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Neal Stephenson's "Diamond Age" To Be Miniseries
fmackay writes "Neal Stephenson's novel The Diamond Age is to be adapted for a Sci Fi Channel miniseries. George Clooney is producing and Stephenson will write the screenplay — the first time he has written for television."
This will give Stephenson a chance to write the ending he accidentally forgot to write for the novel!
Yes, watch the screen closely. You'll like this next bit...
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
It's a Stephenson novel ... it isn't going to end at all
'The Diamond Age' is Neal Stephenson's best ending. Anyone who says he can't write endings should be immediately pointed in this direction. Of course, this ending is probably detractors' biggest criticism, but I don't think any further denoument was necessary, and would probably have even greatly detracted from the emotional and powerful ending there was.
Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash could have used some [denoument], to the point where their endings even gave a bit of an impression of a "fuck it" or a deadline rush, so abruptly departing from the wonderful depth of the preceeding several hundred pages of those books. But the abrupt end here was utterly perfect and perfectly excecuted, and left me euphorically dazed for hours after reading it. I haven't been brought so close to tears by literature since Of Mice And Men, or maybe Charlotte's Web. This ending, in my opinion, truly solidified Neal Stephenson as a great Author of Literature, and not just brilliant, witty Geek.
Sure it leaves open ends (Hackworth, especially), but even with, perhaps even partially because of, that, it works. People hate it because it breaks the traditional form -- doesn't tie up every little loose, nitpicky plot end -- but seem to overlook the fact that, in this case, it was far more literarily effective than structural orthodoxy. It has /character/. A lot of people, many Geeks especially, don't seem to understand that novels, as art and beauty, are not a perfect and coherent system. Sometimes it's more meaningful and important to make that master stroke than fill in all the details.
I'll also go out on a limb and say The Diamond Age was not about Hackworth, at any point. It was about Neal's intricate thematic and philosophic exploration on Confucianism and Victorianism, and it was also a mother-daughter story about Nell and Miranda. Hackworth moved these things along, but to close his personal story neatly would have felt tacked on and barely emotionally or thematically relevant, and probably /ruined/ the ending.
Of course, Neal Stephenson reads Slashdot, and will definately read a story about his own work, and he'd probably be insulted by my dumb interpretation, so please mod me into unread oblivion.
I also have no fucking clue why he's disowned The Big U, which was a wonderful novel.
Thank god somebody finally said it. Upon reflecting upon the criticism that Stephenson and several other writers with similar style have received (about endings, exposition, etc) I've realized something. A lot of geeks don't want a novel, they want a mythology. They want a complete, well-fleshed out, extensive universe for a setting. As a result, they want to know what happens to every character, start to finish. Think about it-- star wars, star trek, and LoTR all have extensive backstory. It is basically posible to know what happens to every character, and every legendary sword/ship from birth to death. Tolkien, for example, had notebooks and notebooks of unpublished stories to flesh out his universe and even invented languages.
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Crudely Drawn Games