#baroque cycle

“Quicksilver”

Halloran Parry

The other day, as I was near the end of Neal Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle, I espied a television in the dining facility running one of those shows which I had always felt was a sign of the decline of American civilization, in the way that many see video games, rap, etc...

As I was turning away to find a seat that would not only face me away from Judge Judy (running for 15 hours a week in LA!) but not subject me to whatever game was on the main television in the DFAC, I realized that Judge Judy was something other than a sign of decline.

Judge Judy is the perfect symbol of capitalism transcendent. I had thought that the Law was something sacrosanct, that the degree of lawlessness in America was a failure of some sort to maintain its respect. That somewhere along the line we, as a society, had thrown a pie in the face of the Law and that the Law never recovered. I had felt somehow, that this was a failure.

I don't think of it as a failure anymore. It is, instead of a failure, a success that we should celebrate without delay...

In a capitalist society, the Law exists, ultimately to ensure certainty—to allow the drivers of odious garbage trucks to not worry about being attacked for offending someone's olfactory nerves while going about their business (which we only really notice when it inconveniences us to have our trash hauled away).1 Or, to allow us to do whatever it is that we do without having to worry that we will be subject to “acts of God” through human agents.2

Law ensures certainty ultimately by guaranteeing trust and enforcing contracts. Do note that it seems to me perfectly reasonable to consider that legislation is a social contract that, even if we do not understand it or agree to it, we are subject to. Any disagreement can be handled by the courts (this is the whole point of the separation of powers and the constitution BTW).

Judge Judy is civil law, the law as it was ultimately meant to be, laid bare. The sign that we want all to work within its framework, and that we will sell it to whomever can afford it, and barring that, we will find a way to sell it to those who can't afford to participate, by giving someone else a way to make money off it.

In his The System of the World, Neal Stephenson provides a most excellent example of the cost of just this problem, when a human-waste hauler's horse is stabbed to death because the stench of his cart offends someone. ↩︎

Book review of Quicksilver and The Confusion, by Neal Stephenson

This review of Quicksilver and The Confusion by Neal Stephenson was written in 2004 for the British Science Fiction Association‘s magazine, Vector.

William Heinemann, 2003 and 2004, Hardback, 927pp and 815pp, £16.99 each, ISBN 0-434-00878-8 and 0-434-00817-6

The first thing to strike you about these two hardback volumes is their size: 1700 pages, and we still have the final part of the Baroque…

Footnote from Macroeconomics (2nd International Edition, p.202) by Charles Jones:

Neal Stephen’s recent set of historical novels known as the Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusion, The System of the World) explore, in part, the evolution of money in the years surrounding 1700. If you have not read these books yet, please don’t start until after the semester is over -- long, excellent fiction can be hazardous to your academic studies!

I second this recommendation!

“Noise! It is an idiocy that Captain Bart threw in at the end, for he knew that he had to wind up the letter, but could not make out how, and became desperate, and lost his wits. Thank God he is more even-tempered in battle! Pray don’t dwell on that, my lady—”

“Why do you call me that? It’s weird. Stop it!”

“You are a born Princess, and very likely to be a Queen some day. I am a made Duchess.”

“But to me you are Aunt Eliza!”

“And to me you are my little squirrel. But the fact remains that you’re doomed to be a Princess whether you like it or not, and you’re going to have to marry someone.”

“As happened to my mother,” said Caroline, suddenly serious.

“Please do not forget that it happened twice. The second time around, she had to marry someone who was not suited for her. But the first time she was in a good marriage—to your father—and a perfectly wonderful Princess came of it.”

Caroline blushed at this, and looked at the floor of the carriage. A whip-pop sounded from outside, and it lurched forward. They’d been stalled, for a time, outside the north gate of Leipzig. Caroline’s eyes came up off the floor and gleamed in the light of the window. Eliza continued: “Why did your mother later end up in a bad marriage? Because things had gone against her—things she was powerless to do anything about, for the most part—and in the end she had very little choice in the matter. Now, why do you suppose I’m letting you read my personal correspondence from Captain Bart? To pass the time on the road to Leipzig? No, for if we only wished to make time pass, we could play cards. I show you these things because I am trying to teach you something.”

“What, exactly?”

It was a good question, and brought Eliza up short. For a few moments there was no sound in the carriage except what came into it from without: the clopping of shod hooves, the crashing of rims on road, the oinking and grunting of the suspension. A shadow enveloped them, then fell away aft: They’d passed through the gate into Leipzig.

“Pay attention, that’s all,” Eliza said. “Notice things. Connect what you’ve noticed. Connect it into a picture. Think of how the picture might be changed; and act to change it. Some of your acts may turn out to have been foolish, but others will reward you in surprising ways; and in the meantime, simply by being active instead of passive, you have a kind of immunity that’s hard to explain—”

“Uncle Gottfried says, ‘Whatever acts cannot be destroyed.’ ”

“The Doctor means that in a fairly narrow and technical metaphysical sense,” Eliza said, “but it’s not the worst motto you could adopt.”