Anathem

© 2008 by Neal Stephenson

[minor spoilers]

Well, I finished Neal Stephenson’s Anathem a couple of days ago, rather much more quickly than I anticipated. First, it’s a woolly mammoth of a book (as was Cryptonomicon, the only other work of his I read). The story itself clocks in at 932 pages in my oversized paperback edition, and that doesn’t include a prologue describing the planet where the action takes place, Arbre, a brief 5,000-year chronology, and a rather lengthy appendix featuring a glossary and three “calcas” – lectures – on some of the mathematical ideas presented in the book.

Second, I read it while simultaneously listening to the book on CD. This is a new hobby of mine that I rather enjoy. Reading along with the spoken word forces me to focus on the story and not get distracted by outside noise or inside thoughts and not read so fast I miss what I’ve just read. Bad habits, yes, and relatively new ones. I chalk them up to stress. Anyway, in addition to Anathem I’ve also done this reading / listening thing to The Lord of the Rings, The Killer Angels, and Atlas Shrugged.

I finished the novel in 26 days, missing only two days I believe. So that averages to about 39 pages a sitting. Not bad for such a wordy tome. And let me be up front: when it got rolling, I found it hard to put down. On at least two occasions I sat and read / listened to over 80 pages at a time.

Now, that’s all fun and good and really appeals only to über-book nerds like me. The important question is, what did I think of the book?

I guess the bottom line is that it was good but not great. “Good” being a relative term. Relative to me, I kinda enjoyed it, but I wouldn’t re-read it again. To contrast, I might re-read Cryptonomicon again. (Ed. Note: on further consideration, I would re-read Anathem again if you paid me no less than $400. Cryptonomicon would require a payment of $200. Now, I fully understand this may not necessarily reflect the literary merits of the novels, only my current woeful economic state.)

Anyhoo, there was a lot of good in Anathem. It does have an epic vibe about it, and it all begins with the setting: the entirely plausible self-sufficient world of the planet Arbre, and the culture(s) of the people that inhabit it. Technologically, they are basically the equivalent of us early 21st-century Earthlings. However, several thousand years prior cataclysmic calamities simply referred to as the “Terrible Events” nearly ended life on the planet (I imagined it was some sort of wide scale nuclear or biochemical warfare). As a result, all scientists and intellectuals were forced to retreat behind monastery walls out of everyday society. Thus a rich monastic lifestyle mirroring that of the religious of Earth has developed. Physicists, mathematicians, philosophers and the like are now simply referred to as “avout,” and further subdivided by how often they may interact with the outside world during the once-a-year ten-day festival.

The first two hundred pages acclimatizes the reader to the rituals and terminology of this monastic world. And serves as a sort of literary trauma center, triaging out those who can’t hack the dense prose. Then, ever so tortoise-like, a threat to Arbre’s existence is uncovered, bit by bit, clue by clue, piece by piece. An alien spacecraft is discovered in polar orbit around the planet. The Saecular Power has but no choice to “evoke” – call forth or call out – dozens of the avout to investigate and possibly confront this potential menace and thus save the world.

What do you think happens?

I found myself unable to predict, which is a good thing, but what was revealed was not as great as I would’ve hoped for, given the investment of time and energy in the reading of the thing.

What else was good?

Off the top of my head I can think of a couple of things, but like everything else with the novel, they have their drawbacks. Warfare in orbit turns out to be a cool thing. I also loved learning of “equivalent” ideas as I read. That is, what the Arbreans called our theories and such. For example, the Pythagorean Theorem is known as the “Adrakhones’ Theory.” Even better, and playing a much larger role in the story, is the “Hylaean World Theory.” This is none other than Plato’s theory of Forms for you Philosophy 101ers. I also really liked the main characters – especially, for example, Lio, Yul, Samman, Orolo, Jules Verne Durand, Fraa Jad – but wound up disliking the main character, “Raz.” Maybe it was the vocal stylings of the narrator (the novel is in the first-person).

What was outright bad?

Well, as I’ve broadly hinted at, the novel is way too long. That 932-page story could easily have been – should easily have been – 466 pages and would not have suffered loss of story and setting. I get that some novels you want to take in as a fine, intricate painting. I’ve read them (Tolkien, George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire, Clive Barker’s stuff). It’s a personal thing. Just wasn’t my personal thing. Because of this over-length, or maybe the reason for it, is the novel’s dreadfully plodding pacing. Things take way too long to happen. Despite my reading / listening style of experiencing the story, I still found my mind racing to predict what’ll happen five or ten pages down the road.

I can live with an overlong glacially paced novel though, so long as there’s tension and payoff. There’s not really either in Anathem. The threat posed by the alien spacecraft is never viscerally felt. The bad guys were essentially non-entities, non-factors in the story. The climax, the denouement, just kinda happens, and all the Damocles Sword aspects just kinda go away because, I guess, Stephenson was under contractual obligation to come in under a thousand pages. A large chunk of the novel had characters discussing – in Arbrean terms and whatnot – the Many-Worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, so a potentially clever use of alternate realities towards the novel’s conclusion just felt confusing and forced to me. In fact, upon finishing the novel, I’m almost certain it doesn’t add anything to the storyline. But that last thought’s a probability wave I’m not skilled enough to derive.

Probably will read Stephenson again. I read Cryptonomicon in 2008 and Anathem in 2013. One Stephenson book every half-decade sounds about right. Next up: well, we’ll see, sometime in 2018.