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4.12 AVERAGE
4.12 AVERAGE
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racial slurs
This book would be four stars for me if it weren't so GOD-FORSAKEN LONG. Great concept, characters, and Stephenson is a brilliant writer, but the man needs a better editor.
adventurous
funny
informative
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
“I apologize if my limbic system has misinterpreted your gesture of emotional support.”
My husband insisted I’d like this massive novel largely about code breaking and war, and I was very hesitant. I do like military novels, but computer stuff is really not my specialty. Yet, I loved this dual-timelined, multigenerational story for its humor and quirk. Bobby Shaftoe has earned a spot in my favorite literary characters list.
At 42+ hours, this was quite the audio investment, but the narration is fantastic!
My husband insisted I’d like this massive novel largely about code breaking and war, and I was very hesitant. I do like military novels, but computer stuff is really not my specialty. Yet, I loved this dual-timelined, multigenerational story for its humor and quirk. Bobby Shaftoe has earned a spot in my favorite literary characters list.
At 42+ hours, this was quite the audio investment, but the narration is fantastic!
adventurous
challenging
funny
informative
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I feel like Cryptonomicon has been my white whale for the last 3 years. According to goodreads, I first started reading it in October of 2021, and in the time since it became enough of a part of my personality that many people told me they believed that I must've read it "at least 7 times or something". But, I had a terrible secret. I had not read Cryptonomicon even once. In fact, I had read it only about 0.52 times, in that I read 500-odd pages back in 2021, and never ended up completing the book. In the years since, I've thought about it a lot; I'm a massive cryptography nerd, and I found the concepts, history, and characters presented in the book to be fascinating. I even took a detour, reading Stephenson's Snow Crash last year (which was fascinating but I ultimately did not like as much). Anyway, this year one of my Read Harder challenges is to repeat a challenge from a previous year, and I decided this would be the year I would complete "Read a book you have previously DNFed" (that is, did not finish-ed). I put Cryptonomicon on my to-re-read list early this year, and finally got round to it last month. It really is a hefty book, clocking in at over 1,000 pages (I'm sorry to my wonderful friend Adi who transported me a copy of it over multiple country lines), but a lot of why it's a difficult read isn't related to that. It's pretty densely written - both in text-per-page, but also in terms of maths-concepts-per-page. Stephenson LOVES to go off on an aside about the maths of stuff, which I enjoy too, but does not super make for easy reading. Additionally, it's a heavy book (again, not just talking about physical attributes here ;)). A good half of the book at least is set during WWII, and Stephenson does not hold back on the atrocities. All that is to say, it did take me a little over 3 weeks to read, but I'm glad to say I've finally done it (and I won't disappoint all my friends when the truth comes out anymore...). I've remarked to multiple people that I think Cryptonomicon is one of the best war books I've ever read, which is especially impressive for a book that I do not believe is marketed or set out to be one. WWII is a backdrop for many of the events of the book (which happens in parallel timelines, following an ensemble cast back in the 1940s, as well as a storyline in the 1990s), and I think Stephenson toes the line of a narrative that is heartfelt, and makes you care about characters, but equally largely does not martyr them or give them heroic sacrifices. It is a little Night Watch in that way, in that it shows the way war is pointless and grinds people up, and that people largely don't die because they did something impressive but rather for no reason at all. Near the latter half I ended up picking up another book to read in tandem because I needed to have a palate cleanser book to read before I went to sleep so I wouldn't have weird and bad dreams. But, again, I think that's good. I found it affecting, and I think that books that make you feel something get extra points. Ok, so we've covered that miserable parts, lets get into the book in general. In the 1990s we follow Randall Lawrence Waterhouse, grandson of Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse (character from the 1940s, our invisible string through time), who is partaking in his Third Serious Business Venture. There's lots of good and funny commentary on the nature of business, also touching on the Crypto Wars, masculinity, justice, and of course, lots of delicious maths. In fact, in a move somewhat similar to Snow Crash, Stephenson took a detour from the writing of the book itself to work with an academic to produce a crypto scheme specifically for this book, which he also devotes an appendix to explaining at the end. I am also currently reading The Joy of Cryptography right now (Final Year Project woes), and let me tell you - I did in fact feel the joy of cryptography while reading this book. Ah man. We get some really good cryptography in some of the 40s sections as well, mostly those from Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse's POV. He is good friends with Alan Turing, who exists as a fictionalised version of himself within the book. I actually really liked the portrayal of him - it seemed fairly accurate to what I know of his life and personality, he made some nice maths jokes that I appreciated, and he is pretty open about being gay (I'm looking at you here, The Imitation Game). The rest of our 40s POV characters seem really disconnected from each other until a good way through the book, whereupon they begin to form A Conspiracy. I loved slowly piecing together what happened to them, using the different POVs as well as some of our knowledge from present day (90s). It kept me on the edge of my seat through most of the 1,000 pages, and I almost cried multiple times near the end, which really shocked me. For a book that is often very very cynical about humanity, there are some really beautiful moments that really got me. Finally, the ending. What did I think of it? I would definitely say I liked it better than I expected to, based on what I've generally heard of Stephenson's skill at ending books. Once you've read the ending, you understand why a lot of things happened in the book, and I think it worked well thematically as well. It's a little, well, anticlimactic, but I think anything would have been after the saga I went through. And, yes, it definitely doesn't addres every thing that happened, but that's part of the charm of the book. A lot of it really is there just to add to the overall narrative, to show more about the world and the characters, and to let our readers enjoy some nice asides (look, this is a book best classed as "nerd literature", so really this is a genre expectation). Life isn't a story with no filler that moves towards a perfect ending. It's imperfect, and messy, and sometimes gets all mixed up in itself, and I think that's a lot of why I found Cryptonomicon to be successful. Oh, and because Randy talks quite a lot about role playing games, and I enjoyed seeing someone who managed to be nerdier than me about them ;)
Fun fact: Apparently during the writing of Cryptonomicon, Stephenson spent so much time researching that he found loads of information that he found interesting, but that he didn't think had a place in this book. So, he took that extra information, and wrote the Baroque Cycle, a trilogy clocking in at over 2,500 pages. Man, I need that kind of drive for research (Final Year Project woes)
Fun fact: Apparently during the writing of Cryptonomicon, Stephenson spent so much time researching that he found loads of information that he found interesting, but that he didn't think had a place in this book. So, he took that extra information, and wrote the Baroque Cycle, a trilogy clocking in at over 2,500 pages. Man, I need that kind of drive for research (Final Year Project woes)
Great book! Unfortunately, the ending is a little weak like all Stephenson books.
