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More stuff in Cryptonomicon
Jan. 1st, 2006 11:36 pmSo I’m up to the part in Cryptonomicon with the letter to Penthouse — if you’ve read it, you remember what I’m talking about — and noticed a few things:
( The few things )
( The few things )
Cryptonomicon
Dec. 25th, 2005 03:20 pmIt’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”.
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”.
Finished Baroque Cycle
Dec. 25th, 2005 01:00 amI finally finished The System of the World, last volume of Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle, earlier tonight. I’m exhausted. I may start my re-reading of Cryptonomicon tomorrow, or I may just give my eyes a rest and not read anything.
I almost wish I’d done an LJ-annotation job on it like I did with Gene Wolfe’s Sun books last year. But I didn’t, and too late now. But here’s a bit of interesting Freemason mythology I just found in Wikipedia’s article on the biblical Enoch:
In Freemasonry legend, Enoch was the guardian of a secret doctrine that was first given to Adam to guard and preserve, which included specific knowledge of or about God, including his name. The secret was preserved from father to son within a close inner circle of believers until it was given to Enoch.
Enoch was given a vision on a hill called Moriah, where he saw a cave with a lid or a covered vault that preserved sacred relics, including a gold record containing unknown engravings and symbols, one of which designated the name of the hill. Enoch was shown on this record the sacred name of God and was commissioned to preserve knowledge of the name.
Enoch created and placed two “pillars” or records in the vault — one made of marble with Egyptian Hieroglyphics foretelling events after the flood, including the Tower of Babel — and the other of brass which told of the history of the creation, history of the world and the secret he was commissioned to preserve. This pillar was accompanied by a metal ball that encapsulated maps of the world and the heavens, and allowed those who possessed it to perform some sort of crystallomancy or work as an oracle.
According to the legend, Enoch then predicted that one of his progenitors, a great king named Solomon, would discover the vault while excavating and building a temple to honor God, and that the secrets and relics would then be placed in the temple.
The gold record is an obvious enough reference, but the metal ball with maps reminds me of Princess Caroline’s birthday party in The Confusion.
Further on, the article mentions that some scholars say the biblical Enoch was based on the ancient Sumerian mythological character Emmerduranki or Emmedurana, a name which has a striking resemblance to Jack Shaftoe’s nickname.
