Neal Stephenson's Anathem

I was struck by the depth of this book – both ideas and its insightful prose. Let's begin with a piece of prose:

So I looked with fascination at those people in their mobes, and tried to fathom what it would be like. Thousands of years ago, the work that people did had been broken down into jobs that were the same every day, in organizations where people were interchangeable parts. All of the story had been bled out of their lives. That was how it had to be; it was how you got a productive economy. But it would be easy to see a will at work behind this: not exactly an evil will, but a selfish will. The people who'd made the system thus were jealous, not of money and not of power but of story. If their employees came home at day's end with interesting stories to tell, it meant that something had gone wrong: a blackout, a strike, a spree killing. The Powers that Be would not suffer others to be in stories of their own unless they were fake stories that had been made up to motivate them. People who couldn't live without story had been driven into the concents or into jobs like Yul's. All others had to look somewhere outside of work for a feeling that they were part of a story, which I guessed was why Saeculars were so concerned with sports, and with religion. How else could you see yourself as part of an adventure?

[ mobes = cars

  concents = university, but cloistered with outside contact only once every ten years

  Yul = main character, his job is as a wilderness guide – think Alaska, Nepal

  Saecular = the world most people inhabit

]

Good Science Fiction is always part social commentary – by constructing another world that is often the same but subtly different, the author is allowed the freedom to make observations about the way people live and what gives life meaning. Stephenson does this by inverting some of our social institutions (the cloistered university), and changing the terms for many things which forces the reader to consider what exactly he is getting at, with the added insight he intends.

But all this is hung around the main story which is what really makes Anathem worth reading: Stephenson takes us on a romp through current theoretical physics which asks the following questions: Is ours the only universe, our could there be multiple? We can only see to the edge of our universe, which is the distance light has been able to travel since the formation – so anything beyond that boundary is invisible to us at this time. That doesn't preclude there being other 'universes' that are currently beyond that boundary...

Would other universes be the same as ours? Supporting this would be the observation that there is only a finite number of atoms (Hydrogen through Uranium, plus the few short-lived lab made ones). If there are an infinite number of universes, and finite types of atoms, then arrangements of atoms would necessarily repeat, and there would be virtual copies of the entities in this universe in other universes.

Throwing a monkey-wrench into this is the idea that the constants we observe (the charge of an electron, for example) needn't all be the same everywhere. This is where the anthropic principle comes into play: We could necessarily find ourselves only in a universe where the constants are very close to what they are – too large of deviations and 'we' wouldn't be present to observe them. But within some narrow boundaries, we, or beings very much like us, could exist and observe. Stephenson makes very good use of this last point late in the story...

Finally, would it be possible for us to experimentally determine if ours is a lone universe or if it is just one of many (or one of an infinite many)? Are there interactions that could be observed that would reveal the existence of multiple universes – of other ways of being? Part of what leads physicists down this path is the indeterminate-ness of quantum electrodynamics. Is Schrodinger's cat alive or dead? How, exactly, does the quantum field collapse into the state we observe? Is there a universe in which the cat is alive even though it is dead in this one? When world tracks come close together, could there be transfer of information?

Neal Stephenson spins a yarn of 'What If?' around all these ideas that creates a top-notch story set in an instance of top-notch world building where everything plays out as it could – somewhere. And that somewhere is Arbre which has eerie parallels to the world in which we live – and astounding differences.

Kraken

My English teacher and I had this repeating conversation that arose after the completion of each assigned book. It starting when the teacher asked his stock question, “Why did the author write this book?” and I would answer something like “To make the money he needs to live.” “No,” my teacher would patiently reply, “What’s the author’s point, his message?” “Oh, it was born of a wager with another English teacher: I’ll bet I can get millions of school-kids to read this piece of literary drivel; I’ll call it ‘The Lord of the Flies’”

I could never tell if the ensuing choking sounds emanating from my instructor were signs of amusement, exasperation, or admiration that one so young could already discern the crasser motives that sometimes drive activities, even those of our literary heroes.

Of course, he was right: Authors often do have a point or message and the story is just a vehicle for bringing it to us – and, of course, I was right: Authors don’t always have any high aspirations, and the story is just a story.  I am unwilling to ascribe a strong message to authors of more formulaic stories, and grow weary of authors that are so obtuse that we have to go on a major investigation to pry out their meaning. Besides, if there is a large question or disagreement over what the author was attempting to convey, can we be certain that was their motive, or are we attempting after the fact to create something when perhaps they simply thought, “Hey, this would be an interesting story!”?

(I’m even more skeptical of the ‘meanings’ of classical music: I still think that Mahler was a pre-Keynesian works program, “If I don’t continue to write these massive symphonies and score them for hundreds, there will be many out-of-work musicians, and with their feeble, non-calloused hands, what else can they possibly do?” )

Too, there is the personal aspect of a story: Depending upon our particular prior experiences, any specific story may invoke in us ideas, thoughts, or allow us to connect some previously unconnected dots. However, the 'take-away' that we obtain is often more telling of us than perhaps the author: Can we be certain, unless the author had similar experiences, that we understood their point? But, if we read a book, and gain something, even some feelings, experience, or understanding that we didn't have, does it matter if the author intended or predicted it? We've gained...

So I still approach most fiction with a sense of skepticism: Entertain me, don't let me predict the outcome or the sequence (keep me guessing!) - and if it doesn't make a major point about the human condition or society's problems, etc. I'll not be unkind. If the author brings the characters to life, instills them with purpose, and entertains me, that is enough. If, however, the author does manage to convey a point or observation, even better.

I recently picked up Kraken by China Mieville on the basis of the general esteem of Mieville by Dr Farrell of George Washington University and was not disappointed: It is a rollicking good romp through the London underground, if that London underground was populated by the sorts of characters you might meet while playing World of Warcraft, D&D, etc. Mieville is a good writer, and manages to reconstruct the English language while constructing his scenes – standard turns of phrase are largely absent, instead, words appear in uncommon positions, phrases continue past normal, as if to leave no doubt that I was reading something new. “They all stared at the spot where the squid was not.” The meter is comfortable, though, and before long I was drawn in to the plot, wondering just how it could possibly shake out.

I'll say, too, that the characters that appear have purpose – purpose outside of the story, in a very vivid, we're not just here to prop up the plot kind of way. It is easy to imaging them existing outside of the narrative, with goals and desires that have been affected by the situation being described. Very much like encountering others on a massive on-line role-playing game. I would have to guess that some of that milieu provided a basis for Mieville as he wrote the story.

I was entertained thoroughly, but the real surprise came at the story's climax: The surprise villain, known, but unsuspected throughout, the tying together of the themes into a reasonable relationship, and then, whoa! A point emerged from the interchange between the protagonist and his adversary. I literally had to pinch myself, go back and re-read the chapter, but yes, Mieville has something to say. Even better, he made getting to and receiving it fun!

(Wouldn't my English teacher be proud?)

I see that 'The City & The City', Mieville's 2010 novel won the Hugo last year – guess I will have to put that on my 'to read' list, as, by Dr Farrell's account, its even better and more intellectually challenging than Kraken. If its just as good, I'm a fan!

(If you go: People in London swear. People in the seamy underground swear more. If the depiction of what a crime boss might actually say when things get out of hand and not in his favor might bother you, let me recommend instead something by J.K. Rowling. You'll have to forgo the point, but no swearing, either.)