REAMDE

The dear blog wife and I have been sharing REAMDE by Neal Stephenson, reading by turns as the other tidies up. It's sort of extravagant, because we could each read it silently and do the chores and have time left over. But, we wouldn't share it.

We have found Neal Stephenson suits us. We made it through the entire Baroque trilogy (it certainly was Baroque) and Anathem (although she found it too ponderous). We have also read Harry Potter this way, and others. But Neal Stephenson is referring so widely that it's often necessary to have too brains and backgrounds to get all the marrow out.

REAMDE was huge and very enjoyable, but much less conceptual than much of his earlier work. It has been described as letting his hair down, but it might also be a strategic move back from the pure philosotainment precipice beyond Anathem. I was expecting more to come of the computer networks and games background to this. In fact, like Alistair Maclean crossed with PG Wodehouse crossed with Tolstoy or Proust (someone prolix), he gives an endlessly detailed adventure yarn with a big cast. One of the interesting effects of putting so much effort into the detail is that coincidences which might (maybe should) seem contrived start to seem inevitable. (This is the likeness to PG Woodhouse.)

I would have enjoyed a little more denoument performance, an interval of comedy longer than the scant pages he gives. It's not confusing or disappointing (which he has been in the past), but it is short. I wanted some afterplay, some of the story of how sorry Olivia and Seamus's bosses were, how Oprah got Zula on - just how everyone was celebrated. I guess I'm just not a real Forthrast.

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