ISBN: 979-8985170832
Jim Watkins has emerged as a polarizing figure. The reason for his presence being cast in this manner has to do with his internet site that supports the 1st amendment concerning its implementation of free speech. This site is recognized world-wide and is called 8kun. The debate around both his and 8kun’s existence is over what free speech is, specifically on the internet. As free speech is a right, the debate is moot. If anything, the debate should revolve around what is libel and what is slander, and who or what does a person hold accountable in such instances?
When one has the above perspective lens, one can understand the influence behind the creation of the novel of Sliced Americana. Within the pages, we are thrust into the lives of many characters who are not especially good people or even all that likable. The presence of a malignant kind of Narcissism is one of the central issues in the novel. This Narcissism disallows one to follow, in the words of the novel, a person’s “angels”. A quantum perspective of reality is introduced which explains that each of these decisions leads to differing kinds of realities. Missed connections with one’s “angels” influences one’s trajectory through the hyperspace coordinate system. Usually, this missed connection does not end well for those in the book who fail to find or heed the necessary advice.
The beginning of the novel, however, is quick to give us such a moment wherein a central character undergoes a kind of Egyptian Osiris ritual and the object that defines him as a man is removed. The reason for the removal of this organ is due, in no small way, to his pursuit of love in “all the wrong places”. The themes of sex, desire, rape and murder feature heavily within the unfolding narrative. In some cases, the characters in question die. What they all share in common is that their narratives wrap around the existence of a type of ship that cruises around the Earth that is called the ROM or Read Only Memory. Each narrative introduces a character that goes through what is best termed a kind of Sci-fi purgatory complete with a purification process that literally squeezes the corruption of the flesh from the body. The ROM has its own mission, and is crewed by people or entities who have a knack for analyzing the vectors of reality in such a way as to be able to determine who will be a good addition to the team. The plot is vaguely reminiscent of the movie The Matrix although the world in which the events take place is fundamentally darker and more corrupt. Whereas in the movie The Matrix there is belief in a prophecy, in this universe, people have become Godless and are only pointed at the existence of Him fully once they are on board the ROM.
There is a moment in the book where we understand something about the scribe who is writing the tale, or at least we think we do. The writer is caught up in the interference pattern of the work as a whole, and with the collective souls who have come before and after. The reason we cannot conclude anything about the writer, at least within the confines of the tale, is that the work is also entangled with us, as the reader. If we use the metaphysical platform proffered by the author, in reading the work that Green and Watkins have made, are we listening to our angels, or have we ignored their advice? Perhaps the only thing that can be said is that there is the book, and there the reader read it.
The conclusion of the book is a poignant one and the message is important. Suffice it to say that prophecy does eventually enter into a possible version of what America might become. The future this work points to, however, is actually one of the past at least in terms of how the world unfolded. While it is true Spain tried to conquer Cambodia, it is also true that China tried to establish itself as a preeminent enlightened empire to the point that the rest of the world was not in China’s estimation and so a wall was built to keep it (the rest of the world) out. The final showdown then will not be between Egypt in an Osiris ritual and China, but rather China versus that which it rejected at the inception and then consequently aligned itself with Egypt against. Nonetheless, Watkin’s tale does make the story more relatable by cracking open the narrative from the perspective of Alexandria. In an academic world that does not believe in God, making the narrative depend on a more Egyptian mathematical understanding of its operation is a safer bet. Egypt was never a bastion off free speech, however. Here the tale takes some liberties in inviting the symmetrical comparison. Whatever it is that America is, an Osiris rite is not sufficient to convey its ideals. America aspires to be something else. 8kun certainly desires to be something else. Probably, both are closer to the characterization of Voltaire by Evelyn Beatrice Hall:
“Her book described an incident involving the French philosopher Claude-Adrien Helvétius who in 1758 published a controversial work titled “De l’esprit” (“On the Mind”). The book was condemned in the Parlement of Paris and by the Collège de Sorbonne. Voltaire was unimpressed with the text, but he considered the attacks unjustified. After Voltaire learned that the book by Helvétius had been publicly incinerated he reacted as follows according to Hall:
‘What a fuss about an omelette!’ he had exclaimed when he heard of the burning. How abominably unjust to persecute a man for such an airy trifle as that!
‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,’ was his attitude now."
Indeed, now that my markdown has both waxed blue and has returned to black, I must place my pen down upon the table and consider this work finished.
