Cryptonomicon
by Neal Stephenson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Neal StephensonBrand: Avon
Edition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-11-05
ISBN: 0060512806
Number of pages: 1168
Publisher: Avon
Book Reviews of Cryptonomicon
Book Review: Typical Stephenson - just bigger
Summary: 5 Stars
Neal Stephenson tends to write for smart people, ergo, smart people tend to like his work. He writes in their language, the stuff of computers and math and physics and hackers and conspiracies and all that madness. My friends all like Neal Stephenson, because he writes about the things that they like and does it in a reasonably entertaining way. Me, I just can't get into it to any great degree. See, I've always found Stephenson to be somewhat overrated, with all the written praise about him treating him like he's the Second Coming of Something. Now I don't think this is his fault, he's only guilty of writing books that people seem to like . . . but I think the hype around him blows him way out of proportion. Critics salivate over his novels like nobody writes big books anymore and the publisher acts like he's a genius of singular talent (which, to be fair, is their job to do) . . . but I just don't get it. Cryptonomicon is the latest example of my lukewarm reaction to his work. It reads well, it's entertaining, but at the end of the day it just doesn't move me the way great literature should. In some respects, it seems like Stephenson is trying to parallel the career of semi-obscure author Thomas Pynchon, his earliest successful novel Snow Crash was repeated compared to Vineland and I've seen more than one review saying that this is his answer to Gravity's Rainbow. But other than the fact that both books are somewhat erudite, set in WWII and written in the present tense, there really is no comparison. Stephenson's novel has a relatively small cast of characters and focuses mostly on cryptology, while Pynchon's novel had a extremely large cast, tossed in everything from mathematics to pop culture and managed to maintain a palpable sense of paranoia that leaked even into the narration itself. So comparing the two is unfair and to Stephenson's credit, I don't think he himself has tried to link the two. So we should look at his novel on its own merits. How does it stand up? The biggest credit here is that he manages to write a nine hundred page novel that moves at a fairly even clip, there's no boring parts to make you want to put it down, the chapters are mostly short, the POV switches often and he does everything he can to keep you engaged. The plot shifts between the present day and WWII, in the former, computer guy Randy Waterhouse is trying to get the funding and backing to create an offshore data center, independent from all governments, while in WWII his grandfather joins a super-secret intelligence department designed not only to break Axis codes but to convince the Axis that the codes haven't been broken (the most clever part of the novel, in my opinion). In both eras the Waterhouses are joined by the Shaftoes, who run around like lunatics trying to help various goals get accomplished. In the end there's stuff about hidden gold and lots of information about cryptology and the math behind it, which is more or less interesting. The problem is, with me at least, is that Stephenson continues to be more style than substance. His prose is breezy enough, though the present tense style strikes me as somewhat pretentious and the tone for some reason comes across as rather smug, as if he knows he's being hip and modern and wants to make sure you realize it too. Occassionally he comes out with a bizarre and memorable metaphor and some passages attain some resonance (though over nine hundred pages it had to happen, even if by accident), but the prose just exists to move the story along. Even worse is when he stops the narration entirely to delve into math equations . . . it's clear that he thinks he's being deep and clever, but it really just comes across as annoying. The plot is interesting enough, though certainly not gripping and I'm not sure why it took nine hundred pages . . . it's actually fairly straightforward, certainly not the difficult, knotted novel it's proported to be. It meanders a heck of a lot though, and although the diversions are entertaining, they don't really lead anywhere. The characters are typical Stephenson constructs, for once not completely oh so painfully hip as in the past, Randy is actually interesting in spurts and the male Shaftoes are fun in a uninhibited fashion, but Amy Shaftoe really doesn't do much except act tough and act as the object of Randy's lust (there's no real strong female characters in the novel, which may or may not bother you), but for the most part the characters just serve to move the plot along. So in the end what you have is a reasonably entertaining page turner, certainly nowhere near the bonafide literary classic that someone (either the author or the publisher) is hoping for, but it has its moments and to be honest it's the best Stephenson book I've read so far. And hey, it's well researched at least. Fans will have already read this, everyone else expect a fairly good time but don't expect to have your mind blown.
