The Confusion by Neal Stephenson

Luckily this book is not confusing, as the title suggests. In good literary style, the title refers to an older meaning; con-fused, or joined together. Through the journeys of its characters, particularly one who makes an eastward journey from India to London, Stephenson shows how the lines of trade connect and join the globe, even in 1700. The naming of a ship in Malabar can have consequences in Paris, should the wrong name be chosen. Trade has always been global.

In The Confusion the three characters from Quicksilver return, though in this book they are rarely together. The Confusion is a book about the journey. The evidence of con-fusing is background, a detail if you will. Jack's journey around the world is the principal focus of the book, and the effects his actions can have on Eliza are unforeseeable. Daniel Waterhouse is rarely seen, being mostly immobile in London during the years of this book, and wishing he were in Massachusetts. The mercurial character of Enoch Root also returns, to save our trading heroes from a subtle and deadly trap set by the Japanese.

As in Quicksilver, the slow emergence of what we today would recognise as science continues, though here science is still con-fused with alchemy.

As with Quicksilver before it (and The System of the World after) this novel is dense and rewarding to read. Like all good books, the reader is encouraged to seek out yet more books to read to answer or confirm (or not!) questions raised.

Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson

It’s been a please to pick this book up after reading so much pulp fiction recently. I think of that as something I had to get out of my system. After finishing Stormed Fortess, a book I felt I endured rather than read, it was good to read other shorter books that at least got things finished in quick order.

On to Quicksilver. If I were inclined to use the phrase tour de force, I would use it to describe Neal Stephenson's Baroque cycle. It is an incredible series, and my mind recoils from how much research must have gone into this book, never mind the actual writing.

The first book of the series is set from 1635-1690, more or less, along with a couple of chapters from 1713 thrown in.

From the first page, describing the hanging of a witch in Boston, I was hooked. The almost immediate sense of place Stephenson creates is incredible. Whether it’s Boston, Versailles, Amsterdam, or the countryside of France and Germany, it is done expertly.

There are three characters that we see the story through. Daniel, the natural philosopher. Jack the vagabond adventurer, and Eliza, the financial genius.

Quicksilver tracks the beginnings of what we would call modern science. Various educated men perform experiments, and make observations, to test both their own hypotheses and to explore the world around them. To our twenty-first century eyes their results and methods are rudimentary yet fascinating.

In the seventeenth century alchemy is still widely practised and followed, and many of the new natural philosophers devote a lot of their time explaining why their methods are superior to those of the alchemists, who time is passing. Yet the natural philosophers themselves often speak in the language and preconceptions of alchemy themselves. Their struggle against the weight of centuries of ignorance is palpable.

It’s not all books, charts and a universal theory of gravitation though. Quicksilver also brings the adventures of the rogue vagabond Jack to life. Jack, ridden with syphilis, wanders the continent of Europe and generally being quick-witted, good natured, and occasionally stark mad.

Jack meets up with Eliza, a former harem girl with a sharp mind for money at the siege of Vienna. Through Eliza we see that just as the natural philosophers are setting up a scientific system, so is a financial system we would recognise also being established, mainly through Amsterdam.

At close to 1000 pages in my edition, this is a book you can wind through at a leisurely pace, a book to savour. There are two more to follow in the series. Naturally I’ve lent the second book out and won’t be seeing it again before February. I’ll get there. In the meantime, I could not give Quicksilver a higher recommendation.

Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik

I am loving Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series. The easiest way to describe these books is ‘Hornblower with dragons’. I hope that’s enough.

Captain Lawrence and his dragon have returned to England after witnessing first hand what Napoleon can achieve with armies of disciplined dragons at his call. England’s need for dragons is great, as their own dragons have fallen ill to some mysterious disease.

It’s off to Africa for a possible cure, and Lawrence is thrown into an awkward situation with one of his old officers. The gap that has opened between him and his old naval self is never so obvious as during the voyage south.

The cure is obtained but not without arising the ire of the titular empire, one that believes its dragons are reincarnations of its ruling monarchy. As Lawrence and company leave the continent, a great empire finally rouses from its slumber to visit its wrath upon the Europeans.

This is not the climax of the book. Returned to England and with their own dragons on the mend, Britain’s admiralty contrive to send one diseased dragon back to France, to infect that country’s dragon’s and hopefully other dragons in Europe, to leave Britain as a pre-eminent power in the air.

Lawrence and Temeraire act as they must.