The Confusion by Neal Stephenson




For those not familiar, The Confusion is the second of three novels in The Baroque Cycle, the story of three people who lead impossibly interesting lives at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th. The three are Daniel Waterhouse, a British “natural philosopher” and friend of Isaac Newton; Jack Shaftoe, a vagabond of such notorious repute that he’s starred in his own series of pamphlets; and Eliza, a native of a small Island off Britain who was kidnapped by a French lord and enslaved to a Turkish sultan.

As The Confusion opens Jack is enslaved on an Algerian galley, Eliza has used her financial acumen to entrench herself in the court of Louis XVI as the Duchess of Qwghlm, and Daniel is dreaming of moving to the Massachusetts colony so he can work free of English politics. Daniel, who was onstage in most of the previous book, Quicksliver, takes a back seat in The Confusion. Instead most of the first half of the this book is devoted to Jack and some of his fellow slaves, who come up with a complicated plan to steal a fortune in silver being brought to Spain from the New World, and Eliza’s constant maneuvering to profit from the various wars between England and France. In the second half Jack travels all the way around the world, Eliza tries to deal with some very unpleasant consequences of her schemes, and Daniel is cajoled into recruiting his estranged friend Newton to head England’s mint.

When describing all the swashbuckling, traveling to exotic places, and scheming in The Confusion, it would be easy to make it sound like something other than what it really is. Stephenson devotes most of the book to detailed description of how every action is part of a larger context, and how all the economic systems that exist came about. In fact, The Confusion is largely about the establishment of currency in various countries, and how that led to our modern economy. I found it fascinating.

Perhaps Stephenson’s greatest attribute as a writer is attention to detail. Most of The Confusion is based on real history, though most of it told from the insiders perspective, so it rarely resembles a history book. There are also passages like the four pages where Stephenson describes the chemical, economic, logistical, medical, and social aspects of trying to process a large amount of urine into phosphorus. These kinds of things may sound boring, but Stephenson’s intelligent and witty writing keeps the novel fun.

Posted: Thu - July 29, 2004 at      

©