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188th out of 1,046 books
—
4,218 voters
The Confusion (The Baroque Cycle #2)
In the year 1689, a cabal of Barbary galley slaves -- including one Jack Shaftoe, aka King of the Vagabonds, aka Half-Cocked Jack -- devises a daring plan to win freedom and fortune. A great adventure ensues -- a perilous race for an enormous prize of silver ... nay, gold ... nay, legendary gold.
In Europe, the exquisite and resourceful Eliza, Countess de la Zeur, is stripp...more
In Europe, the exquisite and resourceful Eliza, Countess de la Zeur, is stripp...more
Paperback, 815 pages
Published
June 14th 2005
by William Morrow Paperbacks
(first published 2004)
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Excerpt from the journal of Neal Stephenson.
What have I done? I must have been out of my mind to think that I could write a trilogy set in the late 17th and early 18th century that used three main fictional characters to explore the political and religious intrigue of the time as well as the development of the first stages of modern science and economics. If that wasn’t enough of a challenge, I had to incorporate a bit of science fiction by including my ageless character Enoch Root and hints tha...more
What have I done? I must have been out of my mind to think that I could write a trilogy set in the late 17th and early 18th century that used three main fictional characters to explore the political and religious intrigue of the time as well as the development of the first stages of modern science and economics. If that wasn’t enough of a challenge, I had to incorporate a bit of science fiction by including my ageless character Enoch Root and hints tha...more
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Wow, I can't even remember when I started this book, 800+ pages as the second book in the 2400+ page The Baroque Cycle trilogy. I feel like a water-skier being pulled by a boat--sections have pulled me along thrillingly with wake-jumping stunts and all. The last couple of hundred pages moved like this. Other parts could not hold my interest, as if the boat didn't have enough power to pull me up out of the water--I have put this one down for months at a time and had to consciously make efforts to...more
7 likes · like · see review
Zounds, and Zounds and Zounds yet again! This tis truly a Brick of a Book, as was Quicksilver. Tis not a quick read, but tis a joy to read! Alternating between the stories of Eliza, in the court of Louis the XIV, and English Royalty alike, and the story of Jack Shaftoe, AKA King of the Vagabonds, AKA Half-Cocked Jack, AKA Quicksilver, and his tale of Stolen gold. Jack goes 'round the globe with his Cabal which is ever dwindling. We also meet his sons this go around, along with his Brother Bob (w...more
2 likes · like · see review
I couldn't finish this, and I am not one who is daunted by the size of a
book. I should have been warned when I picked it up the first time after having finished reading a novel written by somebody with a more poetic sense of language and thinking, "Wow, this is ugly writing." I was continually frustrated by the long passages where plot points are explained by the characters to each other (and clunky dialog for that matter), where characters seem to have no inner life (for all the alleged intell...more
book. I should have been warned when I picked it up the first time after having finished reading a novel written by somebody with a more poetic sense of language and thinking, "Wow, this is ugly writing." I was continually frustrated by the long passages where plot points are explained by the characters to each other (and clunky dialog for that matter), where characters seem to have no inner life (for all the alleged intell...more
No diversion goes too far afield, no tangent is too barock or philosophickal, and no intrigue is too ornately improbable for me in this yarn. If it were written on a roll of Turing machine tape, extending infinitely into the horizon, I have no doubt I would continue reading as long as I breathe. Alas but there is only one tome remaining in the trilogy for me.
I was hoping to be able to dispense with The Baroque Cycle in one go—to be honest I can't remember greatly liking one book in the trilogy over another, and I really want to put some distance between myself and those 2700+ pages.
It's not that the story's not entertaining—it is. It's amusingly written, too, with an omniscient narrator who breaks the authorial third wall with snarky commentary on fashion choices in the 1600s. And as always, you'll learn a great deal with Stephenson. The birth of m...more
It's not that the story's not entertaining—it is. It's amusingly written, too, with an omniscient narrator who breaks the authorial third wall with snarky commentary on fashion choices in the 1600s. And as always, you'll learn a great deal with Stephenson. The birth of m...more
Sep 17, 2008
Dan
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
People who read and liked Quicksilver
Recommended to Dan by:
John Banes
This is the second volume in Stephenson's Baroque cycle.
At the end of the last book, Half Cocked Jack was a Galley Slave off the Barbary Coast, Eliza was making a run with her baby from the continent to London, and Daniel Waterhouse had Joined the Royal Court and taken a Mistress.
This book picks up several years later. Eliza is captured and brought back to France, Daniel's Mistress died of small pox, and Jack has been cured of the Syph by some sort of extraordinarily high fever, although it has...more
At the end of the last book, Half Cocked Jack was a Galley Slave off the Barbary Coast, Eliza was making a run with her baby from the continent to London, and Daniel Waterhouse had Joined the Royal Court and taken a Mistress.
