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Salon Interviews Neal Stephenson
edibleplastic writes "Salon has a great interview with Neal Stephenson, author of such science fiction favorites as Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, and Quicksilver. He discusses his views on the scientific community (both past and present), the world of science fiction, and writing in general. "I think there are common threads between writing and programming... All I'm saying is that the thing you're making -- the novel or the computer program -- has got a very complicated and finely wrought hierarchical structure to it. The structure has to work right or the whole thing fails. But the only way you can work on it is by hitting one character at a time...""
"the only way you can work on it is by hitting one character at a time..."
Unless you have a transcriber. or voice recognition software.
Neal Stephenson rocks. Seriously. If you haven't already, read Snow Crash. You'll be glad you did.
Now that the fawning and praise and adoration is out of the way... He did an interesting essay a while back called In the Beginning was the Command Line. It's a good read.
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
And the mind of the reader will crash if you make a small mistake?
He's just playing the group that he thinks is most likely to be the audience that would buy his books...geeks.
Little does he know that we only want to know where we can download his ebooks for free.
In the endless editions of identical books. Hardy brothers? Start Trek, Star Wars, Robotech?
Why do people treat fiction authors liek gurus? I saw a robotics aritcleon here the other day where people were seriously talking about Asimov's 3 laws of robotics like they were actually applicable to real life.
I don't understand. You don't see lawyers clamoring at the bit for Grisham's insights into their world, but you see IT dorks hanging on every word a sci-fi author drops like he just came down from teh mountain with the 10 tips to avoid being outsourced chiseled into two stone tablets.
and I don't like to read.
Does he say when the second book in the Baroque series is coming out? Quicksilver seemed to end a little flat but left me wanting more.
What do people think about Quicksilver? I am just finishing it and am very disappointed. I loved cryptonomicon but am struggling thru quicksilver. Why bring back waterhouse and the shaftoes, can't we think of new characters? And the story is dragging by. Long passages on life in feudal europe, the french, the english, the dutch, it's dull. What do other people think though?
...Is the bane of too many crap writers.
All I'm saying is that the thing you're making -- the novel or the computer program -- has got a very complicated and finely wrought hierarchical structure to it
Programming is becoming the the new age lemming work for the 21st century. Writing "a great story" takes the creative juices and adds the authors personality and unique style. Add "unique" style to code and you have just become a sloppy programmer.
Maybe he writes "choose your own ending" books under a pseudonym.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
"All I'm saying is that the thing you're making -- the novel or the computer program -- has got a very complicated and finely wrought hierarchical structure to it. The structure has to work right or the whole thing fails. But the only way you can work on it is by hitting one character at a time..."
...
Or to put a Tao spin on it
"The finest program begins with a single keystroke."
One character at a time. Does that mean writing and programming are both O(n)?
.sig error: carrier signal lost.
Does anyone know if Neil is planning any near future works besides the Baroque Cycle? I loved The Cryptonomicon, but I've heard to many dissapointing things about his last two novels to invest that much time reading them. I want a sequal to Snow Crash! BTW, has anyone else noticed the between Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash and Gibson's Virtual Light? They were published at nearly the same time and I found alot of similarities in the characters and stories.
Why not `grep -src FIXME /usr/src/linux` ?
Runs quicker and far fewer fork()s.
I'm curious as to why people think this was such a great novel. It was like one of Tom Robbins' weaker stories crossed with one of Dan Simmons' more mundane horror/action works, but with more technobabble thrown in.
Now, The Diamond Age was a well-told story, but Snow Crash? I just don't see it.
__
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
(for first_book=SUCCESS; current_book!=FAILURE; current_book=rehash(prior_book)}
if someone assures me that is has a @$^@$%&$ ending!
> Add "unique" style to code and you have just become a sloppy programmer.
That is unless your unique style just saved the company $2mil... then you're just a quickly forgotten hero.
go and read:
:)
Greg Bear
William Gibson (you already knew that)
Terry Pratchett (more humorous, but nice)
"the light of other days" (forgot the author)
there's some really good stuff in there.
A friend and I trade our 'best sf' books, fortunately fair use still allows that (but I'm beginning to wonder for how long). If the goons get their way fair use on other media could go out the window too, let's see:
This book is sold under the following EULA:
You may read this book *once*. Upon reading the last page of the book you agree to destroy it. You may not discuss the contents of this book in private or in public, nor shall you lend it to someone else or give it away, other than unopened and unread.