ISBN: 978-0945657873
The Star That Astonished the World was originally written in 1996. Since that time, it is evident that how time is calculated has shifted in some ways since one can see, if they happen to search for dates mentioned in this book, that different years are accorded to events like the lunar eclipse of January 10th. Whereas the book says this is 1 B.C. there are some which now suggest that eclipse happened in 0 instead. Perhaps this is an endorsement of Martin’s theories. Perhaps not. It is hard to know why a given place calculates time as it does even now, which is why what this book is trying to do–understanding the exact birth date of Messiah–is difficult.
The two prongs of the argument that Martin advances concern an inscription found for Quinctilius, the fellow who ordered Qurinius as a Legate to take the census. The argument advanced is that Quinctilius was governor of Syria twice. This would allow Qurinius, if so, to be able to conduct the census in 3 B.C. which would place him as a character administering the census to the pregnant Mary and the accompanying adoptive father, Joseph. The evidence used to promote this claim is historical precedence of the region allowing one to hold offices more than once, when certain wars and actions were taken against the Jewish population and how the historical record might be squared with these moments, and a stone of inscription that might refer to Quinctilius near his home. (it says he was Governor of Syria twice)
A considerable amount of time is spent discussing the death date of Herod as well, which the author identifies as right around January the 10th, 1 B.C. This was when the mentioned lunar eclipse in the source material of Josephus suggests is the point at which Herod dies. Before he dies, Herod, through the Sanhendrin, sentences two Jewish rabbis to death for removing a golden eagle from the gates of the temple. The two rabbis did not do this deed on their own, but had forty youths also assist them. They saw this eagle as being a sacrilege as it was an emblem of Rome over the gates to the temple. Herod has the two rabbis burned to death before he dies on the solar eclipse to try to suggest these two rabbis did not have the favor of YHVH behind them.
When these events are assumed, Martin is then able to deduce certain other historical events that square with the account that make sense of some instructions that were given to take Herod’s effects in Jerusalem by Roman decree after his death. Likewise, it is able to place the deaths of the Jewish believers in the temple which numbered around 3,000 as being in sequence with the “Wars of Varus”. The wars in this case concerned the awards that were given Quinctilius Varus for squashing the Jewish rebellion that occurred at that time. Varus, in this sequence, later loses three legions of Roman soldiers fighting the Germanic people in 9 A.D. This Quinctilius Varus is not the same person as Sulpicius Quirinius but is the one who ordered Quirinius to take the census.
The similarity of the Roman names make this a difficult read at times. All the eclipses and heavenly happenings also make for difficulty in ascertaining timing. Martin does use the many movements of the heavenly bodies of Jupiter and Venus and the Star Regulus to and the many conjunctions they made in the sky as a way to help pin the timing down that the Maji might have followed as well as the birth of the Messiah as a consequence. He notes that by the time the Maji arrived to see the child, many renditions of the account say that the Messiah was all ready able to stand as a toddler would. Therefore, Martin places the birth in around 3 B.C. and has the Maji arriving in 2 B.C. Interestingly, Martin places the birth of the Messiah on September the 11th which he says was the Jewish New year and accords with the Book of Revelation and the final trump or trumpets sounding.
What is evident in reading this work was just how “mixed up” everyone was from about 10 B.C. to 0. Rome is in a party mode and believes it is going to be the leader in a Golden Age of prosperity and enjoys some of its most peaceful moments. A “silver jubilee” is thrown. All the signs Rome sees it interprets as being unique to its destiny. In the mean time, Israel is dealing with Herod and the problems that presents, along with a census being issued by Rome of “all the people in the world”. Dates skip around, and reliable historians like Josephus appear to mix up dates or are inconsistent. Of course, it is also possible they were edited after the fact which make it even harder to understand what was happening at this juncture of time.
Martin makes a good case, however and gets us definitely in the ball park of a plausible timeline. The events that happened then seem to be trying to re-happen now, in a different manner than before. Has the final “Trump” sounded?
ISBN: 978-0060750862
Paging back through this site, the first review in this three part book series was posted in November of 2023. Though it was not seven months of steady reading, it does speak to the size and scope of the series. Roughly 3,000 pages are what Stephenson wrote to tell this story.
Sometimes, one feels that some of those pages were wasted in displaying the research that was so assiduously conducted on the layout of buildings like the Old Bailey or Newgate Prison. On the other hand, these details do make the series have a more immersive sensation since it is clear that Stephenson is not simply writing about these places, but has obviously been to them.
