Sickenmcsloggets

I have to say, I prefer the way Lemony Snicket defines words periodically throughout his books to the way Neal Stephenson does. Lemony’s method being something like this:
Anathem is a novel by Neal Stephenson, which here means a return to form. A return to the familiarity with the author of Snow Crash, Diamond Age, and Cryptonomicon after an estrangement halfway through Quicksilver.

Neal Stephenson’s definition is phrased this way:

Anathem: (1) In Proto-Orth, a poetic or musical invocation of Our Mother Hylaea, which since the time of Adrakhones has been the climax of the daily liturgy (hence the Fluccish word Anthem meaning a song of great emotional resonance, esp. one that inspires listeners to sing along). Note: this sense is archaic, and used only in a ritual context where it is unlikely to be confused with the much more commonly used sense 2. (2) In New Orth, an aut by which an incorrigible fraa or suur is ejected from the math and his or her work sequestered (hence the Fluccish word Anathema meaning intolerable statements or ideas). See Throwback.

— the dictionary, 4th edition, A.R. 3000

That’s not to say that this dictionary of Arbe (the planet the book is set in) isn’t interesting. It is interesting unless you go straight to the glossary in the back of the book and begin reading it from top to bottom. Ugh. How he uses these frequent definitions is nice. While reading, formal definitions appeared from time to time. What is interesting is that occasionally a fictional “Arbe” word would be especially confusing and not very well supported by it’s context, only to be happened upon a couple of pages later, which caused me to pause and reflect on earlier events. The definitions for some words will also sometimes appear before they are used in the story, which primed me for events about to happen, and then created an “a-ha” moment when the defined word actually showed up.

When I read this book again, I will be less lazy in regards to the fictional words that are not defined immediatley or plainly in the text of the story. I was hesitant to be flipping back and forth to the glossary, and settled with making my best guess based on the context. In most cases the context does reveal the meaning of the word, but in the cases of the epic history and culture of these monasteries or concents, I was disadvantaged by not making use of the glossary as I went. It was obvious pretty quickly that most of the common words were simple substitues for things we all know of, which was frustrating at first because it seemed like an unnecessary hassle, a trivial trick. I appreciated it more as the story progressed, because it seemed to make these everyday things in modern society seem abstract even to me, so that they could be viewed more from the perspective of these “avout” or monks that were completely isolated in their concents for decades and centuries at a time. It also has a greater significance in the plot later in the story.

His descriptions of architecture were grueling to me. The extremely detailed accounting of the ancient stone concents were interesting up to a point, but I wasn’t able to build those structures mentally to keep up with the descriptions before it fell apart for me. The culture of philosophy, science, and all kinds of learning by the avout in these concents was really fascinating. I was able to keep up with varying degrees of success to the various discussions of these intelligent characters, but as the last third of the book progressed the science became more and more difficult to tread through. I still enjoyed it, but it started getting into some eye-crossing philosophical and scientific theories.

The religious nature of the avout in the concents, along with the people and their religions in Arbe outside of the concent were fascinating, having grown up myself in a pretty strict, devout society.It was odd to read about basically disfellowshippings and excommunications in the setting of the concent, and how avout that were kicked out were dead to the others. These avout, with their extensive education and unrelenting logic, seemed to introduce an opening for the author to absolutely crucify the notions of religion in a way that I did not actually encounter. The characters made the point more than once that religions were nonsense, but there seemed to be a respect and tact in Neal Stephenson’s treatment of it. I especially enjoyed reading the account of the religion Kelx, and their followers.

Unlike Quicksilver, it wasn’t boring and plodding. This book for me was definitely a page-turner, and I read through it quickly. The characters helped a long ways towards that. They instantly reminded me of Neal Stephenson’s characters from Snow Crash and Diamond Age (two excellent books) in that they kept me reading because I wanted to know more about them. I guess I don’t want to try and define it any more specifically, but the whole cast of characters had this familiar engaging quality that I got from the characters in those other two books.

I was skeptical of Anathem when I learned he was writing it, because of my apathy towards Quicksilver. Now I know he is still the same author that wrote Snow Crash.