Skeptics and storytellers

[trochee]

One of the interesting aspects of Quicksilver is that Stephenson has fairly seamlessly integrated fake facts and people into a true historical context. He's incorporating more than historical embellishment; Stephenson introduces the entire Waterhouse and Shaftoe families and inserts them into history -- Daniel Waterhouse as a personal friend of Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, for example, and Lawrence Waterhouse as a friend of Alan Turing. He also creates the island nation/province of Qwghlm, which I spent two or three days believing in until I thought "... no! that has to be made up."

This reminds me of the old James Michener novels like Space where the author would invent characters and even states (I remember a state named Fremont or something?) who would go interact with important points in politics and national history.

But somehow Stephenson's inventions are so well fleshed-out that they serve as an interesting object lesson in history and research: just because it's a good story doesn't make it true. I have a bad habit of learning history and science from books like this one, but Quicksilver (not to mention Cryptonomicon and -- more to the point -- Snow Crash) serves as a lesson in not trying to pick up facts just by osmosis. (Snow Crash in particular has some very bad science in the linguistics digressions, but it's very appealing -- I have a story about a late night with a bartender who wouldn't be convinced it was malarkey that I'll tell later.) But I find myself really wanting to fact-check his ass. He's a smarty-pants who feels no compunctions about dropping in fake people, nations, or facts about the universe just because it's a good story. I'm often guilty of the same thing, but he does it so brazenly that it's kinda fun to spot them and say "how could he think he could slip that one by?"

I imagine a reading group or even a high-school lit or history class that might tear its way through one of these books trying to figure out what parts of it are historically justified, what parts are possible but for which there's no evidence, and what parts are demonstrably false. Woo -- wouldn't that be a fun class? You could read Quicksilver and call it "History of the Scientific Method/Science applied to History", and take the story itself as the subject of the method.

Actually it would be more appropriate if you cut out all the sex bits from the novel, which -- quite frankly -- aren't very sexy and seem to be in there by contract with the publisher ("Mr. Stephenson agrees to put in at least one discussion of sex per chapter, and at least every other one will involve painful innuendo and/or implausible attraction or description of sexual organs. The publisher agrees not to edit these sections.") Cutting these out would shorten the novel by ten to fifteen percent, making it lighter-weight and easier to inflict on unsuspecting highschool students, because it would avoid shocking parents, it would improve the novel, and it would stick to what Stephenson does well -- making 17th century science politics readable and interesting.

Oh, and chase sequences. He does those well too.

Comments

[congogirl.livejournal.com]

1. Did you ever read Ben and Me when you were young? The story of the mouse who hung out with Ben Franklin and claimed credit for all of his great ideas? Perhaps the precursor to "Forrest Gump." Granted, we are supposed to understand that while fact is mixed with fiction, it is marketed as fiction, not history.

2. Perhaps mandatory sex scenes were in the contract of the Snow Falling on Cedars author too. I never read it, but I remember reading a review of the perfunctory mating scene, which of course somehow the woman enjoyed immensely. Sort of like that scene in "Mi Vida Loca" where the guy gets out of jail and goes to visit his old girlfriend, and you see them in bed for literally 2 seconds before she makes some little noise and exclaims how great it was. You know, just leave it out if it's not your forte. Or get a ghostwriter with a background in erotica.

3. Qwghlm. I think that's the sound I make trying to eat chikwanga. That stuff made from manioc flour.

[soliss.livejournal.com]

He walked into her bedroom, and

Due to a lack of First Amendment rights in your state, this erotic scene has been deleted, along with all others. Please write your Senator or Congressperson if this is not to your liking.

That would take care of everything.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

yikes. that's a scary story.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

I hadn't read Ben and Me but I think I saw a cartoon as a kid with the same theme. But then we're dealing with talking animated mice, which are fairly easy to distinguish from fictionalized history.

just leave it out if it's not your forte
ah, if only he had.

[beckyb.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning to tell you that I have started reading Quicksilver finally. It's been a bumpy progression up to p. 95 since I am defiantly not using a bookmark. Part of me is feeling like I'd just like to escape with a quick re-read of Zodiac.

I loved Ben and Me and have read it at least 10 times in my life. Good times.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

I will say that things improve somewhat after page 95, when you start to see characters regularly who aren't Enoch Root.

[exterra.livejournal.com]

i don't have anything substantial to say except that i enjoyed reading this entry, it made me chuckle (especially the suggestion of sex-scenes mandated by contract). you're a great writer.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

thanks! that's a nice thing to say.

[queenofhalves]

("Mr. Stephenson agrees to put in at least one discussion of sex per chapter, and at least every other one will involve painful innuendo and/or implausible attraction or description of sexual organs. The publisher agrees not to edit these sections.")

HAHAHA!

[trochee.livejournal.com]

*bows*