レビュー

• スリリングなバロック的エンタテインメント大河小説の幕開け。

  前作『クリプトノミコン』で第二次世界大戦の暗号戦を描いた作者の次の作品は時代を遡って十七世紀のヨーロッパ。この時代は「十七世紀の危機」と呼ばれ、既存の宗教や社会などのシステムが前世紀の宗教改革や大航海時代などにより変革を迫られた時期である。「ゆがんだ真珠」を意味する「バロック」という言葉がまさにふさわしい。この作品の舞台のひとつであるイギリスでは二度の革命や戦争、疫病の流行にロンドン大火という事件が相次いだ時代だった。その中で「ソロモンの黄金」をキーワードに、史上最大の錬金術師にして科学者アイザック・ニュートンとライプニッツを中心に、「放浪者の王」ジャック・シャフトーと元オスマン帝国のオダリスク・エリザ、ニュートンの友人ダニエル・ウォーターハウス（『クリプトノミコン』登場人物の祖先）その他実在の人物を絡めて見事に仕上げたエンタテインメントである。本巻で出揃った登場人物がこの後どういうストーリーを練り上げていくのか。歴史の好きな方以外にも、歯ごたえのある小説を読みたい方に。

• ciclo barocco

  grande romanzo storico: una gradevole storia a cavallo tra 17° e 18° secolo, intrisa di cultura e di conoscenza del mondo di allora. la lettura è lenta e il continuo saltare dalla fine della storia allo svolgimento della avventura richiede all'inizio della lettura una certa attenzione (anche al titolo dei capitoli, con la data!) l'intreccio tra le storie di più personaggi rende più avvincente il romanzo, attendendo il ricongiungimento dei vari filoni verso la fine della trilogia. qualche migliaio di pagine ma io le ho apprezzate molto ("de gustibus:::")

• The whole Baroque Cycle is majestic in it's sweeping geographical and historical narrative.

  This is a review of the whole Baroque Cycle. Majestic seems a good word to describe the cycle. The story circumnavigates the world, starting in post revolution Britain and returning in time for the first Georgians. Along the way we meet many kings and queens - more majesty. Despite the setting, the language and dialogue are in modern English, with the odd stylistic reversion to baroque forms. Sometimes Stephenson appears to slip up and uses an American term such as "gotten", but this may be deliberate. His knowledge and research in areas such as geography, codes, architecture, history and early science is astonishing. It becomes diificult to detect where facts about the lives of Newton, Wren, Leibniz, James II etc. drift from historical fact into fiction. The major fictional characters have depth and develop during the cycle in a satisfying way. The cycle is not high fiction, but it's also not a simple narrative. Stephenson uses more than one literary method to cary the plot, including sections written as for a play. There are some excellent and imaginitive action sequences which move along at a great pace. However, there is no escaping from the fact that these are big books and they take a certain level of commitment to complete. Perseverence is justified for the satisfaction gained.

• Good sci-fi book

  I bought this science fiction series for a friend and he loves it.

• A Baroqe Masterpiece not to Everyone's Taste

  This book has languished on my "to read" shelf for a couple of years and now I am angry with myself for not having started it sooner. It is a baroque masterpiece. It is baroque in that it is set in that period of European history when the arts and sciences were flourishing like never before. It is baroque in that it is complex, highly convoluted and ornamented with a myriad of frills. Not all of them add to the story line but they all add to the flavor and that flavor is exquisite. This purports to be the story of Daniel Waterhouse, a Puritan Englishman drawn to the study of natural philosophy, what we would call rational science today. He is a bright fellow but suffers from being active at the same time as such luminaries as Isaac Newton, Christian Huygens, Robert Hooke, Leibniz and others. He is also a Puritan in an England suffering under the Crypto-Catholic reign of Charles II and the open Catholic, James II. William of Orange is defending the Lowlands against the aggressions of Louis XIV, the Sun King. All of these figures and more are woven together with great artistry to tell a story. What is the Story? Well...that is the difficult part. The book opens in the early 18th century. A member of the Royal Society has been dispatched to Boston to bring Waterhouse back in an attempt to patch things up between Newton and Leibniz. Waterhouse agrees to do so and sets sail. The first third of the book alternates between the beginnings of his journey and memories of his younger years in the heydays of the 17th century. The middle third of the book drops Waterhouse altogether. It tells the story of an English Vagabond who manages to rescue a well educated female slave from the Turks at the siege of Vienna. He is able to do little about his beautiful booty because of the pox and the loss of his member. Still, the two form a relationship as they head west to the Netherlands. He is her aide and protector and she is the brains with the financial acumen. She rises in court society and gets involved with the intrigues of the French and Dutch courts. The final third brings together Waterhouse and the lovely Eliza, the rescued concubine. England is on the Eve of its "Glorious Revolution" in which the Dutch house of Orange takes over. Daniel is glad to see this and has helped to bring it about but is tired of the whole affair. He has notions of moving to Boston but does not expect to live long enough to do so since he has a bladder stone which is slowly killing him. As the book ends, he is being subjected to the surgery that might remove the stone and give him another chance at life. Never once in the second or third sections of the book do we ever learn anything about Daniel's trip back to England late in life. We are even fuzzier on the reasoning. We get the sense that the entire book has been written to set us up for what is to come. I, for one, cannot wait. This book will definitely not appeal to everyone. I suspect that the more knowledgeable one is about the history of that era, both political and scientific, the more the book will make sense. It is full of trivial facts, archaic spellings and words usages but these are not overdone. They add to the scenery, not detract from it. It is a magnificent read for those with the fortitude to attempt it.

• Too dilatory, too long, too slow.

  Too lengthy, meandering, heavy style, could not go beyond 50 pages, could not return as the return date had passed.

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