Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
My opinion of this book has slipped since I first read it. When I first read it, it was my favorite book in the world and I slowed down at the end because I didn't want it to end. I was in my last year of my Computer Science major and taking a project course focused around a play about the life of Alan Turing. Of course, I adored this book.
I've re-read it a few times since then, but it's been a couple of years. I expected to get swept away again, and I really wasn't. Which isn't to say that I didn't enjoy it -- I did enjoy it -- but it has tumbled off of its pedestal.
One aspect of the book which did not let me down was the humor in the writing. Stephenson can turn a phrase that makes me crack a smile.
I still genuinely enjoyed the WWII cryptanalysis sections of the book, and the narrative in the rest of it.
The strands still weave together marvelously, and I even picked up a few more of the ties this time.
A few things stood out in a negative light during this reread:
The technology is so VERY out of date; it was out of date when I first read it six and a half years ago, and it hasn't gotten any less out-of-date in the meantime.
I think that a few judicious edits could have tightened up the flow of the story. I almost had the feeling in a few places that Stephenson just really wanted to write about x, which was only marginally related to the story, so he went off on a lengthy tangent and wrote about x in the middle of this book instead of spinning it off into something of its own. I don't have major objections because I still found almost all of the book interesting, but I don't think it gained a whole lot from, for example, Tom Howard's several-page narrative about black stockings and fine furniture. It was written in an amusing manner, but didn't contribute significantly to the overarching themes, although it received a wink a few times when talking about heirloom furniture later in the book.
There was so much more sex than I remembered. That's not necessarily a negative thing, I just didn't remember it being quite so prevalent, and it wasn't really what I was in the mood for when I picked up the book. Also, it led me to notice the thing which annoyed me most during this reread: how entirely male-centric the book was.
I'm not saying that every book has to show a gender-balanced world. I also understand, having working in the software industry, that there are many more men than women in that sphere. But it is not just a lack of female characters that caught my notice, but the way that even the ones that show up are only addressed as far as they relate to the males in the story. The women are there merely to be objects of lust for the men. SPOILER: I think that the sex scene between Amy and Randy exemplifies this perfectly; the sex they finally have together is entirely about his pleasure. We get no clues about what the experience is like for her, nor does Randy seem concerned about how she is feeling except so far as she might be judging his performance. He is aware that she might be a virgin prior to their intercourse, but does nothing to acknowledge that fact or inquire as to her emotional or physical state. I only hope that she dumps him shortly after the book ends. Perhaps the author is just trying to accurately portray the thought patterns of the characters whose points of view he is sharing, but it is not appealing to me that they are all assholes when it comes to women. Goto Dengo is probably my favorite character to follow because little (if any) of his narrative has to do with his desire to fuck some woman or other.
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