2005-02-19 16:24
by Vasil KolevI finished reading The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson, and just want to say a few words about it.
Something of this scale, written and developed so good I’ve never read, maybe excluding “Foucault’s Pendulum” by Umberto Eco. In ~3000 pages there are so many events ,people (some of them – Isaac Newton, Gottfried Leibniz, king Louis XIV, Peter I), and are described in such style and language, that makes the reading even better. The book is touched to the smallest details, and because of that the places in which are used words and terms not existing then, make the book even more entertaining (I laughed out loud at a such moment in part 3, and will just say that it was about the birds as carriers of a specific disease :) ).
The only thing that’s not likable in the book are some of the more-fantastic-than-normal moments in the book, but they can’t even try to dent the whole pleasure of the reading. I can easily say that Cryptonomicon, being a great book, is just the demo version of The Baroque Cycle. It’s really bad that nobody would try translating them (it would be awfully hard, and it’s not really clear how successful it will be, because it has a lot of old English).
And be aware, that the books aren’t easy to read, they aren’t for someone who isn’t accustomed to something like it. Caveat emptor :)
(I really hope that no one tries to make a movie based on these books. I see no way to make it even 10% as good as them.)
Whomever is interested, Cryptonomicon and Quicksilver (the first book of the cycle) can be found in some bookstores in Sofia. All 4 books can be found online on the different book warez, if you look hard enough (but it’s although different thing to read them on paper).
And now I have no idea what to read. Bobson wants to give me something, let’s see how good it is…