re:mote voices

Title: The Confusion
Author: Neal Stephenson
Publisher:William Heinemann

Neal Stephenson has set out to create an epic with his baroque cycle, of which The Confusion is the second volume, following as it does Quicksilver. This Baroque Cycle is intended as a prequel to his earlier work, Cryptonomicon, going back to the time of the original Cryptonomicon and a period of the first real scientific developments. An idea which was considerably more central to Quicksilver, which might be one of the reasons why it felt like one was getting a little more bogged down than you do with The Confusion.

The Confusion presents the next two books in the sequence, though unlike the three parts of Quicksilver these books are intermingled. A fact which Stephenson says was not his original plan, which I am appalled to think about, feeling that the only reason that The Confusion is readable in the slightest is because the action has been carefully linked. Quicksilver established Daniel Waterhouse and Jack Shaftoe, as the ancestors of the Waterhouses and Shaftoes of Cryptonomicon - Waterhouse as one of the early scientists and Shaftoe as a brigand and vagabond. The Confusion picks up from the end of Quicksilver, following the continuing adventures of the Shaftoe clan, providing the real action and drama of the novel. While contrasting with the more political and subtle text of the life of the Countess Eliza, the girl who was freed by Jack in the first part, and managed to infiltrate the courts of Europe. So on the one hand, the Shaftoes travel the world, filling us in on the Americas, especially the south Americas where the Portuguese and Spanish have their mines and slaves, Africa where so many slaves come from, as well as so many cultures intermingling, across Asia - India and Japan. With this there is a lot to get into, a lot to enjoy, though as it progresses it does some that there is something of a repeat cycle of ups and downs at work. Something which can also be said of the more machiavellian and scheming court intrigues which take in Europe of the time, with Eliza's letters back and forth, as well as her various plots and those schemes against her.

Overall there is a lot to The Confusion, which is to say like Quicksilver, at 800-900 pages it is clearly overwritten, which will no doubt put a lot of people off, fans of Stephenson's previous work included. Which in some ways is a shame, The Baroque Cycle has a lot of potential, there is a lot of political, geographical, and scientific history to be found, while some of that may be fictionalised to drive events, it still puts forward the ideas. Though at times the characters don't necessarily help the work - Waterhouse was initially interesting when he was in the thick of scientific experimentation, but as a political tool, his self-confessed cowardice makes him less interesting, a pawn on the edge of events, rather than someone really active/involved; to some degree the character of Eliza can have the same criticisms levelled at her, the endless letter writing and inactivity, while it may be authentic can become tiresome, though at least she is really involved and does get things done.

The events of The Confusion could come dangerously close to wrapping things up, in fact one almost feels with the ups and downs over the course of events, things could have come to an end several times. With which the ending of The Confusion seems a little too much like an attempt to mix things up enough to justify the third volume. Though there are some threads outstanding anyway, especially given that for the most part the events of the two novels are flash backs from the start of Quicksilver, where Waterhouse has been called back from the Americas where he has just finally got round to heading for towards the end of The Confusion. Which leaves the opening of why Waterhouse has been called back, and the events which are related to that. in addition, the character of Enoch Root remains an enigma, almost to the point where one could start to get really annoyed with the character - given that he was the first character we were introduced to in the Baroque Cycle, and that he comes and goes a little too easily with very little real feel for why he is involved at any level.

For many the hope is that The System of The World which is due out in a few months time will be the volume where finally everything comes together in a form that is satisfactory. Otherwise I suspect Stephenson will have lost many readers.