Quicksilver(The Baroque Cycle No. 1)
ISBN: 978-0060833169
Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver tips the scales at over a thousand pages. None of these pages are wasted in the telling of the tale, as the subject matter concerns the foundation of the Royal Society. The Royal Society oftentimes takes the name of the “secret college” before it becomes the Royal Society, and is littered with alchemists that, after a long period of study, mostly advance what we would normally term modern science. Not all of them do this, of course, and there are fractures within the camps as to who continues to study Alchemy and who goes on to study the “natural sciences” and becomes a “natural philosopher”.
All the characters such as Enoch Root and Daniel Waterhouse make their appearance here, but what is perhaps more accentuated than normal is Waterhouse’s entire eye and purpose toward understanding the Apocalypse and preparing himself accordingly to the task. Indeed, one could examine the years around 1666 as a kind of miniature apocalypse with the fire of London and all the jostling about in royal society between warring powers of Catholicism and Protestantism. Whether or not Daniel Waterhouse wants to be, it seems he is always at a place or near a character that will shape future world events.
There is, of course, the matter of Eliza who is a Turkish sex slave who is rescued by Jack Shaftoe, which we of course see the linkages of and foreshadowings of the Shaftoe family in the Cryptonomicon. The brothers Jack and Bob Shaftoe start out providing a “service” for condemned men. They both hang on the legs of those who are not killed quickly by design of putting on a show in the judicial system of England under Charles the II. The extra weight causes the condemned to die quicker than they otherwise would, as their executioner is none other than Jack Ketch. Jack Shaftoe also has syphilis and is generally a quasi “Judas” anti-hero character. Indeed, Jack shares a lot in common with the plotline of the movie The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly when it comes to nooses and their removal. Jack, however, falls in love with Eliza, a Turkish harem sex slave that he, despite himself, rescues. Their romance is blocked by a thousand differing elements, and we are left with neither of them being on good terms with the other.
Eliza, on the other hand, becomes proficient at the handling of money in Amsterdam and meets Daniel Waterhouse and Leibniz and becomes a type of spy for Lebiniz and then later a double agent for William of Orange. Through the course of her duties, she is carried through many courts most often at the behest of William of Orange.
One of the issues with reading Quicksilver is that it is almost too ambitious of an undertaking in that it jumps in time and through family relations rapidly. There is continuity, for certain, but it becomes hard to tell sometimes who is writing to whom and why. This is partly caused by the plentiful titles and characters in the book and it is a certainty that heraldry was important in those times and so when one is going to write about the era one is naturally going to have large amounts of family trees whether one wants to or not. It is this knitting, however, which is time independent, which jumps about that makes it sometimes difficult to follow. The switchout from the focus being on Jack Shaftoe to his brother Bob is also irritating. One understands the necessity in terms of the narrative, but it is one more character that becomes easy to confuse with Jack. Of course, Jack and Bob are supposed to be aspects of Robert Shaftoe in Cryptonomicon which are really commentaries if anything on ‘treacherous Albion’ in general and the progression of the spy game throughout academia and time.
We also meet other characters famous throughout history and science such as Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke, and John Churchill. Present as well are John Wilkes and many other famous names that became synonymous with the Royal Society. The material is rich, deep and well-researched. What is not quite as pleasant to read is the fixation on homosexuality and speculation about who is or who is not a homosexual in the book. For instance, more than once, Newton, a Puritan, is alluded to as being a homosexual. Likewise, it is heavily implied William of Orange is, at the very least, bisexual. While it is a fact many varied sexual orientations have existed in Royal lineages throughout time, it is also factual that such accusations were used as smears against one’s opponents. Either way, Quicksilver at times reads like some kind of historical romance for same sex relationships or in a few instances outright torture. Perhaps Stephenson needed some spice to keep the reader interested in the world of espionage, but the reading would have gone as well if not better without all the supposition of who is or who is not homosexual.
Having read the work, it is difficult to form a solid opinion about it in that it leaves many unanswered questions which is to be expected since it is part of a three-volume set. At times, it is a brilliant read. At other times, it feels like one is only learning about all the possible dark motives of anyone who was ever ‘historically significant’. At times, one hates Daniel Waterhouse. At other times, one can sympathize. The Royal College is made out to be somewhat ghastly with how and what they dissect and on average, the entire novel feels like some gothic, vampiric tale. It is not that such energies were not present–it is simply that they were not the only ones and the real stories are more interesting than any foisted, imagined, lavish yarn. It feels that Stephenson, like Icarus, flies too close to the sun and has his wax-literary-wings melt. Then, just when you think the narrative will not recover, another ascent begins and the process starts anew.
The novel could be condensed and summarized as “This is not the apocalypse Daniel Waterhouse expected, but it is the one he got anyway.” The reader, in reading this work, might feel about the same upon completion of the novel. There is definitely an air of “to be continued” and one is left with many dangling questions.!
