Book review: Stephenson's "The Baroque Cycle"

Neal Stephenson's "The Baroque Cycle" is nearly as intimidating to review as it is to read. At 2,700 plus printed pages spread over three volumes (the page count and number of discreet books may vary depending on the format of your purchase), this work is massive in scope, setting, ambition and sheer physical size. The picture at left is the handwritten manuscript for the work, displayed behind the three published hardcover volumes. The experience of reading it is worth every carpal tunnel syndrome pang you will suffer and more (even this slight price to pay can be alleviated by using one of the readily available electronic book readers now on the market).

Set against the backdrop of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, The Baroque Cycle features a bewildering number of characters, both historic and entirely fictional, pursuing their plot strings and character arcs across five continents and nearly 50 years. The cycle follows three main characters, Jack Shaftoe, Eliza and Daniel Waterhouse as they rub shoulders with and often directly influence the movers and shakers of enlightenment Europe. Their story arcs shape Stephenson's hyper-historic, mind-bending narrative of the shaping of the modern world. Historic figures from the period (Isaac Newton, Gottfried Leibniz, John Churchill, Louis XIV and George I to name a few) are blended with a rogues gallery of highly developed, idiosyncratic fictional characters to tell the tale of the foundations of modern science, politics, commerce and finance.

Stephenson's writing style is wryly humorous, with an eye for the ridiculous. I feel it fair to warn you that reading this work in public will result in sudden fits of laughter, assumptions of mental disorder and possible beverage squirting as the author makes deft use of the hilarious and ridiculous to both advance plot points and diffuse tension. Jack Shaftoe, in particular, is equal parts swashbuckling adventurer and comic misfit as his various sobriquets (King of the Vagabonds, L'Emmerdeur, Half-Cocked Jack, and more) will attest. Stephenson often writes of Jack's actions being prey to the influence of "The Imp of the Perverse." The same could be said of the entire work, providing a lively and surprise filled narrative, even considering the accuracy of the story's historic events. The reader is treated to a picture of the period that spares no detail, however distasteful (the sanitary conditions of the age, or lack thereof, seem to hold a particular fascination) or racy, and therefore the work is not for prudes or the squeamish. For those who may be daunted by the work's sheer size, I can promise that the pages turn quickly with a goodly amount of belly laughs interspersed with "I'll be damned" moments.

In all, this is a story and an author worth investing your hard earned guineas and increasingly valuable time in. The dividends will be rich and rewarding.