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Neal Stephenson continues his beautifully written, witty and informative historical cultural science-fictionish cycle of novels about Western Europe in the 17th century--featuring Daniel Waterstone (a Puritan who is also General Secretary of the Royal Society for Science, Gottfried Leibniz, Sir Isaac Newton, the various English and French kings and courts, as well as Willem of Orange and the irrepressible Eliza and the financial markets especially of Amsterdam.
Odalisque is #3 in the cycle--in my view perhaps not quite as stunning as its predecessors, Quicksilver and King of the Vagabonds, but still thoroughly enjoyable. Can there be a special "revolution" without violence--is a central question leading to the Glorious Revolution in England in 1688 in which the Dutch king Willem becomes the "William" of William and Mary, restoring Protestantism and the northern European nexus of the nascent bourgeois free enterprise system versus the French and Spanish systems, whereby we are given to the view that the Sun King used his over the top Palace of Versailles and its emphasis on nobility and high end clothing as an effective means of keeping his aristocrats occupied, poor, and not a threat to his further rule, but states that this "system" is ultimately defeated by a civil and commercially free bourgeois democracy.
But along the way, Stephenson satisfies richly our appetite for wit, irony, and desire to understand what was really happening (and why) in late 17th Century England, France and the Netherlands. Or at least what could have been happening in what may be the most outrageous possible interpretation of real historical events.
As perhaps a few examples:
Speaking of King Charles II's reign rowing back Cromwell's Puritans, restoring his version of Catholicism, and being openly in the pay of the King of France: "It had been--in other words--a reign. Charles II's reign. He was the King, he loved France and hated Puritans and was always long on mistresses and short on money, and nothing ever really changed...Whole sections had been taken over by the King's pack of semi-feral spaniels, who'd become inbred even by Royal standards and thus hare-brained even by Spaniel standards."
and
"In Amsterdam, they have investments instead of emotions...We could destroy all the treasures of the Classical world and they would not care; but if they hear bad news that touches the V.O.C. (Dutch East Indies Company), they are plunged into despair--or rather, the price of the stock falls, which amounts to the same thing."
As some examples of Stephenson's writing:
"He was not a handsome man: ...his nose stuck out like a beak, and in general he had the exhausting intensity of a trapped bird."
"The result of his lucubrations was classically French in that it did not square with reality but it was very beautiful, and logically coherent."
"A hill of water had piled up on the upstream side of the bridge and was finding its way through the arches like a panicked crowd trying to bolt from a burning theatre."
Finally, Stephenson quotes eminent writers of the era, such as Hobbes:
"For to accuse, requires less eloquence, such is man's nature, than to excuse; and condemnation, than absolution, more resembles justice."
All in all, it is such a great pleasure to read Stephenson one can only conclude one of his books by asking for a new offering--which thankfully came through the Confusion--next in the cycle.
Odalisque is #3 in the cycle--in my view perhaps not quite as stunning as its predecessors, Quicksilver and King of the Vagabonds, but still thoroughly enjoyable. Can there be a special "revolution" without violence--is a central question leading to the Glorious Revolution in England in 1688 in which the Dutch king Willem becomes the "William" of William and Mary, restoring Protestantism and the northern European nexus of the nascent bourgeois free enterprise system versus the French and Spanish systems, whereby we are given to the view that the Sun King used his over the top Palace of Versailles and its emphasis on nobility and high end clothing as an effective means of keeping his aristocrats occupied, poor, and not a threat to his further rule, but states that this "system" is ultimately defeated by a civil and commercially free bourgeois democracy.
But along the way, Stephenson satisfies richly our appetite for wit, irony, and desire to understand what was really happening (and why) in late 17th Century England, France and the Netherlands. Or at least what could have been happening in what may be the most outrageous possible interpretation of real historical events.
As perhaps a few examples:
Speaking of King Charles II's reign rowing back Cromwell's Puritans, restoring his version of Catholicism, and being openly in the pay of the King of France: "It had been--in other words--a reign. Charles II's reign. He was the King, he loved France and hated Puritans and was always long on mistresses and short on money, and nothing ever really changed...Whole sections had been taken over by the King's pack of semi-feral spaniels, who'd become inbred even by Royal standards and thus hare-brained even by Spaniel standards."
and
"In Amsterdam, they have investments instead of emotions...We could destroy all the treasures of the Classical world and they would not care; but if they hear bad news that touches the V.O.C. (Dutch East Indies Company), they are plunged into despair--or rather, the price of the stock falls, which amounts to the same thing."
As some examples of Stephenson's writing:
"He was not a handsome man: ...his nose stuck out like a beak, and in general he had the exhausting intensity of a trapped bird."
"The result of his lucubrations was classically French in that it did not square with reality but it was very beautiful, and logically coherent."
"A hill of water had piled up on the upstream side of the bridge and was finding its way through the arches like a panicked crowd trying to bolt from a burning theatre."
Finally, Stephenson quotes eminent writers of the era, such as Hobbes:
"For to accuse, requires less eloquence, such is man's nature, than to excuse; and condemnation, than absolution, more resembles justice."
All in all, it is such a great pleasure to read Stephenson one can only conclude one of his books by asking for a new offering--which thankfully came through the Confusion--next in the cycle.