This book picks up several years later. Eliza is captured and brought back to France, Daniel's Mistress died of small pox, and Jack has been cured of the Syph by some sort of extraordinarily high fever, although it has...more
The Confusion is a typical second book of an atypical trilogy, and that is not at all a criticism. The second book of trilogies always bridge the gap between the first and the last with a focus on character, plot development and building the framework for the payoff. When this is done well, as with The Two Towers, the second installment can hold its own with any installment in the trilogy; when this is done very well, as with Empire Strikes Back (I apologize for the movie reference), it can outs...more
4 likes · like · see review
This book actually didn't take as long to read as the first book (Quicksilver). Perhaps it was because I already knew the characters well and didn't have to "ramp up" each time the book switched focus to a different set of characters. Really, though, I think it's because The Confusion is more of a swashbuckling adventure story, which large parts of Quicksilver were not (even though I really enjoyed the long first part of Quicksilver, involving Puritanism and science, it was a slow read). The Con...more
May 27, 2007
javier
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone who likes really long books with intricate plots
Shelves:
fiction
I actually wasn't going to pick up this book after finishing quicksilver, but I enjoyed the ending of quicksilver, so I thought I would give this one a try. The Confusion was OK. It was a slow read, that wasn't always the best escape for me from my world of studying. The end of The Confusion was well worth the read, but I can't say that I really enjoyed every step of the way. It's more... if I hadn't read the middle of the book, there would be no way to enjoy the ending. Now, I am not ready to...more
Fantastic book! As long as _Quicksilver_, this book feels shorter. There is less natural philosophy and more swashbuckling (including a complete circumnavigation of the globe). There's a bit about the alchemical properties of King Solomon's gold and some pre-Enlightenment chemical engineering. Additionally, there is a significant amount of banking, as many of the events in the book orbit the disintegration of the traditional feudal land economy of Europe and the rise to dominance of a market eco...more
Quicksilver was difficult for me to get into. The Confusion was a lot easier to get into, to the point that I spent my day off reading for 5 hours straight and ignored a bunch of incoming calls on my mobile phone. I'm going to try to hold off on Vol. 3 until after the semester ends.
Another Baroque Cycle volume completed. So engrossing, so time consuming. This series is totally for history nerds with a dark cynical sense of humor. I love it, but I have spoken to a few folks who just can't get into Quicksilver. For variable reasons, this book is just too dense for the average reader. Stephenson is a superb and well researched writer who is dishing out so many nuanced details left and right that it may overwhelm. Some of the best moments in The Confusion come at unexpected ti...more
(I'm going to write once for the whole Baroque Cycle and re-post for all three volumes.)
Definitely door-stoppers, and reading this is a bit of an ambitious project. Sort of a homework assignment for the serious Stephenson fan. The history and economics lessons are all interesting, but there's just SO MUCH of it, it may start to strain the attention span at times. The action and humor are all still there, just a bit spread out. At one point, it had started to have a certain "eat your vegetables"...more
Definitely door-stoppers, and reading this is a bit of an ambitious project. Sort of a homework assignment for the serious Stephenson fan. The history and economics lessons are all interesting, but there's just SO MUCH of it, it may start to strain the attention span at times. The action and humor are all still there, just a bit spread out. At one point, it had started to have a certain "eat your vegetables"...more
Jul 27, 2011
Steve Rippington
added it
It took me ages to build up to reading this one. The first book in the series, Quicksilver, was hugely enjoyable but required prodigous stamina to finish.
Happily, Stephenson's sequel, The Confusion, is a completely different bag of badgers. The pace is lightning fast, the plot is convoluted and epic and yet easy to follow, the twists are completely hidden until they happen, and the prose is superb.
The book has two threads, one follows Jack Shaftoe; vagabond, pirate, explorer and even king and i...more
Happily, Stephenson's sequel, The Confusion, is a completely different bag of badgers. The pace is lightning fast, the plot is convoluted and epic and yet easy to follow, the twists are completely hidden until they happen, and the prose is superb.
The book has two threads, one follows Jack Shaftoe; vagabond, pirate, explorer and even king and i...more
Reviewing the entire trilogy here; they are so tightly woven together that separating them seems artificial. Read part I several years ago, but my recollection is that it is as other reviewers describe - the least rewarding of the bunch. Sometimes a bit of a plod, especially compared to "Cryptonomicon," but that's a high bar, as it's one of my all-time favorites. Anyway, I got through it, but it didn't leave me excited enough to continue. Somehow, years later my interest was re-engaged, and I fi...more
I am entirely perplexed by this trilogy! Usually by the time I have read the first book in a trilogy - let alone the second - I know well whether I am intending to keep the series for an indulgent re-read in the future. After reading the first book, I had been intrigued enough to read the second but felt that overall I would be discarding the series.