MP3 Search Engine
It's been a long time since anyone used a fountain pen to enter their programs, though.
I mean damn that interview was long! I was expecting the usual few questions and answers. Personally, I wouldn't have the mind to ask that many questions to my favorite writer (Mr. Stephenson of course)... I mean if I could get him to talk to me for that long I'd just invite him out for a beer and end up talkin about nothing much lol.
Chaos is Divine *
However, the morility plays that have shown up in Grisham novels that I've read were not profound. They were just extensions or plays off of what we already know are current consequences of laws.
On the other hand, Asimov (and I'd point out Philip Dick) put a lot of thought into the moral and ethical issues that could come out of technology that doesn't yet exist.
Some of these predictions have already come true, because they were both profound and well thought out. There has been scientific research into robotics based on ideas from Asimov and Dick.
They all tell good stories, but the bonus of SciFi is the profound consideration of things that could someday become reality.
That said, there are things suggested by SciFi writers that are absurd. But people use thier own judgement as to whether these ideas have merit. Obviously, a lot of people have respect for Asimov's ideas. I think your best bet is to read some Asimov books and judge his ideas in their original context.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
a) C is twice as heavy at least, so in a free for all wrestling match it will win
b) C is funnier than S
c) S has the best shaggy dog story (the fight in the mall)
d) C has the best sidebars. The breakfast cereal one, in particular.
e) S is a bit, well, dull. Software hackers (or pizza delivery people) might be very interesting to themselves, but entrepeneurs are more exciting to read about for the rest of us.
I make that 4:1 in favour of the current heavyweight, Mr Cryptonomicon.
Fix! fix!
I agree. The Diamond Age is one of the best told sf stories I've ever read. Very smooth.
Zodiac and Snowcrash are almost character studies for Cryptonomicon.
I really like The Barroque cycle, so far. I imagine it would take a few reads to actually tease
apart all the threads. I'll have time, someday.
-- "It was as if the paint factories had decided to deal direct with the art galleries." - Thursday Next
Call me a dumb Ozzie twat,
but who the hell is that?
Orwell I know
and Dickens, fo sho,
But I've never heard of Coupland
(c) Limericks aren't us.
Don't say that, somebody will do it, like the crazy norwegians that actually implemented the April Fools RFC 1149 - Standard for the transmission of IP datagrams on avian carriers.
Actually you almost already can. There are programming environments where you can write programs on a Pocket PC, and those have handwriting recognition. It would scratch and stain the touch-sensitive display if you used a fountain pen instead of a plastic stylus though.
It's its. They're their, there. You're your. Who's whose? A looser loser, though those two too threw through the trough.
Metaweb - A wiki about the Cryptonomicon/Quicksilver Universe, with contributions fro Mr. Stephenson
'I ain't a liar, baby, and I ain't proud I just want what I'm not allowed.' -- Violent Femmes, 36-24-36
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Can anyone please post the Google cache or some affiliated-like trick to get past this uber-turnoff ? I just HATE when an article starts and then BANG, "Sign in if you want more, we need MONEEEEEEEY, wra wra wra", this sucks...
"Hi, I'm Douglas Coupland. You may remember me from such books as Generation X, Microserfs and All Families are Psychotic" ;-)
</troy mcclure>
The Coupland File, for more info.
"It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue." -- Zork
are our futurists, because they are basically science nerds who write novels and short stories from their perspective. And it's really that simple. It doesn't mean they are all bang-on accurate prophets, but the really good ones and the good examples tend to have a nice track record so far on extrapolating technology trends and societal patterns.
I was wrong
wrongitty wrong
I have read "All families are psychotic"
And enjoyed it very much
Gong!
(c) not all Limericks rhyme either
If Cryptonomicon was "merely good" I'm seriously scared of Quicksilver.
...he swiped his credit card like an assassin swiping a razor across his victims neck. ...the sailors let out a collective sigh like the entire ship had just ejaculated.
Cryptonomicon was the first (and so far only) Stephenson book I've tried and I just found it to bad to be able to read. It seem like ever other page had either a metaphor or simile that was borrowed from one of those deliberately bad writing contest.
