Corralling the Intellectuals
Jun. 6th, 2011 08:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvesselDec 2010
Anathem - Neal Stephenson - Atlantic Books, 2009
* * * *
Science is, of course, a wonderful thing, but its effects on the way we live are not universally seen as beneficial. Its predominantly questioning mode, derived from Karl Popper's criteria of falsifiability and testability, can be applied to challenge the assumptions of any established worldview, and the result is constant change and uncertainty. All scientists are, to a greater or lesser extent, revolutionaries. As are the engineers and entrepeneurs who turn scientific knowledge into technology.
But a lot of people - the overwhelming majority in this country, if the recent referendum on electoral reform is anything to go by - don't like change. They have found a comfortable mode of living and don't want things to alter. Nor are those who hold power - captains of industry and finance, politicians, the media, religious and military leaders - particularly fond of ideas or innovations that could challenge their hegemony. Given the strength of these forces of conservatism (for want of a better term), it is surprising that so much scientific, technological and social innovation has been permitted over the past two hundred years. Could this be an anomaly? What if societies were to revert to a "natural" state where those with a talent for science or philosophy are corralled and restricted in their activities, as they were in the middle ages? What might such a society be like, and what would happen when those talents are suddenly required again? This is the basis of Anathem, and the results are entertainingly idiosyncratic. However there are some clumsinesses in the background and characterisation that make this not quite as great a novel as it could be.
Stephenson's answer is that the intellectuals become monks. Monks who tend a giant clock. The viewpoint character Erasmas and his friends Lio, Arsibalt and Jesry are a team of fids (acolytes) who wind the clock at the regular ceremony of Provener. Their order is one of four that live in a concent (monastery) at the clock's base, one of several such institutions that are cut off from each other and the rest of the world. But not entirely - each order has a ten-day period called apert every 1, 10, 100 or 1000 years (depending on the order) when they can freely visit the "saecular" world outside and vice versa. Erasmas and his friends are tenners who are just coming up to their first apert since joining the concent. But disturbing forces are at work and it is just the start of a much bigger change.
The world of the concent is lovingly constructed and very interesting. There is of course a lot of philosophical factionalism, with an entire back-history of discoveries and heresies deriving from the unresolved question of whether symbols such as words have actual semantic meanings (that is, represent Platonic forms), or whether they should be seen as systems devoid of any intrinsic meaning but which are susceptible to syntactic manipulation (mathematical formalism). This may sound very dry and intellectual, but it is entertainingly presented and relevant to the plot, as a particular philosophical strand turns out to be important in understanding what is going on.
Less plausible is the relationship between the concents and the world outside. Inhabitants of the mathic world (as the concents are known) are strictly forbidden (on pain of excommunication, or anathem) from using or developing any form of technology (or praxis). That said, there are certain high tech items that all Fras and Suurs own, namely a chord, a bolt and a sphere which are made of malleable squishy stuff and can be adapted to wide variety of uses. Genetic manipulation has also clearly been used in the development of the food crops that enable the concents to be self-sufficient. The most irritating part of this is the vagueness about the circumstances that led to the formation of the concents, which occurred at the end of the equally vague "praxic age" and are referred to only as the "terrible events". I very much wanted to know where the lunatic idea of mathic orders that interact with the world only in powers of ten came from, but it is never explained, which does not seem plausible when this history would surely have been taught to every new fid down the centuries.
So far, this novel may sound like a science fiction Name of the Rose and for the first third, that is roughly what it is. After that, things start to open up. Which is a shame, in a way, because the main storyline turns out to be a well known trope. To be fair, it is nicely developed and has some original aspects, but it still felt like a variation on things that have been done before. I could also have done without the more mystical elements which were unnecessary and felt out of place, however justified by the underlying ideas.
The characterisation is also slightly off. Like most of Stephenson's characters, Erasmas and his friends come across as variants of the Californian slacker stereotype. They are perfectly pleasant people to spend time with but are too reasonable and too clever to make interesting mistakes. Erasmas in particular comes over as preternaturally calm when faced with the challenges that show up later in the novel, a quality that also marks the (rather perfunctory) romance. A little bit more emotion would have gone a long way to making him more human.
Still, this is a novel that is definitely a cut above the average. It plays with intellectual ideas in a way that few books in conventional literature can manage, and if presentation is lacking in a few places, one has to admire the scope of the intention. It also makes a powerful case for the importance of intellectuals - and universities where they can thrive - in society. Which in an age of cuts is something worth saying.