The haunting refrain in this particular book concerns the Quicksilver that Daniel Waterhouse finds himself still concerned with, although most all the Alchemists have exited the scene and what remains is a new kind of Alchemy which no longer mentions items like the Philosopher’s stone. Instead, everything has taken on a different shape in the form of currency and technology. The person at the center of this new machinery is none other than Issac Newton. Newton has been relegated to overseer of the mint where all the new coins of England are to be made. Jack Shaftoe, however, now “Jack the Coiner” has been sent by the King of France to spoil this plan, and has resources in the form of the sought after Alchemical gold of Solomon.
This new system, is of course, supposed to change the entirety of the world and only one person, Princess Sophia, has a vision of the consequences if it happens to be somehow wrongly conceived. The form that vision assumes is a globe consumed by fire and left as a lifeless, black orb.
Throughout the work, each character is driven by something that they are not going to get on the terms that they want. The Solomonic gold is wanted by Newton, for instance, but he finds himself unable to get it and is instead having to work against it since his adversary is using it to undermine the currency he is developing. Jack Shaftoe really only wants to be with the Duchess, but it seems that the only thing he can do is get himself bogged down with people that have other motives that want to use him and the gold he has access to for their own ends. Peter Hoxton, a thief of watches who turns assistant to Daniel Waterhouse, really only wants to steal enough to make some money but instead winds up ensnared in a form of Apocalyptic timeline that Waterhouse was raised to believe would happen. Instead, Waterhouse becomes an atheist from interacting with the arising sciences that develop.
Throughout the novel there is speculation about what true gold is, what good it is to anyone, what Alchemy is and where does it begin and where does it end. Waterhouse summarizes near the end of the tome for us adroitly:
“It has been my view for some years that a new System of the World is being created around us. I used to suppose that it would drive out and annihilate any older Systems. But things I have seen recently, in the subterranean places beneath the Bank, have convinced me that new Systems never replace old ones, but only surround and encapsulate them, even as, under a microscope, we may see that living within our bodies are animalcules, smaller and simpler than us, and yet thriving even as we thrive.”
Indeed, the novel is full of one system foreshadowing another which leads to the next round of alliances, fallouts, and treachery.
While the Industrial Revolution begins to take off, the problem of slavery still looms. While the idea of a computer develops between the warring parties of both Newton and Leibniz, the practicality of how to achieve it is still distant as the “underground river” has not matured enough to allow for the kinds of inventions necessary to make these technical marvels a full reality. While there are fortunes to be made, there is money to be lost as monarchies rise and fall and alliances change. Timing, climate, finance, trade. All of these variables are constantly changing and being reassessed.
Stephenson masterfully tells the tale, but at times it requires the reader to do a bit too much work. Some passages require several readings to infer that an obvious event has happened. This is part of Stephenson’s style, but the oblique references are sometimes a bit too understated, and so one will read along to discover that they missed some subtle nuance that changes the course of the reading. Oftentimes, the nuance is not present until a future chapter, and so one spends time trying to figure out things that have not yet been fully revealed but are being instead hinted toward. A little of this, of course, makes for interesting reading whereas too much proves frustrating. One needs the message to be direct enough that a casual reading is sufficient to parse the message, unless one wishes to be read in college literature analysis courses. Perhaps that is partly Stephenson’s goal, but it seems doubtful. Put differently, the work is brilliant, but it would be more brilliant if the author tried to be less brilliant. Jack Shaftoe ought to point the way on how to do that.
Concerning the ending of this series, there are many things one could say. It definitely feels like a conclusion to a long, winding adventure. The pieces fit together well enough, and it is nice to see how the characters resolve their outstanding issues. Like the trial of the Pyx, the device used to make sure the currency of England is sound, we have a sense in which everyone is being “weighed” in the balance and that the conclusion will be final when the measurement is made. Probably, anyone who has read the series feels a little like Doctor Waterhouse at the end. Of course, that feeling might be tempered by the fact that Stephenson has left us a System of Writing about the World, and while it might not be perfect, it is better that the tale was told and exists than having no System at all. The only trouble is, one never knows what else is hidden in the walls of Bedlam, or in what language whatever is found might be written in should it chance to be discovered.
Perhaps, the System of the World is thinly controlled insanity and the only outcome, when the Solomonic Gold is divorced from God, is for it to burn with a fever until the dreamers are snapped out of their sickened reveries. If so, The System of the World is definitively an attempt to tell the tale while the body hallucinates.