What a difference a book makes! Over the course of this second book, I found myself musing on the story even while I was not reading about the conti...more
What a difference a book makes! Over the course of this second book, I found myself musing on the story even while I was not reading about the conti...more
The second book in the truly epic Baroque Cycle (2500+ pages!) and as with many middle episodes in a trilogy it's probably the stodgiest, but it may just be my favourite of the three.
The title The Confusion was well chosen, which Stephenson partly explains in a brief author's note at the start. Many elements are indeed con-fused together to make this volume, from the two separate novels (Bonanza and Juncto) that are interwoven in alternating chapters across 800 pages and the years 1689-1702, to...more
The title The Confusion was well chosen, which Stephenson partly explains in a brief author's note at the start. Many elements are indeed con-fused together to make this volume, from the two separate novels (Bonanza and Juncto) that are interwoven in alternating chapters across 800 pages and the years 1689-1702, to...more
The book says Gottfried Wilhelm Leipniz he lived in Wolfenbüttel library near Braunschweig and lately his collected works are available, in english monads are indivisible parts and as he noted integral calculation first it is integral of n1 to n200, depending on monads. Last who wrote a dissertation about Leipniz was Claude Lanzmann, today the name is known for a cookie only.
So what we have here is a folio of boulevard for the real history of the university, belle époque before the révolution fr...more
So what we have here is a folio of boulevard for the real history of the university, belle époque before the révolution fr...more
Any summary of this second in The Baroque Cycle will be feeble--it can't describe the fun. But I'll try because without context this book would be nothing but confusion.
The characters of "Quicksilver" carry over to this extravaganza. Half-Cock Jack Shafoe and Eliza have gone separate ways, each represented by a sub-novel: "The Bonanza" follows Jack and "The Juncto" follows Eliza. The overarching theme is the development of 17th century trade and monetary standards, in the context of the economi...more
The characters of "Quicksilver" carry over to this extravaganza. Half-Cock Jack Shafoe and Eliza have gone separate ways, each represented by a sub-novel: "The Bonanza" follows Jack and "The Juncto" follows Eliza. The overarching theme is the development of 17th century trade and monetary standards, in the context of the economi...more
Da: http://www.webalice.it/michele.castel... E' il secondo volume de Il Ciclo Barocco, il cui terzo volume, Il Sistema del Mondo, e' gia' uscito negli USA. Del primo, Argento Vivo, avevo gia' parlato, e mi aveva entusiasmato. Anche questa seconda parte mi sembra all'altezza della prima, pur avendo perso il sapore della sorpresa, dello scoprire un modo nuovo di intendere la fantasy. Questa volta le storie di Waterhouse (e di Eliza) e quella di Shaftoe sono completamente separate, anche se tendono...more
Man alive! I honestly wasn't expecting to like this book too terribly much, because my favorite of the three main characters (Dr. Waterhouse) didn't have much of a role to play; it focuses almost exclusively on the adventures of Jack Shaftoe and Eliza. Well, I severely underestimated the excitement-value of the Search for King Solomon's Gold, let me tell you that.
I'm quite glad that Mr. Stephenson decided to alternate the two sections, rather than separating the book into two halves; the "Bonanz...more
I'm quite glad that Mr. Stephenson decided to alternate the two sections, rather than separating the book into two halves; the "Bonanz...more
The Confusion is the second volume of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, and has a few things in common with the first volume, Quicksilver.
First, it's not just a single novel but two novels, Bonanza and The Juncto which are books 4 and 5, respectively, of the Cycle. Second, the title itself works on a few levels: complicated plot points might be "confusing," some of these concern "con-fusing" or "commingling" of metals (e.g., in the recoinage projects of both France and England), and the two compo...more
First, it's not just a single novel but two novels, Bonanza and The Juncto which are books 4 and 5, respectively, of the Cycle. Second, the title itself works on a few levels: complicated plot points might be "confusing," some of these concern "con-fusing" or "commingling" of metals (e.g., in the recoinage projects of both France and England), and the two compo...more
I sometimes think Neal Stephenson novels are fit only for college professors, especially business professors, with a need for astronomic levels of excitement, but since this category includes *me* I love this series. The form of the novels reminds me of a baroque and convoluted Candide - a picaresque in which philosophical speculation trades places back and forth with big-time all-star adventure - burning ships, mistaken identities, kidnappings, mounds and piles of gold, murderous Jesuits, etc....more
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This obviously continues the wild tale begun in Quicksilver. The three major players from the first volume continue to be on the forefront of many of the key discoveries of the 17th and 18th centuries: high finance, banking, coining, and others are all explained through the ways that the characters attempt to survive and thrive through being involved in these modern-day institutions. If this sounds a bit dry, it actually is in many places. The more interesting sections of this book follow "Half-...more
Thoroughly enjoyed the second entry to the Baroque Cycle (which, of course, would make little sense without the context of the first, so don't even think about reading them out of order!)