Anathem - Neal Stephenson - Atlantic Books, 2009
* * * *
Science is, of course, a wonderful thing, but its effects on the way we live are not universally seen as beneficial. Its predominantly questioning mode, derived from Karl Popper's criteria of falsifiability and testability, can be applied to challenge the assumptions of any established worldview, and the result is constant change and uncertainty. All scientists are, to a greater or lesser extent, revolutionaries. As are the engineers and entrepeneurs who turn scientific knowledge into technology.
But a lot of people - the overwhelming majority in this country, if the recent referendum on electoral reform is anything to go by - don't like change. They have found a comfortable mode of living and don't want things to alter. Nor are those who hold power - captains of industry and finance, politicians, the media, religious and military leaders - particularly fond of ideas or innovations that could challenge their hegemony. Given the strength of these forces of conservatism (for want of a better term), it is surprising that so much scientific, technological and social innovation has been permitted over the past two hundred years. Could this be an anomaly? What if societies were to revert to a "natural" state where those with a talent for science or philosophy are corralled and restricted in their activities, as they were in the middle ages? What might such a society be like, and what would happen when those talents are suddenly required again? This is the basis of Anathem, and the results are entertainingly idiosyncratic. However there are some clumsinesses in the background and characterisation that make this not quite as great a novel as it could be.
Stephenson's answer is that the intellectuals become monks. Monks who tend a giant clock. The viewpoint character Erasmas and his friends Lio, Arsibalt and Jesry are a team of fids (acolytes) who wind the clock at the regular ceremony of Provener. Their order is one of four that live in a concent (monastery) at the clock's base, one of several such institutions that are cut off from each other and the rest of the world. But not entirely - each order has a ten-day period called apert every 1, 10, 100 or 1000 years (depending on the order) when they can freely visit the "saecular" world outside and vice versa. Erasmas and his friends are tenners who are just coming up to their first apert since joining the concent. But disturbing forces are at work and it is just the start of a much bigger change.
The world of the concent is lovingly constructed and very interesting. There is of course a lot of philosophical factionalism, with an entire back-history of discoveries and heresies deriving from the unresolved question of whether symbols such as words have actual semantic meanings (that is, represent Platonic forms), or whether they should be seen as systems devoid of any intrinsic meaning but which are susceptible to syntactic manipulation (mathematical formalism). This may sound very dry and intellectual, but it is entertainingly presented and relevant to the plot, as a particular philosophical strand turns out to be important in understanding what is going on.
Less plausible is the relationship between the concents and the world outside. Inhabitants of the mathic world (as the concents are known) are strictly forbidden (on pain of excommunication, or anathem) from using or developing any form of technology (or praxis). That said, there are certain high tech items that all Fras and Suurs own, namely a chord, a bolt and a sphere which are made of malleable squishy stuff and can be adapted to wide variety of uses. Genetic manipulation has also clearly been used in the development of the food crops that enable the concents to be self-sufficient. The most irritating part of this is the vagueness about the circumstances that led to the formation of the concents, which occurred at the end of the equally vague "praxic age" and are referred to only as the "terrible events". I very much wanted to know where the lunatic idea of mathic orders that interact with the world only in powers of ten came from, but it is never explained, which does not seem plausible when this history would surely have been taught to every new fid down the centuries.
So far, this novel may sound like a science fiction Name of the Rose and for the first third, that is roughly what it is. After that, things start to open up. Which is a shame, in a way, because the main storyline turns out to be a well known trope. To be fair, it is nicely developed and has some original aspects, but it still felt like a variation on things that have been done before. I could also have done without the more mystical elements which were unnecessary and felt out of place, however justified by the underlying ideas.
The characterisation is also slightly off. Like most of Stephenson's characters, Erasmas and his friends come across as variants of the Californian slacker stereotype. They are perfectly pleasant people to spend time with but are too reasonable and too clever to make interesting mistakes. Erasmas in particular comes over as preternaturally calm when faced with the challenges that show up later in the novel, a quality that also marks the (rather perfunctory) romance. A little bit more emotion would have gone a long way to making him more human.
Still, this is a novel that is definitely a cut above the average. It plays with intellectual ideas in a way that few books in conventional literature can manage, and if presentation is lacking in a few places, one has to admire the scope of the intention. It also makes a powerful case for the importance of intellectuals - and universities where they can thrive - in society. Which in an age of cuts is something worth saying.