Survival Arts

Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson

I've not yet read this book, but when I have some time off from my studies, I plan to. My friend Perry Metzger has given me permission to reprint this recommendation he sent a few minutes ago to a mailing list I own:

So I finally finished the book. My verdict is still not in - the book is very obviously just 1/3 of the overall story. However, I'll say that I rather enjoyed the first 1000 pages of the story that Quicksilver represents. It isn't quite at the level of my favorite Neal Stephenson books ("The Diamond Age" is at the top of my list), but it is a very interesting read.

It also has the interesting feature, which a history book would not, of giving you a much wider view of what was going on in the 17th century than you could otherwise get. Usually history is taught or read in narrow vertical slices - you learn about Louis XIV, but not that Robert Hooke was off in London discovering that all living things are made up of cells at the same time, and that all that while the Turks were attacking Vienna. The irony is, in spite of being a work of fiction, it gives you a wider and better lens on the birth of the modern age than a non-fiction book would have...

Looks like I'll be ordering my copy soon.

Posted by Russell Whitaker at October 2, 2003 1:00 PM | TrackBack