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Book Details

Title:   The System of the World
Author:   Neal Stephenson
Times Read:   1
Last Read:   12.21.04

Other Books Read By This Author (5)
- Fall; or, Dodge in Hell
- REAMDE
- Seveneves
- Some Remarks
- Termination Shock

Notes History
Date Read Note
12.21.04 'tis done.

for me at least.

Again, it took me an incredibly long time to read this, but I feel sort of grateful as it feels all the more epic to be complete.

I think the most interesting this about the third book is that I really came to like Daniel Waterhouse. In Quicksilver, none of the characters really gripped me. The confusion got me to like Jack and Eliza and now this book had me really rooting for everybody, including Daniel.

Now knowing how grand and epic everything ends up, I have to say that i remember back to Quicksilver with increasing fondness, especially the parts where Jack and Eliza are bumming around Germany, deciding to create their own money on a lark, and colliding with folk like Enoch and Leibniz.

The third book though, was great. great writing. I am very much interested in the architectual history of London now. I've been watching movies all week trying to get a visual sense of that time period but each movie tends to be off by a hundred years or so... and of course, they're movies.

but i really enjoyed myself through all three books now. I've never been one to read supra-long books so it's a new feeling for me to have characters that I get to follow for near their entire lives.

I also noticed that the book spans huge long expanses of 30-page chapters in the beginning but by the end the chapters speed by in just a few pages as all events come together.

and of course now it's over. no further adventures of Jack, natural philosophies of Daniel, convoluted about the greatest minds of the era, or political/financial machinations of Eliza.

ahhh....



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