Terrific scene from the show Silicon Valley:
Human Resources person dressing down Gilfoyle: Oh, you're "that guy."
Gilfoyle: What "guy" exactly?
HR person: The brooding, arrogant guy who refuses to take orders? Self-taught coder who looks down on anyone who's taken a class. You're probably an atheist or something more contrarian. You claim to be an anarcho-capitalist, but you work here and pay taxes. You've probably read half of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, and it's about 50/50 whether you own a snake.
Gilfoyle: I finished Cryptonomicon, and you easily could've just looked in my file.
Yes, this is the novel tech bros love. I didn't know that when I picked it up 15 or so years ago, where it's sat on my shelf ever since. But since I had some time off work over the holidays, I finally endeavored to conquer this beast. By turns deathly dull, riveting, fascinating, infuriating, annoying, and entertaining as hell. It's three stories at once, basically - a "modern" (though this is 1999, so the tech seems laughably out of date) tech bro start-up story, and two separate but intertwined World World II stories. I enjoyed the World War II stories much more. It's a treasure hunt, a conspiracy, a novel about math and code breaking and the dawn the digital computer age (Alan Turing makes a few cameos), and about 3,357 things more - as you'd expect with an 1,100 page novel. Glad I read it. Glad it's over.
Human Resources person dressing down Gilfoyle: Oh, you're "that guy."
Gilfoyle: What "guy" exactly?
HR person: The brooding, arrogant guy who refuses to take orders? Self-taught coder who looks down on anyone who's taken a class. You're probably an atheist or something more contrarian. You claim to be an anarcho-capitalist, but you work here and pay taxes. You've probably read half of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, and it's about 50/50 whether you own a snake.
Gilfoyle: I finished Cryptonomicon, and you easily could've just looked in my file.
Yes, this is the novel tech bros love. I didn't know that when I picked it up 15 or so years ago, where it's sat on my shelf ever since. But since I had some time off work over the holidays, I finally endeavored to conquer this beast. By turns deathly dull, riveting, fascinating, infuriating, annoying, and entertaining as hell. It's three stories at once, basically - a "modern" (though this is 1999, so the tech seems laughably out of date) tech bro start-up story, and two separate but intertwined World World II stories. I enjoyed the World War II stories much more. It's a treasure hunt, a conspiracy, a novel about math and code breaking and the dawn the digital computer age (Alan Turing makes a few cameos), and about 3,357 things more - as you'd expect with an 1,100 page novel. Glad I read it. Glad it's over.
I’m really torn on how I feel about this book and how I should rate it. The first influencer I should mention is that I was told that Neal Stephenson is one of the top sci-fi writers of today and that I will love his work. And then I read Cryptonomicon...expecting a sci-fi masterpiece.
Spoiler - It is not a sci-fi masterpiece. It’s actually an historical drama. Think Tom Clancy meets The Imitation Game.
And I found myself enjoying how well it was written, even intrigued by a few of the characters (Bobby Shaftoe was, by far, my favorite) but found myself lacking interest with the story as a whole, climactic twists and turns notwithstanding.
Now I just need to get on to reading one of his actual sci-fi pieces.
Spoiler - It is not a sci-fi masterpiece. It’s actually an historical drama. Think Tom Clancy meets The Imitation Game.
And I found myself enjoying how well it was written, even intrigued by a few of the characters (Bobby Shaftoe was, by far, my favorite) but found myself lacking interest with the story as a whole, climactic twists and turns notwithstanding.
Now I just need to get on to reading one of his actual sci-fi pieces.
4.5 stars. I was not sure at first since such a long book. However, it was definitely worth it.