Enigma and Cryptonomicon
Posted on July 20th, 2007
In one of those interesting quirks, just a couple days after I had finished reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, someone listed a genuine German Enigma cypher machine from WWII on eBay. So if you have a spare $50,000 around, you can snag it with “Buy it now.” Not that I would buy one even if I were filthy rich, but it is pretty interesting to see what one looks like after reading so much about them in Cryptonomicon:
Pretty cool. Now on to Cryptonomicon. I am a latecomer to Neal Stephenson, but he quickly became one of my favorite authors after reading Snow Crash
Cryptonomicon was at first a challenging read for me. There is a pretty large cast of characters, or at least it felt like that at first because they were all set in different times. I generally dislike stories that jump around in different times, so much so that I’ve been known to repeatedly pick up and eventually throw back down Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. Plus Stephenson hits you with some math, which at first I made the effort to follow, but eventually I just surrendered and let my eyes get all glossy as I read through those bits. So to be honest, I was probably almost a third of the way through this large book (the paperback version below clocks in at 1168 pages) before I was hooked.
But once it got me it wouldn’t let go! The plot lines were interesting and creative, but the satire occasionally goes over the top. In broad strokes, the plot covers the WWII exploits of those involved in codebreaking along with the attempts of their modern day descendants to build a data haven on a small sovereign island nation. Historical figures pop in and out or are mentioned in passing (the scene with young Ronald Reagan is hysterical). I cannot do justice to the plot here, though, because so much more is included. Beyond the broad sketches above are battle scenes, bar fights, submarine chases, hacking, FBI raids, treasure seeking, POW camps, lawsuits, family dysfunctions, jungle survival, and everything else under the sun. For me that was all beside the point, though.
For me the real payoff was just in the way this guy writes. Stephenson’s prose is simply incredible and I found myself re-reading passages just to marvel in his use of language. I wish I had highlighted some of my favorite passages to share, but I didn’t and going back and digging up specific passages in this monster would be next to impossible.
If you like cyberpunk, war tales, and just damn good writing, you owe it to yourself to pick this up.
Filed under Cyberpunk, Stephenson, Neal |