It's been a few years, but I remember a few of them like:
The story was almost interesting, but the delivery was so bad I gave up about 1/5 of the way thru.
What is it I'm missing that folks like about Stephenson? Is it just that he hits on geek subject matter?
Maybe I just don't get it.
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -- Homer Simpson
Perhaps there was a "fountain pen" pen option for IBM's Crosspad
Snow Crash, OK. Diamond Age, yes yes. But Cryptonomicon is not very science fiction-y. It's more Tom Clancy than SF--I mean these are computer scientists and all, but they aren't neutronic worms living on the surface of a star. And I just know the librarians are going to toss Quicksilver over there once it's off the "New" shelf. This book is historical fiction-- albeit about nerds, but it's "HF" none the less. (I can't wait for the next Con! Ye Olde Renaissance Faire!).
When's this guy going to get some credit for moving on?
blarg.
I mean, come on, it's fiction! It's at least as believable as Elven magic...
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
Salon always has a "Get A Free Daypass" option for people who want to read the whole article but don't feel like subscribing.
You watch the small commercial and quit-yer-bitchin. Just like TV, except it's only one commercial a day. I can't even do that on HBO...
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And sometimes you just kill them off, you sadist!
Really, you'd think a writer (especially Stephenson) would know the difference between computer keys (the little plastic things on your keyboard) and computer characters (the little invisible things in your computer's memory).
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I actually found the "boring banking parts", the scenes at the Royal Society, etc, more interesting than the sometimes-overblown "adventure" parts of Quicksilver
In the endless editions of identical books. Hardy brothers? Start Trek, Star Wars, Robotech?
This would be more like a while(true) loop.
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
You correct your LaTeX.
Finished reading "Con-Fusion" yesterday; great read.
More in a similar vein:
"The Days of Rice and Salt" by Kim Stanley Robinson
"Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus" by Orson Scott Card (the last decent book he wrote)
Less speculative, but historical and rollicking good fun: "The Aubury-Maurtin Series" by Patrick O'Brian, starting with "Master and Commander"
Pure history: "The Invasion of Canada" by Pierre Burton
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Lisa: Can you tell me what happens at the end of the series?
J.K. Rowling, increasingly annoyed: He grows up and marries you. Is that what you want to hear?
Lisa, dreamily: Yes.
The big showdown IS the equivalent (metaphorical (of closing brackets)).
Or {parentheses, as the case may be}.
You didn't see the last chapter of Cryptonomicon in the right light. To me, it looked like a friggin' LISP program with several hundred pages worth of loose ends tied up as best Stephenson could manage.
(My fave (LISP) idiom was the square brace (that told the interpreter, "dammit, *you* count the parentheses (I'm done here]
Neal Stephenson gave a talk similar to this interview as a keynote last June at Usenix 2004 in San Antonio. Turns out he's also a rocket geek, so I got to chat with him briefly: very nice guy.
The Official FAQ: http://www.asimovonline.com/asimov_FAQ.html
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
The author of "Cryptonomicon" and the "Baroque Cycle" talks about the brighter side of Puritanism, the feud between Newton and Leibniz, and the literary world's grudge against science fiction.
By Laura Miller
April 21, 2004 | Rumor had it that Neal Stephenson would follow "Cryptonomicon," his bestselling 1999 novel combining present-day high-tech entrepreneurs and World War II-era derring-do, with a similar tale of fugitive data and high adventure set sometime in the near future. Last year, with the publication of the first of the three-volume "Baroque Cycle," "Quicksilver," Stephenson revealed that he'd turned the dial on his time machine in the other direction. "Quicksilver," written by hand with a fountain pen in an alcove lined with a huge map of early 18th-century London, immersed the author and his legions of devoted readers in one of the most intellectually exciting and politically momentous periods of history. It was the age of such scientific geniuses as Isaac Newton, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz and the undersung polymath Robert Hooke, and also the time when our modern economic systems began to take form.
