The Future is a Trilogy; The Past is a Series

I am currently about one third of the way through this very long, dense book by Neal Stephenson. Since it will likely take a few more weeks for me to finish it, I thought I’d post a few early thoughts.

Stephenson is very good at world building, and in this book he has created a very original world – a planet very similar to Earth but with a long history of civilization (thousands of years) and a unique social structure that divides the world between the people who live inside Concents (which seem similar in style but not purpose to monasteries) and those who live outside, in the Saecular world. The Concents house avouts (individuals sworn to live within the discipline of the mathic world) who are parts of different maths (communities within the Concent). Within the Concent, but physically separated from each other, are maths that are closed off from the rest of the world (and each other) for either one year, ten years, one hundred years or one thousand years at a time. The Concents are the centres of science, mathematics and philosophy of this world, while the Saecular world outside their walls goes on much like ours, societies rising and falling over time, fighting wars, enjoying popular culture, participating in various religions, and so on.

As you can see just from this brief description, the world that Stephenson has created is a complex one, complete with it’s own languages, customs and cultures. I was glad to have had a long, uninterrupted period of reading time to start this novel. It gave me the chance to become immersed in this world, without distractions. The first part of the novel is so full of descriptions of the world, and the Concent in which our characters live, that it takes a while for the story to really get going. Which is not to say that it’s boring. Stephenson is great at world-building – he offers up the information the reader needs at the time that she needs it. He includes dictionary definitions in places in the text, just when we need to really understand what the words mean. I found that some of the words were easy to understand just by context and/or their similarity to English words, but the nuances of some of them are important.

This world’s history is also important to the story, and we are given bits of it as well. Partly because of the way that some of the maths are closed off for so long, history is very important to life and study in the Concent. It informs how the characters think and act, far more than it would for us. This is one area of Stephenson’s world building that I really admire – he has thought this out thoroughly, and is consistent in how the world and it’s people function and inform each other. Nothing seems to be there without purpose. Our early immersion in the world of the Concent stays with us as the story progresses, helping us to understand and empathize with the main characters.

The main character is an 18 year old young man, Fraa Erasmus, who is an avout in the Decenarian Math (whose members are closed to the world for 10 years at a time) of the Concent of Saunt Edhar. Told in the first person, we meet him just at the point where the he is taking part in his first Avert – the week when avouts can leave the Concent to visit the Saecular world, and the people in the Saecular world can enter the gates to sight-see and visit. This gives us the ideal opportunity to see both parts of this world interacting with each other.

Very soon things begin to happen in Fraa Erasmus’ life, and the lives of those around him. I won’t get into that in this post. I’ll just say, I am reminded of that curse – “May you live in interesting times.” Erasmus, happy to be immersed in his world inside the Concent, is about to experience some interesting times.

Other reading:

Neal Stephenson’s interview in the September 2008 issue of Locus Magazine.

A comment on Anathem on The Long Now Foundation’s website, including information about the millenium clock. Stephenson’s thoughts on a design are a precursor to the clock in the Concent of Saunt Edhar.

Gary K. Wolfe’s review of Anathem for Locus Magazine. (warning – this review gives away more of the storyline than I would want to know before reading the book)