Sunday, September 28, 2008

More unfinished buisness

I finished reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. Again I found that he didn't complete the story that he was writing. Having completed the story that involved the cryptography, the human elements of the story, the characters that he'd developed to that point, and the entirety of the rest of the plot were left incomplete. Sometimes this type of ending can be an interesting way for a story to end, in Limbo (the movie) the story is left with the viewer to decide if the people who are stranded are going to be rescued or killed. This choice was the point of the movie, and was built up to. In Our Game, Le Carre has an ending without resolution of the story plot of his novel. He does, however, resolve the internal plot of the main character. We followed him as he came to grips with a situation that he began the novel flummoxed by, and at the end had come to understand and accept.

Cryptonomicon doesn't build to a point where the reader is left wondering about a few discrete outcomes, nor does it follow one character closely enough for us to find an ending of the book in their internal choices. The solution of the cryptography puzzle also wasn't followed closely enough to be the center of the novel. When the we learn the solution, we are more interested in how the character cleverly learned while thwarting pursuers than in the solution itself. We as readers are left begging for another chapter, not to wrap up a happy ending, but simply to give us a sense of closure about the novel.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Update

It's been a while, life keeps on happening. I got to my best friends wedding as best man, that went off well. I quit my old job, which is I think going to be a good thing in the long term. I also left Madison, WI at long last. I'm back in Milwaukee, looking for work and cleaning up loose ends of my life. It hasn't been the easiest time, but I'm getting better as it goes along. House Tyrell's words seem to work for me right now, "Growing Strong" is a fit way to look at this current epoch.

In book news I just finished Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, it was a good read, and an enjoyable extrapolation from Snow Crash. I didn't really like the ending, as he clips it off once he gets bored with the part of the book that interests him, which leaves large chunks of plot sitting around uncompleted. I understand the reasoning, but I think that this shows a lack of editor's power, not a lack of ability as a writer. In his earlier works, the ending is given despite the "interesting" portion of the book having been completed earlier. As he gains a name for himself and gets more power within the process of his book writing, he has less reason to listen to an editor making suggestions.

I'll be back to talk about detective fiction later.