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threlicus 's review for:
Cryptonomicon
by Neal Stephenson
This is a difficult book for me to review. It’s pretty good writing... but. The book was very long, and I can’t help but think that lots of stuff that was in there really didn’t need to be. Like, Randy’s family dividing up the inheritance — what did it add beyond Stephenson showing off this idea of his about how to maximize utility (which, frankly, wasn’t terribly brilliant in the first place, and even a crazy family isn’t going to force themselves to do it outside in the snow...). And the digression on Lawrence’s mathematical performance and its relationship to his sexual performance — why was that even there?
Which gets me to the other thing. Sure, half of it’s a WWII story, so one doesn’t necessarily expect many women taking big parts there; but the treatment of the ones we do see, through the eyes off both the WWII characters (not including Goto Dengo, whom we never see interact with a woman at all) is completely objectified, and seem to exist just so Stephenson can write about his characters having sex. Even the little details that Stephenson drops, like about the women, or of Japanese at Bletchley Park, always seems to turn them into sexual creatures. And the ‘major’ woman character, Amy, is totally not a POV character, or one that gets any agency.
So, I’m really torn. I enjoyed the book during the reading of it. I’m just the kind of science geek that enjoys the crypto, and liked how realistic it was about what computers and cryptography can actually accomplish. But the more I think back on it, the more troubled I am by the gender and racial (somewhat more excusable, since Shaftoe would realistically be pretty racist given his historical context...) aspects of the work.
Which gets me to the other thing. Sure, half of it’s a WWII story, so one doesn’t necessarily expect many women taking big parts there; but the treatment of the ones we do see, through the eyes off both the WWII characters (not including Goto Dengo, whom we never see interact with a woman at all) is completely objectified, and seem to exist just so Stephenson can write about his characters having sex. Even the little details that Stephenson drops, like about the women, or of Japanese at Bletchley Park, always seems to turn them into sexual creatures. And the ‘major’ woman character, Amy, is totally not a POV character, or one that gets any agency.
So, I’m really torn. I enjoyed the book during the reading of it. I’m just the kind of science geek that enjoys the crypto, and liked how realistic it was about what computers and cryptography can actually accomplish. But the more I think back on it, the more troubled I am by the gender and racial (somewhat more excusable, since Shaftoe would realistically be pretty racist given his historical context...) aspects of the work.