Cryptonomicon Review

Cryptonomicon is that rare calling: a book so demanding of attention, dangling the hopeful promise or promsing hope of something huge, that one must dedicate a significant portion of daily life to it. It seized me on May 29 and thrashed me in its jaws until October 15, 140 days in total. I estimate seventy hours to read through it. Concentration is ruthlessly required; it is a book that cannot be truly comprehended if part of your mind is wondering if all the bills have been paid or if you left any water in the boiler or what Phyllis said at work today.

[mild spoilers ...]

There doesn’t appear to be a subject the author is not well-read in. Cryptography, obviously, but a voyage through this book will give you crash courses in: World War II history, mining, Internet-slash-hi-tech startup companies, LINUX, U-boat submarine warfare, Philippine culture, deep sea salvaging, computer development, email security, laptop tricks, corporate espionage, banking, POW camps and cannibals, the evolution of the nerd, as well as suggestions of mentions of shadowy conspiracy groups. You’ll meet Ronald Reagan, Douglas MacArthur, General Yamamoto, Dr. Alan Turing, Hermann Goering, an unnamed Albert Einstein. Your head will spin, but it will all come together in the last hundred pages. Sort of.

You’re basically involved in two timelines. The action follows two quite different men during World War II: a brilliant young mathematician named Lawrence Waterhouse and a simple but lethally effective marine named Bobby Shaftoe. Mixed in to the mix is Waterhouse’s grandson, Randy, involved in a company in modernity – the late 1990s, say – on the verge of developing, for lack of a better term, cyberbanking and the potential to revolutionize society. He’s also chasing romantically the granddaughter of Sgt Shaftoe. There are a couple of figures that interact with this trio in both timelines, some of which who are or are made to appear downright sinister.

My only gripe is Stephenson’s tendency to absent-mindedly and lazily meander in his prose. True, there are benefits to this. One can get lost in the imagery, the wit, the esoterica, and rally savor the trip. For a hopper, however, this is quite the difficult thing to do. It wasn’t until around page 800 or so that I even knew where the novel was going. And it took the last 100 pages to confirm that. And even after 1,100-plus pages, the novel doesn’t really conclude (sequel? trilogy? series?) But if you have some time on your hands, you’re widely curious, and you’re not in a rush, this shouldn’t be a problem.

As a writer the book had two contradictory effects on me. First: despair. How could I ever write such well-written exposition as this? Stephenson is unbelievably riveting describing a door. How could I, then, draw the reader in, mercilessly, and keep his eyes glued to the page, word after word as the pages turned, pulling him deeper into my story with a desire only to see its conclusion? How could I make him laugh, make him nod in appreciation, make him want to go online to research further what I’ve written about, to pique the interest my characters and their words place in his mind?

Then, on the heels of despair: excitement. Real, legitimate excitement. Yes! This is what I want to do. This is what I want to try. This is something I could do. This is something I have done, in my way, twice before. The joy is in the journey, not the destination, be it writing, reading, or any other activity. Sometimes we forget this. But as a writer it can be fatal.

The book gets saved. I don’t know when, where, or how I’ll ever re-read it – when will I have five months’ free this side of retirement in forty years? But it gets saved, and will be reread at some point. Perhaps when I attain financial independence next month. No, really, it will be passed on to someone else, perhaps one of my younger nephews or a cousin.

The next time I want to experience Cryptonomicon will be on the small screen, how small depending on the size of your flat screen living room television set. There’s too much there for a movie movie, but it is perfect for a well-financed TV miniseries. Exploding battleships, soldiers raiding a German U-boat just before it sinks under the waves, collapsing mines, nerds with shotguns, the weird-to-us cultures of Japan and a fictional Arab country, the high pressure high stakes of high finance, and a set of incredibly beautiful and incredibly smart people vying to outsmart each other. It has all the marks of a May sweeps bonanza.

Grade: A

See also these musings on the book here and here.