Bear Flag Blog

My son loves to go to the bookstore. Not for the books, although he is a fan of books (or at least having them read to him), but for the Thomas the Tank Engine playset that our local Barnes & Noble has set up in their childrens' section. So at least once a week we zip over to B&N to let the boy play on the train set. One of us will sit and watch him while the other peruses the books, and then we'll tag out.

I noticed the most recent time there that apparently the fall books all came out at once, for suddenly the shelves held numerous new books by my favorite authors. I immediately seized upon Anathem, for Neal Stephenson is probably my favorite living author. It's a weighty tome at 960 pages, but that's the direction Stephenson has been going in. Most authors do.

I've enjoyed all his work, including the early Stephen Bury stuff, The Big U, all the way up through the Baroque cycle. Snow Crash is still my favorite Stephenson book, which would probably frustrate him a little if he knew, but each new work is nonetheless excellent and contains obvious growth. The Baroque cycle was superb.

Anathem... well. My feelings about Anathem are complicated. On the one hand, I will direct your attention to this graph, which describes Anathem in spades. On the other hand...

I'm going to read it again.

I don't think I've ever read a book twice in a row. Anathem has flaws, numerous ones: it has Stephenson's usual weak touch with emotions - light bordering facile - it has long stretches of pure explication of philosophical points, it has characters seemingly entirely immune to surprise. It's swimming in "new" words (see XKCD, above). At times it's boring. Other times the action is so continuous the reader feels unmoored.

And yet, it's also awesome. It presents a parallel world with startlingly fascinating elements. It has compelling characters, an interesting story, and is for all the shortcomings very well told. I want to immerse myself in that world again, and pick up on the parts I glossed over the first time.

Is it for you? I don't know. I enjoy Stephenson; more importantly, I love history, and the parallels in Anathem with our world were interesting and obvious. Other reviewers have dubbed it a cross between The Name of the Rose and Goedel, Escher, Bach, and I must agree with that analysis. The Name of the Rose - along with A World Lit Only by Fire and A Distant Mirror - is one of my favorite books.

In the final analysis, Anathem is going on the top shelf, along with John Julius Norwich's Byzantine trilogy and C.V. Wedgwood's The Thirty Years' War. Anathem is a great book. It has its flaws, but it was at the same time a thoroughly enjoyable read and a compelling headspace to be in. I give it 9/10.