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| Plot Summary of Quicksilver |
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Morrow, Sep 2003, 27.95
ISBN: 0380977427
Princess Caroline commands Enoch Root to go to Boston to persuade computational systems developer Daniel Waterhouse to come to Europe. The royal wants Daniel to mediate a geometrically growing mathematical squabble. Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz claim the invention of calculus. The two geniuses are locked in a feud that could destroy the enlightened foundations of empirical data as the basis to support scientific claims. Daniel, a friend of both scientists, sails to Europe as he muses over the scientific revolution that took root in the previous century.
Urchin Jack Shaftoe treks across Europe doing odd jobs like pretending to be a Musketeer until he meets Eliza in Austria. She is an English woman who escaped a Turkish harem that was her home as a teen. She wants vengeance on the merchant who sold her into slavery and feels Jack can help her achieve her objective. Ultimately she works her way up from the former muddy street rascal to English and French royalty.
QUICKSILVER is a delightful complex telling of the birth and impact of the scientific revolution. The story line recreates some of the greats like Newton, Leibniz, and Hooke as they interact with key fictional figures. The novel contains three “books” that focus on the Age of Reason so that the audience feels they are traveling with Daniel, Jack, and Eliza. Neal Stephenson makes the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century seem vividly alive at a critical junction in when reason and technology changed the world as few eras did before or since.
Harriet Klausner
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Harriet Klausner, Resident Scholar
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"In an epic story that ranges between 1655 and 1713, and from Massachusetts Bay Colony and London to the silver mines of Saxony and the wars against the Turks in what eventually become Austria and Hungary, Stephenson chronicles the thoughts and adventures of characters from the lowliest Thames River scum to the kings of England and France, their courts, and the distant relations who plot against them. Daniel Waterhouse is a mediocre scientific mind, friend and classmate of Newton at Cambridge in the 1660s, and through Dan we meet many of the other celebrated British scientists of the time -- when alchemy is giving way to the Scientific Revolution, but the two are still hard to tell apart. Jack Shaftoe, a Thames River "mudlark" and his brother Bob seek their fortunes as mercenaries on the continent, and Jack eventually hooks up with Eliza, a whip-smart and erotically inventive gal enslaved up north and raised in a Turkish harem. Eliza makes her way back up the map, becoming acquainted with Dr. Leibniz, nobles of the French court of Louis XIV, and William of Orange, plotter to the English throne. London burns, the plague returns, Protestants and Catholics war against and torture one another in various times and places, pagans hold their ceremonies in the mountains of Eastern Europe, and many other surprising things (as well as familiar Stephenson themes such as cryptography) pass across these sprawling 916 pages -- the first part of a projected trilogy called "The Baroque Cycle." Historic figures who appear in cameo range from young Ben Franklin to Samuel Pepys. Dense and complicated, mostly readable save for some slow sections, this 2003 extravaganza may prove too much for fans of Stephenson's past sci-fi (I know at least one person who began to reread it as soon as he finished), and too playful and cockeyed for readers of more traditional historic fiction. On the other hand, it just might hook both."
David Loftus, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of Quicksilver |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book?
- thoughtful
Time/era of story
- 17th century
Romance/Romance Problems
Yes
Kind of romance:
- GENERAL--no other subplots apply
Life of a profession:
- scientist/scholar
Is this an adult or child's book?
- Adult or Young Adult Book
Job/Profession/Status story
Yes
Main Character
Gender
- Male
Profession/status:
- scientist
Age:
- 40's-50's
- long lived adults
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Ethnicity/Nationality
- White (American)
- British
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
- Genius
Physique
- very athletic
- average physique
Main Adversary
Identity:
- none
- an organization
Profession/status:
- government investigator
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- a little/some
How sensitive is this character?
- mean, arrogant
Sense of humor
- Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Physique
- average physique
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 6 (an above average amount)
United States
Yes
The US:
- Northeast
Europe
Yes
European country:
- England/UK
- France
Misc setting
- fancy mansion
Style
Person
- mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death?
- moderately detailed references to deaths
Sex in book?
Yes
What kind of sex:
- descript of kissing
- touching of anatomy
- orgies
- impregnation/reproduction
- actual description of hetero sex
- descript. of female anat. (the big B's)
- descript. of nude males (the big P)
Unusual Style:
- a lot of play on words
- a lot of flashback and forwards
- a lot of stream of consciousness
- No single main character?
Amount of dialog
- significantly more dialog than descript
- significantly more descript than dialog
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Neal Stephenson Resident Scholar Profiles
TOP SCHOLAR:
 David Loftus
SCHOLARS:
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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