this form is to engage with the format.
But reviews about what the book is about and the ideas contained in them are better and more entertaining than the book itself because the plot takes a backdrop, we spend all our time with characters that are poorly drawn and almost to the point of YA mouth breathers in their diction and intelligence when discussing anything. The ideas they discuss don’t fit well in their mouths because for most of the time they’re talking about inane love lives, a B plot that is laughably bad. And once again Stephenson shows he simply cannot write convincing women and they almost always are relegated to plot devices. A bit of trolling about rape culture in this one but not an actual rape as a plot device, so maybe a modicum better than the two previous, at least.
So who is this for? If you aren’t aware of platonic realism and nominalism, and you like the concept of monastics being scientific based, world building that is occupied with trolling anti intellectualism and being satirically sometimes clever-sometimes, I would say, eye roll worthy bad, and you simply don’t care about plot and characters (much like the old tradition of sci-fi, I’d say), then this book is probably for you. There are meaty chunks of explanation—generally through dialogue and exposition—regarding physics and math and philosophy that I think are pretty easy to grasp, which is to be commended. There’s visual aids sometimes that are fun. It can be quite engaging.
But it is also not a fun reading experience nor a good use of the novel format, especially at nearly one thousand pages, to justify my recommending it to absolutely anybody. If you are adamant against doing reading on these concepts in any other way and must have it through your fiction, and you somehow don’t care about the vehicle and manner of its conveyance otherwise, I guess it’s for you. As someone who does not like comedy, and thinks it’s almost always not pulled off well and generally undermines the actual subjects under discussion, much of this doesn’t work for me.
It’s YA contemporary in its language and diction, tropes, characterization, humour, and sentence/paragraph structure. The characters match that, with their archaic gender performance and social interactions and drama. It is completely grating at times. The voice is not well crafted.
However. Technically a story was told and the ideas conveyed. And, as mentioned, the interrogation of these concepts does feel pretty novel to me. It’s the best novel of his I’ve consumed. 3 stars.
This is about primarily about Erasmus, a monastic monk in a futuristic, Roman Empire allegory society where science is so feared and anti-intellectualism gained such traction, that these monks were contained in monasteries called Concents. Depending on the type of science they do, they are sorted into different orders, all of which only open up to the outside world every so often. From every year to ten years to one hundred years to one thousand years (if I recall correctly). Thus sort of siloing each cluster to not be able to do much “damage”, a rejection to when a more than even a nuclear bomb was invented.
When a small group of contrarians spot a UFO on the sky and try to figure out what the heck is going on, the plot spins off from there. Of course, that particular inciting incident for the plot to begin is about 150 pages into this 968 page book. So we spend most of our time familiarizing ourselves with the world and the characters up to that point.
Perhaps it’s to be expected that this book is one of a couple interesting ideas that uses paper thin plot and characters to convey the ideas and explore them (somewhat). After all, I did subject myself to Snow Crash and The Diamond Age previously and those are very much like this, in that respect. But I was told this was much more intelligent and more interesting.
The ideas are actually much better articulated and somewhat less trite, but it by no means uses the form of the novel as a an exceptional vehicle for the ideas being explored. At a thousand pages and heralded as an “idea” focused book, you then also have to compare the form chosen to other ways to examining and articulating the ideas. The whole point of this form is to engage with the format.
But reviews about what the book is about and the ideas contained in them are better and more entertaining than the book itself because the plot takes a backdrop, we spend all our time with characters that are poorly drawn and almost to the point of YA mouth breathers in their diction and intelligence when discussing anything. The ideas they discuss don’t fit well in their mouths because for most of the time they’re talking about inane love lives, a B plot that is laughably bad. And once again Stephenson shows he simply cannot write convincing women and they almost always are relegated to plot devices. A bit of trolling about rape culture in this one but not an actual rape as a plot device, so maybe a modicum better than the two previous, at least.
So who is this for? If you aren’t aware of platonic realism and nominalism, and you like the concept of monastics being scientific based, world building that is occupied with trolling anti intellectualism and being satirically sometimes clever-sometimes, I would say, eye roll worthy bad, and you simply don’t care about plot and characters (much like the old tradition of sci-fi, I’d say), then this book is probably for you. There are meaty chunks of explanation—generally through dialogue and exposition—regarding physics and math and philosophy that I think are pretty easy to grasp, which is to be commended. There’s visual aids sometimes that are fun. It can be quite engaging.
But it is also not a fun reading experience nor a good use of the novel format, especially at nearly one thousand pages, to justify my recommending it to absolutely anybody. If you are adamant against doing reading on these concepts in any other way and must have it through your fiction, and you somehow don’t care about the vehicle and manner of its conveyance otherwise, I guess it’s for you. As someone who does not like comedy, and thinks it’s almost always not pulled off well and generally undermines the actual subjects under discussion, much of this doesn’t work for me.
It’s YA contemporary in its language and diction, tropes, characterization, humour, and sentence/paragraph structure. The characters match that, with their archaic gender performance and social interactions and drama. It is completely grating at times. The voice is not well crafted.
However. Technically a story was told and the ideas conveyed. And, as mentioned, the interrogation of these concepts does feel pretty novel to me. It’s the best novel of his I’ve consumed. 3 stars.