Unusual subjects for fiction, perhaps, but Stephenson makes the "Baroque Cycle" a weirdly effective mix of high-octane tutorial and ripping yarn. To balance such cerebral characters as Newton and Daniel Waterhouse (Puritan ancestor of the Waterhouses, crack mathematicians and programmers, in "Cryptonomicon"), he introduces Jack Shaftoe, aka the King of the Vagabonds and his sometime-paramour turned countess and financial whiz, Eliza. Shaftoe, like his descendant Bobby in "Cryptonomicon," skips from one outlandish but irresistibly entertaining exploit to the next, barely escaping with his skin intact: war, thieves, prison, pirates -- you name it. As for Eliza, well, she's the kind of girl who encrypts top-secret military information in her cross-stitch embroidery and surreptitiously handles the investments of half the court of Louis XIV. The second volume in the "Cycle," "The Confusion," published on April 19, continues the saga, with an even more lavish serving of the feats of Jack and Eliza.
Stephenson found time for an interview during the course of a road trip, in a borrowed 40-foot R.V., across the high desert of Washington state from Spokane to his home in Seattle. It was a long conversation.
What inspired the "Baroque Cycle"?
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"The Confusion:
Vol. 2 of the Baroque Cycle"
by Neal Stephenson
William Morrow
815 pages
Fiction
Buy this book
It was an unexpected byproduct of "Cryptonomicon." One of the things I wanted to talk about in that book was the history of computing and its relationship to society. I was talking to Stephen Horst, a philosophy professor at Wesleyan, and he mentioned that Newton for the last 30 years of his life did very little in the way of science as we normally think of it. His job was to run the Royal Mint at the Tower of London. I'd been thinking a lot about gold and money, which were themes in "Cryptonomicon."
At the same time, I read a book by George Dyson called "Darwin Among the Machines," in which he talks about the deep history of computing and about Leibniz and the work he did on computers. It wasn't just some silly adding machine or slide rule. Leibniz actually thought about symbolic logic and why it was powerful and how it could be put to use. He went from that to building a machine that could carry out logical operations on bits. He knew about binary arithmetic. I found that quite startling. Up till then I hadn't been that well informed about the history of logic and computing. I hadn't been aware that anyone was thinking about those things so far in the past. I thought it all started with [
Although I really liked all three of the listed books, I'd only call one of them -- the Snow Crash a work of Science Fiction. The two others, while, indeed, works of fiction and pleasantly heavy on science, do not, in my opinion, belong to the SciFi genre.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Otherwise, his argument seems well in-tact to me.
If I'm missing something, please inform me. But I've read several Grisham novels, and while they are very entertaining, they do not strike me as having brought to the fore-front anything that was not already well understood.
In fact - your point, in many ways (again, correct me if I'm missing something) actually seems to support his argument.
Yet, the moral quandries outlined at the base of many Dicken's stories are still used today to illustrate decisions that people face in daily life. Science Fiction or not, Orwell's 1984 is often quoted by civil rights proponents and law-makers alike.
Basically, Anonymous Codger was trying to illustrate why Asimov has influence on science where Grisham does not influence law. I see no reason for you to present your point as an argument.
Again, correct me if I'm missing part of the picture here.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
I've read Snow Crash and Quicksilver and my opinion is that Stevenson has a very creative mind but isn't a terribly good writer. His dialog is laughable and his tendency for Tanantino-esque stylization is a huge turnoff for readers like me.
I've read both, and I prefer Snow Crash, because...
1. More consistant pacing. Cryptonomicon meanders in places.
2. Cryptonomicon starts so, and ends so fast you'd miss it if you blinked. It's as if his editor told him to hurry the book up, and Stephenson crammed the ending into as short a space as possible. Diamond Age suffers from this even further, stuffing as much as possible into the ending chapter. An epilogue would be so appreciated. Snow Crash ends a lot better, and seems better planned out.
3. Can't figure out why you think Snow Crash is dull. Personally, I found Cryptonomicon to be dull in a few parts, whilst Snow Crash kept up its fast pacing most all the way through.
Personally, I far prefer Snow Crash over Cryptonomicon. It's also the only Neal Stephenson book I've read that doesn't seem to much suffer from a rushed ending.
Cryptonomicon is not very science fiction-y. It's more Tom Clancy than SF--I mean these are computer scientists and all, but they aren't neutronic worms living on the surface of a star. And I just know the librarians are going to toss Quicksilver over there once it's off the "New" shelf. This book is historical fiction-- albeit about nerds, but it's "HF" none the less.