Summary of Cryptonomicon
With this extraordinary first volume in what promises to be an epoch-making masterpiece, Neal Stephenson hacks into the secret histories of nations and the private obsessions of men, decrypting with dazzling virtuosity the forces that shaped this century.In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse - mathematical genius and young Captain in the U.S. Navy - is assigned to detachment 2702. It is an outfit so secret that only a handful of people know it exists, and some of those people have names like Churchill and Roosevelt. The mission of Watrehouse and Detatchment 2702-commanded by Marine Raider Bobby Shaftoe-is to keep the Nazis ignorant of the fact that Allied Intelligence has cracked the enemy's fabled Enigma code. It is a game, a cryptographic chess match between Waterhouse and his German counterpart, translated into action by the gung-ho Shaftoe and his forces.
Fast-forward to the present, where Waterhouse's crypto-hacker grandson, Randy, is attempting to create a "data haven" in Southeast Asia - a place where encrypted data can be stored and exchanged free of repression and scrutiny. As governments and multinationals attack the endeavor, Randy joins forces with Shaftoe's tough-as-nails grandaughter, Amy, to secretly salvage a sunken Nazi sumarine that holds the key to keeping the dream of a data haven afloat. But soon their scheme brings to light a massive conspiracy with its roots in Detachment 2702 linked to an unbreakable Nazi code called Arethusa. And it will represent the path to unimaginable riches and a future of personal and digital liberty...or to universal totalitarianism reborn.
A breathtaking tour de force, and Neal Stephenson's most accomplished and affecting work to date, CRYPTONOMICON is profound and prophetic, hypnotic and hyper-driven, as it leaps forward and back between World War II and the World Wide Web, hinting all the while at a dark day-after-tomorrow. It is a work of great art, thought, and creative daring; the product of a truly icon
Neal Stephenson enjoys cult status among science fiction fans and techie types thanks to Snow Crash, which so completely redefined conventional notions of the high-tech future that it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if his cyberpunk classic was big, Cryptonomicon is huge... gargantuan... massive, not just in size (a hefty 918 pages including appendices) but in scope and appeal. It's the hip, readable heir to Gravity's Rainbow and the Illuminatus trilogy. And it's only the first of a proposed series--for more information, read our interview with Stephenson.
Cryptonomicon zooms all over the world, careening conspiratorially back and forth between two time periods--World War II and the present. Our 1940s heroes are the brilliant mathematician Lawrence Waterhouse, cryptanalyst extraordinaire, and gung ho, morphine-addicted marine Bobby Shaftoe. They're part of Detachment 2702, an Allied group trying to break Axis communication codes while simultaneously preventing the enemy from figuring out that their codes have been broken. Their job boils down to layer upon layer of deception. Dr. Alan Turing is also a member of 2702, and he explains the unit's strange workings to Waterhouse. "When we want to sink a convoy, we send out an observation plane first.... Of course, to observe is not its real duty--we already know exactly where the convoy is. Its real duty is to be observed.... Then, when we come round and sink them, the Germans will not find it suspicious."
All of this secrecy resonates in the present-day story line, in which the grandchildren of the WWII heroes--inimitable programming geek Randy Waterhouse and the lovely and powerful Amy Shaftoe--team up to help create an offshore data haven in Southeast Asia and maybe uncover some gold once destined for Nazi coffers. To top off the paranoiac tone of the book, the mysterious Enoch Root, key member of Detachment 2702 and the Societas Eruditorum, pops up with an unbreakable encryption scheme left over from WWII to befuddle the 1990s protagonists with conspiratorial ties.
Cryptonomicon is vintage Stephenson from start to finish: short on plot, but long on detail so precise it's exhausting. Every page has a math problem, a quotable in-joke, an amazing idea, or a bit of sharp prose. Cryptonomicon is also packed with truly weird characters, funky tech, and crypto--all the crypto you'll ever need, in fact, not to mention all the computer jargon of the moment. A word to the wise: if you read this book in one sitting, you may die of information overload (and starvation). --Therese Littleton
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