Cryptonomicon

[avram]

It’s startling how well Cryptonomicon works as a follow-up to the Baroque Cycle, given that it was written first. The second page describes China as being “drawn and quartered” by Japan, drawing and quartering being a key subject of the closing chapters of The System of the World. And a few pages later we’ve got call-outs for Newton’s Principia Mathematica, and Leibnitz’s various obsessions.

Also, the second chapter, the one that introduces Lawrence Waterhouse, starts out “Let’s set the existence-of-God issue aside for a later volume”.

Comments

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

Note the contents of the Shaftoe boys' trunk.

[avram]

Not there yet.