Political intrigue, monetary theory, ships, pirates, romance, chemistry, extramarital affairs, kidnapping, murder, battles, theories of library organization, impossible escapes, black rights, secret codes, small pox - even the Spanish Inquisition makes an appearance (unexpectedly, of course!) What's not to like...more
Political intrigue, monetary theory, ships, pirates, romance, chemistry, extramarital affairs, kidnapping, murder, battles, theories of library organization, impossible escapes, black rights, secret codes, small pox - even the Spanish Inquisition makes an appearance (unexpectedly, of course!) What's not to like...more
Why not blog this one too?
*****
In a discussion of being political/diplomatic:
"It is precisely because it is true, that you must not come out and state it."
"Very well then, monsieur, I vow not to say anything true for the remainder of this conversation" (p. 69).
Simple little joke, but it cracked me up. The coversation goes on for some time afterwords, and I haven't yet decided if the second character broke the vow...
*****
Ok, so apparently I didn't end up blogging this one live as I read it. Apolo...more
*****
In a discussion of being political/diplomatic:
"It is precisely because it is true, that you must not come out and state it."
"Very well then, monsieur, I vow not to say anything true for the remainder of this conversation" (p. 69).
Simple little joke, but it cracked me up. The coversation goes on for some time afterwords, and I haven't yet decided if the second character broke the vow...
*****
Ok, so apparently I didn't end up blogging this one live as I read it. Apolo...more
This "con-fusion" of two distinct novels (Juncto and Bonanza), alternating between Jack and Eliza's stories, is a must-read for Stephenson fans. Though neither entry in the Baroque Cycle has impressed the critics as much as some of Stephenson's previous work, The Confusion proves his narrative skills are still in fine shape. Casual readers beware: many critics feel the lengthy scientific and historical digressions, however well researched and explicated, tend to hold up the story. If the book su
...more
Apr 27, 2013
Maitrey
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
historical-fiction,
sff
This is nothing short of one of the best fiction works I've read.
I thought it would be difficult to beat Quicksilver, but Stephenson pulls it off yet again with The Confusion.
The frenetic pace set by Jack Shaftoe and his pirate band through their voyages in the Mediterranean, or in Hindustan, or in the Pacific is some of the most enjoyable didactic literature I've ever read. I'm also slightly partisan when Stephenson describes the outlandish designs created by the South Asian edged-weapons indus...more
I thought it would be difficult to beat Quicksilver, but Stephenson pulls it off yet again with The Confusion.
The frenetic pace set by Jack Shaftoe and his pirate band through their voyages in the Mediterranean, or in Hindustan, or in the Pacific is some of the most enjoyable didactic literature I've ever read. I'm also slightly partisan when Stephenson describes the outlandish designs created by the South Asian edged-weapons indus...more
This novel, like its predecessor and successor, is a historical novel for science-fiction geeks. I enjoyed it: well-written, vigorous, funny, smart. However, this book is not for everyone. If you have been paying attention to the same things the author has, then you'll enjoy his in-jokes: if not, not. For example, in mid-novel, Leibniz converses with another character about a (ridiculously impractical) system for organizing a library wherein each subject is assigned a prime number. Books about m...more
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| Confused | 2 | 23 | Jun 29, 2012 12:51pm |
Neal Town Stephenson is an American writer known primarily for his science fiction works in the postcyberpunk genre with a penchant for explorations of society, mathematics, cryptography, currency, and the history of science. He also writes non-fiction articles about technology in publications such as Wired Magazine, and has worked part-time as an advisor for Blue Origin, a company (funded by Jeff...more
More about Neal Stephenson...
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“My men think you are dead now, and won’t waste balls on you,” Jack said. “In fact I have let you live, but for one purpose only: so that you can make your way back to Paris and tell them the following: that the deed you are about to witness was done for a woman, whose name I will not say, for she knows who she is; and that it was done by ‘Half-Cocked’ Jack Shaftoe, L’Emmerdeur, the King of the Vagabonds, Ali Zaybak: Quicksilver!”
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7 people liked it
“What, not coins in the bank? Does your purse hang as flaccid as a gelding's scrotum?”
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3 people liked it
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