Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1)
by Neal Stephenson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Neal StephensonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-09-21
ISBN: 0060593083
Number of pages: 917
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Book Reviews of Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1)
Book Review: Hold on to your hat
Summary: 5 Stars
The first book of "The Baroque Cycle", a three volume set of novels serving as a prequel to Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon", "Quicksilver" is a wild romp through the 17th and 18th centuries, an historical fantasy involving ancestors of characters in "Cryptonomicon" (and one mysterious, never explained, character who appears in both "Cryptonomicon" and "The Baroque Cycle"), plus real personages such as Isaac Newton, Leibnitz, and Louis XIV, to name just a very few.
It's hard to say what this story is about, because it is about so much. A great deal is given over to Isaac Newton, his conflict with Leibnitz over who created the calculus, Newton's strange character and his obsession with alchemy (indeed everyone's obsession with alchemy), the rise of modern science, mathematics, and new economic systems that transformed European cultures in ways that baffled some of the most intelligent people of the times.
At the center of it all, also never really explained, is the stuff Quicksilver, which seems to be something more than the element mercury by another name, and seems to have something essential not in mercury, perhaps some rare heavier isotope of mercury, perhaps something else entirely, with near mystical, even death-defying, power. Its presence in these stories seems to point to something transcendent and not explained by science, though Stephenson appears to otherwise believe in the importance of science and the scientific method for the transformation of humanity's lot from overall rotten to what Kim Stanley Robinson calls simply "enough", because "enough", for most of humanity, might as well be a feast.
There still remains something magical in Stephenson's system of the world. He shows great sympathy towards Leibnitz's insistence (foreshadowing the rise of the almost magical quantum physics of our time) that Newton's mechanics, though brilliant, were incomplete (as in fact they were), merely describing very well how the universe behaves but not explaining why it works as it does--again, Stephenson trying to get to a deeper truth--and without knowing this "why" Newton's mechanics must eventually produce wrong results.
The main continuing fictional characters are Daniel Waterhouse and Jack Shaftoe, whose descendants star in "Cryptonomicon". These two are the Forrest Gumps of their age, apparently involved in some way or another in an incredible number of the major events of the times. Waterhouse is a member of the Royal Society, in touch with most of the great minds of the era, perhaps not their equal intellectually, but close enough to the fire to feel the heat without being consumed, merely singed, and ultimately extremely influential, more than he ever dreamed or desired. (To me, his character demands Derek Jacobi to portray him.) Shaftoe is the king of the Vagabonds, and a king of other sorts and places as well, a literally half-cocked adventurer even Rafael Sabatini could not have invented.
Like "Cryptonomicon", this is a large volume, nearly 1,000 pages, as are the following volumes "The Confusion" and "The System Of The World". I blew through these nearly 4,000 at a pace that amazes even me, just as I did with Tim Power's "The Anubis Gates" (which is not a bad companion piece). The first thing I wanted to do after finishing them was to reread them.
Stephenson seems to have hit his stride with these and "The Diamond Age", though "Anethem" was disappointing to me. But I'm still eagerly looking forward to more from him. Along with Charles Stross, he's one of the genre's most inventive writers. Like Tim Powers as well, I don't find all his work equally compelling, but when he's on track it's great fun to hang on for the ride. He has set himself up for deeper kinds of stories in the future, besides romps like these, and "Anethem" seems a somewhat failed attempt to deepen his work. (Though even in failure he carries my interest--he fails at a level the rest of us can only aspire to.)
Summary of Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1)
Quicksilver is the story of Daniel Waterhouse, fearless thinker and conflicted Puritan, pursuing knowledge in the company of the greatest minds of Baroque-era Europe, in a chaotic world where reason wars with the bloody ambitions of the mighty, and where catastrophe, natural or otherwise, can alter the political landscape overnight.
It is a chronicle of the breathtaking exploits of "Half-Cocked Jack" Shaftoe -- London street urchin turned swashbuckling adventurer and legendary King of the Vagabonds -- risking life and limb for fortune and love while slowly maddening from the pox.
And it is the tale of Eliza, rescued by Jack from a Turkish harem to become spy, confidante, and pawn of royals in order to reinvent Europe through the newborn power of finance.
A gloriously rich, entertaining, and endlessly inventive novel that brings a remarkable age and its momentous events to vivid life, Quicksilver is an extraordinary achievement from one of the most original and important literary talents of our time.
And it's just the beginning ...
In Quicksilver, the first volume of the "Baroque Cycle," Neal Stephenson launches his most ambitious work to date. The novel, divided into three books, opens in 1713 with the ageless Enoch Root seeking Daniel Waterhouse on the campus of what passes for MIT in eighteenth-century Massachusetts. Daniel, Enoch's message conveys, is key to resolving an explosive scientific battle of preeminence between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz over the development of calculus. As Daniel returns to London aboard the Minerva, readers are catapulted back half a century to recall his years at Cambridge with young Isaac. Daniel is a perfect historical witness. Privy to Robert Hooke's early drawings of microscope images and with associates among the English nobility, religious radicals, and the Royal Society, he also befriends Samuel Pepys, risks a cup of coffee, and enjoys a lecture on Belgian waffles and cleavage-?all before the year 1700.
In the second book, Stephenson introduces Jack Shaftoe and Eliza. "Half-Cocked" Jack (also know as the "King of the Vagabonds") recovers the English Eliza from a Turkish harem. Fleeing the siege of Vienna, the two journey across Europe driven by Eliza's lust for fame, fortune, and nobility. Gradually, their circle intertwines with that of Daniel in the third book of the novel.
The book courses with Stephenson's scholarship but is rarely bogged down in its historical detail. Stephenson is especially impressive in his ability to represent dialogue over the evolving worldview of seventeenth-century scientists and enliven the most abstruse explanation of theory. Though replete with science, the novel is as much about the complex struggles for political ascendancy and the workings of financial markets. Further, the novel's literary ambitions match its physical size. Stephenson narrates through epistolary chapters, fragments of plays and poems, journal entries, maps, drawings, genealogic tables, and copious contemporary epigrams. But, caught in this richness, the prose is occasionally neglected and wants editing. Further, anticipating a cycle, the book does not provide a satisfying conclusion to its 900 pages. These are minor quibbles, though. Stephenson has matched ambition to execution, and his faithful, durable readers will be both entertained and richly rewarded with a practicum in Baroque science, cypher, culture, and politics. --Patrick O'Kelley
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