I've found that my local librarians are responsive -- indeed, grateful -- when I tell that a book published as "science fiction" is actually a solid work of historical fiction. (I'm thinking here of the novel "Byzantium", which isn't SF in the least -- fine historical fiction, and nothing but.)
We probably can't integrate the SF ghetto with general fiction on a large scale, but making a case-by-case arguments for outstanding books can get results.
-kgj
-kgj
Then you call the book 'Finnegan's Wake'.
I see your point fully when it comes to an SF writer like Hubbard. I mean, to found a religion? If you make that point, I fully concede. I can't imagine, even a very insightful fiction author being able to credibly form a religion.
But putting those two anomolies aside. I would say that Orwell and Bradbury, or even gasp Stephen King have just as high a guru status as, say, Philip Dick, Arthur Clarke and (the subject at hand) Neal Stephenson.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
pedantic (adj.)
Characterized by a narrow, often ostentatious concern for book learning and formal rules
As long as you mention it, I happen to be rereading "Name of the Rose" at night lately, and my impression from the first time -- that he was self-indulgent, like you're saying -- is basically completely gone by now. The book's really written cleanly, it works incredibly well. Also I'm finding his characters are more complete than I'd remembered them. (The movie, though, stunk.)
I truly hate the idea that all fiction has to be so "tight" that every word drives the plot forward another step. If an author wants to assume I'm bright and curious enough to read two pages about pipe organs, and she can write, I'm there. Not everything has to have the narrative compression of a touring Broadway show. Sometimes it's okay to assume your audience is made up of intelligent, curious people who'll stick with you a little.
Thomas Mann is another author whose stuff you probably wouldn't tolerate. Your loss, seriously. Sometimes Peter Cook's "Bedazzled" is cool, but there's a place in the world for "Doctor Faustus" too.
And okay, sometimes those learned digressions are self-conscious fat to be trimmed -- but that isn't limited to "intellectual" fiction at all. Tom Clancy's got as much worthless detail (about military hardware) as anyone. The rafts of detail are painful to wade through, for me.
So, uh, nope -- it's not as "simple as that."
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Heinlien, hell!
I give you Piers Anthony. His Incarnations of Immortality series in particular is guilty as hell of this. Read the first (On a Pale Horse), maybe the second and third...and you start to see plenty of 'reusable code' - verbatim cut and paste from one book to the next, with a quick change of pronouns...
Software is like a goldfish - it'll grow to fit the size of it's bowl...
The and the previous review The Confusion really brought out the haters of Quicksilver.
I appear to be a somewhat atypical Stephenson reader. I've read Zodiac, Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, and Quicksilver. Of those I thought Snow Crash was the weakest - many readers seem to think that was his pinnacle. I enjoyed the pulpy Cryptonomicon; I thought Quicksilver was a great book.
So, I'm running up a quick list of what's good about Quicksilver. Be clear that I don't own the book, I returned the library's copy 6 months ago, and I have a poor memory. Mild spoilers inside.
- How about Papa (Drake) Waterhouse? The guy has most of his facial features removed but lives on for years, successfully, to go on and die in a glorious explosion?
- And more gross outs: Newton coming to understand lenses by sticking a rod into his socket and changing the shape of his eye; The live dog dissections; the ever-present 'Barber-Surgeons' with their quick amputations.
- I found the opening scene, in Boston, to be captivating. I know I'm a sucker for anything set in that city, but I loved the description, the revealing of characters, Daniel's internal dialog (like his risk assessment of when to reveal his weapons), and the goofy Harvard boys.
- So many of the characters had interesting backstories. How about the Shaftoe boy's childhood occupation of execution acceleration? How about 'Half-cocked'?
- One more aside that sticks in my head - when Jack realizes that farrier and the french for horseshoe share a common root, meaning that somehow english and England had been influenced by french and the French.
And on a grander scale, he accomplishes two literary feats: first, the slow merging of two stories that start out totally separate; second, the illustration of commonalities between his characters of several hundred years ago and his modern readers.
A common complaint of the book seems to be its length. So what? It could be shorter, but nearly any fiction can be abridged. Its length allows it to, as I stated above, slowly merge two seperate stories, develop at least 5 main characters (so far), and cover at least 50 years.
