The System of the World

After nearly three long years of reading these books by Neal Stephenson I have finally completed the final volume. The System of the World contains the final three novels in his huge Baroque Cycle a “project” read that I began back in 2008. This volume contains these three novels: Solomon's Gold, Currency, and The System of the World. All told there are nearly 3000 pages of historical fiction, historical fact, irreverent humor, and a bit of science fiction thrown in.

I don't have too much to say about the story itself as there is just so much here. Lots of main characters and hundreds of lesser characters, combined with a verbose hi-brow style of writing make these books a viable read only for those who really want to tackle a challenge. Neal Stephenson is one incredibly intelligent human being and he allows his intellect to permeate his prose to such an extent that large parts of these books are almost unreadable. I plowed through them as a "project." That is, I work on them in between other reading with the ultimate goal of just getting through them. I am also a completist and so refused to give up on these books even though I see by reviews that many others did indeed given up on them. I didn't start out planning these as a project but after I got through about 100 pages of the first one, I decided I just couldn't read them in the normal fashion. I would have dumped them. I must say I'm happy that I made it through them but, at the same time, I won't be taking them with me to that proverbial deserted island.