Hacker News Reader

Comment by pengaru | Hacker News Reader

> it feels like slogging through Leviticus, plus an astronomical amount of suspension of disbelief

You sure you're not confusing it with Anathem? SnowCrash was a quick read for me, but Anathem made me hate reading and I don't think I even finished it.

View on HN

How far into Anathem did you make it? Anathem has a glacial beginning - the introduction is perhaps 200 pages long. But once you've survived that and the plot starts, it's quite compelling and pays off the glacial introduction. That said, it took me three tries to make it through the introduction. World building a society of mathematician-monks on another planet is tough going indeed.

It's funny, I had the opposite reaction.

The first part was really a great coming-of-age story and was strangely comforting. The world is crazy, but there is a place for people who want to pursue knowledge.

The second part felt like an interruption. I'm usually completely unable to and disinterested in guessing where a plot is going, but I could have summarized the second part without reading it and that made it drag (still decent, still fun at times, but I wish either the twists had been better or that the author had relied on them less).

An interesting take for sure. I too read it as a coming of age story - also strangely comforting - but see the part after the plot proper begins as an allegorical coming of age story as well, recapitulating (and I think I can say this without spoiling the back half) the development of our understanding of mathematics and the natural world post-Newton. It's a bit like he transitions from a personal coming-of-age story to a societal coming of age story: what happens when you grow up and realize that the world is incomprehensibly weird?

That really reframed my whole understanding of the story, great!

At the phrase “societal coming of age” I balked, but I guess the second half is putting the question “which society”, or rather which kind of society can inherit (that is, accept responsibility for) such knowledge? The grossest contrast is between the secular and mathic societies; but the remarkably well recreated dialectic between the Platonists and Sophists in the dinner conversation between the Incanters and Rhetors in the last Lucub... converging on Husserl and phenomenology...! that was golden (one of a few nuggets).

Still I think the question of which society can “come of age” and inherit the world in its full, weird, complexity, is drawn back to the relationship between Orolo and Raz, because that is where the real spark of inspiration (and sacrifice, and fraternity) flies, and, improbably, catches fire.

Who doesn't love 40 pages (more?) of winding a clock as a hook? :)

Agreed, though, that it picks up a tad more after the clock winding and other front matter.

For what it's worth, when I first started Anathem, it was a slog and I put it down a little ways in. A few years later I tried it again and absolutely loved it. If you're a Stephenson fan, don't cross it off the list just yet.

I loved Anathem, one of the few books I can say I absolutely devoured.

Reamde on the other hand...

Anathem was the last passable novel before Neal Stephenson started writing "stories" around a sci-fi concept, rather than writing stories. A throwback to Zodiac, perhaps. Snow Crash and Diamond Age were his best works.

Diamond age was glorious (although I think possibly Stephenson's worst ratio of beginning:ending quality), but I adore Cryptonomicon.

I enjoyed the whole of the Baroque Cycle as well.

Diamond Age has my favorite concepts of any of his books, but the plot is pretty forgettable to me. Like I can't even remember most of it and I've probably read that book 5 times.

The characters are fairly weak as well.

I tried several times but could never get through Diamond Age. Snow Crash is one of my all time favorites and Zodiac was stellar, but that one just never clicked for me.

I liked Reamde, but it's an atypical Stephenson book. Full of action, fast paced, pretty short on exposition, although there are some diversions about handguns and intercontinental aviation navigation.

Anathem I hated the first reading. I’ve now read it seven times, enjoying it more each time, taking time to try and understand it more and more each times. My most recent read of it was incredible, and it’s easily my favourite of his novels.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com