Quicksilver

by Neal Stephenson

So, I found this book on sale one Saturday night. I picked it up partly because I've been meaning to read one of this author's books (several friends of mine have raved about Snowcrash, and I'm way, way behind on my geek lit). And partly because of who had recommended the author most recently. Maybe I shouldn't feel silly for these things? It's another way of getting to know someone, anyone. Maybe more indirectly, I guess. Ah well...

Anyway, here I am, 927 pages later. And turns out, I've got 2 more books of this size (called "cycles", in this case) to go before the story is complete. But it's interesting - it's a historical novel involving the history of science, court intrigue in England and France, vagabonds and damsels in distress. It was a little frustrating when I finished the first section of it, and then had to read another 300 pages before it picked up the thread of those characters again. The hard part of the novel is keeping all of the geneaolgy straight, and the author provides handy family trees, but doesn't not what pages they're on (so it's hard to find them again once you pass them). Still, it's a great story, and it's kept my interest enough to commit to at least another 1000 or so... Some of the plot points are strange, but M. told me that when he heard the author speak about the book, the strangest parts are the ones most likely to be true. It's the mundane parts that are made up (not, say, the live vivisections, unfortunately). It's also neat to think of what people thought about as they were coming up with these things, and that these names in science books had to try a lot of things before they found things that worked. Stephenson tells it like it was a race, but without anyone knowing where the finish line would be, only that they were faster or slower than some other guys they knew and / or possibly respected. I've picked parts (probably not the best or funniest, but the ones that struck me) from all three books within this cycle.

"Why he was doing so, Daniel had no idea. It was just that by getting up and leaving so mysteriously, Isaac begged to be followed. Not that he was doing a good job of being sneaky. Isaac was accustomed to being so much brighter than everyone else that he really had no idea what others were or weren't capable of. So when he got it into his head to be tricky, he came up with tricks that would not deceive a dog. It was hard not to be insulted - but being around Isaac was never for the thin-skinned"

"'We need to find a fair where we can sell the ostrich plumes directly to a merchant of fine clothes - someone who'll take them home to, say, Paris, and sell them to rich ladies and gentlemen.'
'Oh, yes. Such merchants are always eager to deal with Vagabonds and slave-girls.'
'Oh, Jack - that's simply a matter of dressing up instead of down.'
'There are sensitive men - touchy blockes - who's find something disparaging in that remark. But I -'
'Haven't you wondered why, whenever I move, I make all of these rustling and swishing noises?' She demonstrated.
'I'm too much the gentleman to make inquiries about the construction of your undergarments - but since you mentioned it - '
'Silk. I've about a mile of silk wrapped around me, under this black thing. Stole it from the Vizier's camp.'
'Silk! I've heard of it.'
'A needle, some thread, and I'll be every inch a lady.'
'And what will I be? The imbecile fop?'
'My manservant and bodyguard.'
'Oh, no -'
'It's just play-acting! Only while we're in the fair! The rest of the time, I'm as ever your obedient slave, Jack.'"

"Daniel had finally convinced King James II that His Majesty's claims to support all religious dissidents would seem a lot more convincing if he would take Cromwell's skull down from the stick where it had been posted all through Charles II's quarter-century-long reign, and put it back in the Christian grave with the rest of Cromwell. To Daniel and certain others, a skull on a stick was a conspicuous object and the request to take it down was wholly reasonable. But His Majesty and every courtier within earshot had looked startled: they'd forgotten it was there! It was part of the London landscape, it was like the bird-shit on the windowpane you never notice. Daniel's request, James's ensuing decree, and the fetching down and re-interment of the skull had only drawn attention to it. Attention, in a modern Court, meant cruel witticisms, and so it had been a recent vogue to address wandering Puritan ministers as "Oliver," the joke being that many of them - being wigless, gaunt, and sparely dressed - looked like skulls on sticks. Exaltation Gather looked so much like a skull on a stick that Daniel almost had to physically restrain himself from knocking the man down and shoveling dirt on him."