Maybe all the dislike will mean fewer people will be in line ahead of me to borrow The Confusion at the library....
I woke my wife up while reading in bed last night and giggling at his description of the spoon.
Now there you go. That's the kind of person that identifies with the nerdy kinds of obsessive/compulsive behavior and intense attention to minutiae that Stephenson can imbue his characters with, as well as the geeky aspects of the characters and overall story. I think people who are nerds will appreciate the highly detailed and circumlocutive descriptions and sequences. Geeks will enjoy the technical descriptions of concepts that they are not familiar with (and perhaps of those which they are). Those of us who are nerds and geeks will really get it, and see ourselves in both the instructor and the instructed when Stephenson exposits through alluding dialogue. We've been the expert, we've been the novice. We will be thankful for being made to follow these often a-mazing intimations and actually think, rather than being force-fed the point like viewers of most TV sitcoms.
They've been doing that for a very long time: War Games (the book of the film) came out as a Penguin (with swear words) edition and a Puffin edition (without swear words, 25p cheaper) at the same time, back whenever it was the film came out.
I joined the SCA when I was 16 (nowadays you have to be 18 for the fighting) but I got pretty good within a few years, not even practicing every day. Hiro practices a LOT. and technically he's only a master in the metaverse; in the real world he only fought with either unarmed people or people w/guns or knives. Oh and Raven's harpoon.
/. dupes better not be double posting your gripes about Neal Stephenson.
He also had a full time job writing code for one of the first institutions the created the Metaverse, including the creating the Black Sun. He didn't 'invent half the virtual world', he wrote some of the fundamental code that makes it work; so it stands to reason he'd know the tricks, especially in the Black Sun.
Reading comprehension is pretty low in this thread. And didn't we have this EXACT SAME DISCUSSION a few days ago when the most recent book came out? All you dildos who bitch about
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
Also, in case anyone's interested, you can first visit:
http://salon.com/news/cookie.html
And not have to watch the commercial. If, say, you don't have a browser that supports the flash advertisements, or are just really impatient.
Neal Stephenson can't hold a candle to Stephen Bury. Now there's a writer
-transiit
your readers don't even bother trying to compile your future software.
Important difference between programming and NS's writing: in programming, we occasionally edit or even delete functions...
You're brushing up against the truth... and I hope you get a chance to read this before the roving eye of Slashdot moves on.
You have to remember that people of pre-modern times were 1) every bit as intelligent as modern humans and 2) DEEPLY religeous, on a scale that (mostly) no longer exists.
This gets mentioned briefly late in Con-fusion, when (parphrased from memory) Newton says he cannot be as wise or skilled (read as "intelligent") as King Solomon, as the Bible says that Solomon was the wisest man to ever be. The Bible is literal truth, ergo, Newton must be less wise than Solomon. Collorary - technology PEAKED with Solomon, and has been degrading ever since.
Now I don't think this _exact_ line of reasoning was the common prevailing opinion of the time... but it IS true that "old" was considered better than "new", and for religeous reasons. The world had been created perfect, and then Man corrupted it, and all had been decaying ever since.
As such, the only place to look for "new" knowledge was in old books - to recover information previously lost.
(And to a Europe slowly recovering from the Dark Ages, where much had indeed been lost and where conditions in general HAD worsened over a long period of time, there would be much recent evidence supporting this position)
However, around about the time of the Enlightenment (when these books are set), there was a sea change in people's perceptions. Mankind was NOT in a state of perpetual decay; the "ancients" had NOT known everything - rather, the opposite: mankind was slowly lifting himself out of the swamp, and the ancients had known mostly nothing. Darwin put the capstone on this....
This opinion isn't just revolutionary, it's the sort of thing that gets men labeled "heretics" - and THAT can get you tortured and killed! (NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!) And even if you are not afraid at being burned at the stake, for someone so deeply religeous as pretty much everybody was at the time, it must have been a tremendous internal struggle to find that your work and findings contradicted the Church's teachings.
I know it's a very alien mindset to what we have today, but probably the single biggest concept to come out of this period in time was the very *possibility* that new knowledge capable of being worked out from first principles.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Thank you. A notional +5 Informative from me and a little green dot next to your name.,.
My father is a blogger.