Quicksilver
Volume One of the Baroque Cycle
Neal Stephenson
Random House
Trade paperback, 925 pages, R205
Review by Al du Pisani, 13 January 2005
When I was at Worldcon in Toronto, in 2003, this was perhaps the most
eagerly anticipated book that was going to be published in the next month or
so. Since then the series of three books have been published to widespread
critical acclaim and very good sales, and Stephenson have been able to cut
the hair he let grow until the books was finished.
So how is it? Readers of his earlier works will know that Stephenson is an
author where the journey is more interesting than the destination, and that
his endings have been the part of his work the most criticised.
So it is with this one: A volume about journeys, coming to a satisfying
conclusion, and to be continued in the next volume.
In 1713 the enigmatic Enoch Root comes to call Dr Daniel Waterhouse from
his "retirement" in Boston, to come to England and mediate in the quarrel
between Sir Isaac Newton and Dr Gottfried Leibniz about who had invented
Calculus. Daniel let himself be persuaded, and catch the Minerva, a ship of
some as yet hidden significance.
And as they are slowly going to England, pursued by Edward Teach, alias
Blackbeard the pirate, Daniel thinks back on a long and eventful life, in
which he was a companion of the young Newton. We get to see life in the 1660's
and 1680's from his point of view.
In 1683, Jack Shaftoe, Vagabond, enlists in a army going to relieve the
Siege of Vienna. Going for loot, not glory, unlike his brother Bob, who still
is employed as a soldier in England. In a tunnel under Vienna, Jack acquires a
sword, a horse, and Eliza, a young women with interesting training in the
sexual arts, but little experience.
In the journey back to more civilised lands, where Jack plans to get rid of
his loot, both of them experiences some very interesting encounters, with
among others Dr Leibniz and Enoch Root. Unfortunately, Jack is an unreliable
narrator, as he is slowly going insane from syphilis, and you do not know how
much of what he sees is real.
After arriving in Amsterdam, and a side visit to Paris, the paths of Jack
and Eliza split, with Jack going on to endure the hospitality of the Barbary
Coast pirates, and Eliza going on to make money in trade. And spying, and life
among the court at Versailles.
And in England Daniel, slowly dying, and in anticipation of going to
America, sees out the end of the reigns of Kings Charles II and James, as a
revolution breaks out.
This is a fascinating look at an alien society, somewhat like our own. A
time and place where the way the world would be for the next 300 years would
be formed. A book that starts out some time after the Peace of Westphalia,
that brought into play, for 300 years, the nation state and the concept of
sovereignty. Where England had a turbulent century in which time they beheaded
one king, became a dictatorship, returned to the monarchy, and replaced the
reigning House somewhat peacefully. A time in which a company was formed to
take over the management of the National Debt from the monarch. A
time in which the supplier of money changed fromthe King, through goldsmiths,
to banks. A time where great men debated God, alchemy, and made the first,
tentative steps to developing Science.
In many ways this is an absolutely incredible book. Some of it is due to
style, with some chapters written in the forms of plays and letters, in the
style of the times. Some of it is due to the strange people that populate the
world, of which the scientists of the Royal Society is but one example. For
instance, there is a chapter in which the Royal Society's scientists goes
about examining Life, what it is and what it is not, that is absolutely
horrifying yet compelling. This is a world where you are surprised that some
people manage to survive self medication with mercury.
The title alludes to Mercury, patron god of spies, to the element mercury,
in both it's uses in extracting silver and as medication, and to the
rootless peoples of the Earth, who makes a living by trade and their wits.
And I can only hope that things will get better with the next volume in
the series.
Read it. Might be useful to have read the Cryptononmicon first,
where some of the descendants of the characters that populates this book have
further adventures, at a time when the societal framework that have lasted the
previous 300 years are falling apart, and new solutions have to be found.
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