re:mote voices

Title: Quicksilver
Author: Neal Stephenson
Publisher:William Heinemann

quicksilver is an interpretation of the history of europe and science by neal stephenson. the first of his baroque cycle, a trilogy of books which act as a prequel to his previous novel cryptonomicon. this first volume, like cryptonomicon before it, is a good 900 pages, and it is likely that the remaining 2 volumes - which are intended to follow at 6 monthly intervals - will be similar.

the connection to the present as represented by cryptonomicon is made by extending the waterhouse and shaftoe families to britain in the time period of 1650 to 1720. this book is subdivided into three sections, the first covering the life of daniel waterhouse. charting his life as the son of a prominent puritan, through his education and embrace of the natural philosophy that became modern science and his inevitable immigration to america. the second section features the fortunes of the shaftoe brothers, jack and bob. street urchins raised to the level of mercenaries before their fates diverged. one to become a legend across europe as a vagabond king, the other the right hand man of one of the king's advisors. this section also introduces a slave girl called eliza, who with jack's help manages to become free of the turks, and infiltrate the intrigues of european courts. the third part takes the threads of the first two and at last starts to do some mixing of the narratives, though this is also where we are most conscious of the novel's weaknesses.

all the action takes place against a period of particular upheaval. king charles II has deposed cromwell, who was responsible for a civil war and his father's death, during his reign we have the black plague, the great fire as well as shifting alliances with king louis the sun king of france against or with the dutch. caught up in all this is the likes of robert hooke, christopher wren and isaac newton - all prominent scientists exploring a range of matters from optics, through gravity, to the mathematics behind it all. all of this has a certain interest of it's own, in much the same was as umberto eco's historic interpretation provided by foucault's pendulum does.

there is a lot of reading here though, and the charisma of the characters, and impact of these events, can get us through so much of it. but in the end it is would perhaps have been better to mix the storylines more - as perhaps demonstrated by the whole pirate episode as an attempt to make waterhouse's section more action packed. as the book progresses it becomes more of a slog, the lack of a clear plot undermines some of the momentum, even as events seem to speed up around the main characters.

at this point it isn't clear where stephenson is going with his baroque trilogy. there are recurring characters who have false significance here, which one has to assume they will become more prominent in future volumes. the start of the book sees waterhouse set out to return to britain after some years in america, with the rest of the book being a flash back from there, so again one has to reckon on that featuring in later work. while quicksilver feels at times over written, it does still have stephenson's touch to it, so only time can tell what the final verdict on this work will be.