OT: Anathem

Matthew Groves · 15 Sep 2008, 18:40 · from 2008-September.txt.gz

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From: matthewalangroves at gmail.com (Matthew Groves)
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:40:51 -0500
Subject: (urth) OT: Anathem
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Mostly I agree with Dirda; however I think I like it considerably better
than he does.  I admire and approve of Stephenson's project.  I suspect
Stephenson really was thinking about the Harry Potter crowd when he wrote
this -- some of whom would be approaching the age of the protagonist, Fraa
Erasmus, and his friends.  I may be reading too much into the novel, but I
am convinced that Stephenson was presenting his science-and-math monastery
(the Mynster) is a counterpoint to the Hogwarts "school for wizards,"
replacing the realm of wish-fulfillment fantasy with the realm of abstract
theories and ideas.  (The novel seems to be geared toward a just-post-YA age
group who were thrilled by the steadily increasing page counts of the Harry
Potter sequels and thus won't be scared off by this 900+ page monster.)
Stephenson is trying to uplift the Harry Potter crowd with a taste of
philosophy and science, and offering some positive alternatives
to the consumer-driven, intellectually barren,
fundamentalism-spawning culture they've grown up in.

Unfortunately, he's going to lose many of those Harry Potter readers (as he
nearly lost me), most likely between pp. 12 and 23, in a long description of
the Mynster that far outlasts any curiosity you may have developed about the
place by this point.  It was while slogging through these pages that I kept
thinking about how Wolfe introduces us to Severian's world and implies all
sorts of fantastic things about it without interrupting the story to take us
on a walking tour of the citadel and the Matachin Tower, pointing out
details left and right.  But that's just the kind of thing Stephenson does
at several points in *Anathem*, and whereas Wolfe's details are integral to
the story, Stephenson's are mostly just flavor.

But once I forgave Stephenson for not transcending popular fiction with a
new *Book of the New Sun*, I started to enjoy *Anathem*.  I have more to say
about the book, but I'm curious about others' reactions to Anathem.

On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 10:41 AM, Matthew Keeley <matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com
> wrote:

>  Anyone read Michael Dirda's review of Anathem in The Washington Post?
>
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/04/AR2008090402460.html
>
> Dirda compares Anathem with The Book of the New Sun, which he says is much
> superior.
>
> -Matt
>
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