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ANATHEM

Neal Stephenson 2008 From Publishers Weekly In this follow-up to his historical Baroque Cycle trilogy, which fictionalized the early-18th century scientific revolution, Stephenson (Cryptonomicon) conjures a far-future Earth-like planet, Arbre, where scientists, philosophers and mathematiciansa religious order unto themselveshave been cloistered behind concent (convent) walls. Their role is to nurture all knowledge while safeguarding it from the vagaries of the irrational saecular outside world. Among the monastic scholars is 19-year-old Raz, collected into the concent at age eight and now a decenarian, or tenner (someone allowed contact with the world beyond the stronghold walls only once a decade). But millennia-old rules are cataclysmically shattered when extraterrestrial catastrophe looms, and Raz and his teenage companionsengaging in intense intellectual debate one moment, wrestling like rambunctious adolescents the nextare summoned to

save the world. Stephenson's expansive storytelling echoes Walter Miller's classic A Canticle for Leibowitz, the space operas of Larry Niven and the cultural m ations Douglas Hofstadtera heady mix of antecedents that makes for long stretches of dazzling entertainment occasionally interrupted by pages of numbing colloquy. (Sept.) Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Bookmarks Magazine Stephenson has never been an easy writer to pin down, and he has a reputation for not always wearing his erudition lightly. Particularly in his later booksand that now includes Anathemreaders are vetted at the door before being invited into the authors labyrinthine worlds. The early books were held up alongside the work of William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and other cyberpunk gods, though in the last decade Stephenson has carved a niche as one of the most ambitious writers working today in any genre. Anathemis intellectually rigorous and exceedingly complex, even to the point, as the Washington Post avows, of being grandiose, overwrought and pretty damn dull. Others complained of too much abstraction. Stephensons fans are legion, however, and many will addAnathem to their list of must-read doorstops. Copyright 2008 Bookmarks Publishing LLC See all orial Reviews

Michael Dirda on 'Anathem' PHOTOS Previous Next

(Nick Chaldakov - Alamy) Network News XPROFILE View More Activity TOOLBOX Resize Print E-mail Reprints By Michael Dirda Sunday, September 7, 2008

ANATHEM By Neal Stephenson Morrow. 937 pp. $29.95 While thinking about Neal Stephenson's Anathem, I found myself imagining that I was one of those cartoon heroes suddenly confronted by a moral quandary. On one shoulder sits a little red devil, with a tiny pitchfork; on the other, a cherubic angel in white robes. Each whispers in my ear, and I am tugged first this way and then that. My heart is roiled, I am perplexed and unhappy, caught in a dilemma. For the past 30 years I've been a zealous advocate for literary science fiction and fantasy, arguing that writers such as Gene Wolfe, Thomas M. Disch, John Crowley, Ursula K. Le Guin, Howard Waldrop and a handful of others are significant American authors, as well as artists of the first rank. More recently, I've been gratified to see old genre prejudices breaking down as younger writers like Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem and Kelly Link garner mainstream honors without rejecting their fantasy and sf roots. This is as it should be: Good books are good books, period. Everything else is just marketing.

Which brings me to my quandary. Neal Stephenson has established himself as one of these genre-transcending gods, read passionately by geeks and fans, but also admired as a novelist of ideas, a 21st-century Thomas Pynchon. In the bestselling Cryptonomicon he juxtaposes code-breaking during World War II with data encryption in the era of the Internet. A three-volume " Baroque Cycle" -half Umberto Eco mystery, half Dorothy Dunnett swashbuckler -- examines science in the 17th century. All these novels are immensely long, yet it doesn't matter to the growing band of Stephensonians. Excess is clearly the name of the game. This new novel, Anathem, arrives with a major publicity campaign that includes podcasts, e-cards, YouTube appearances, guest blogs and the relaunch of the Neal Stephenson Web site. Everyone has gone all out for Anathem. I fully expected to join the stampede. Alas, I can't even lope slowly alongside the herd. Oh, Anathem will certainly be admired for its

intelligence, ambition, control and ingenuity. But loved? Enjoyed? The book reminds me of Harold Brodkey's The Runaway Soul from 17 years ago -much anticipated, in places quite brilliant, but ultimately grandiose, overwrought and pretty damn dull. That's an awful thing to say about a novel as formidable as Anathem, but there's no getting around it. The made-up language is rebarbative (though often clever), the plot moves with elephantine slowness, and much is confusing (the process of decipherment actually drives the book, as characters and the reader Try to Figure Things Out), and every so often we just stop for a long info-dump or debate about cosmology, philosophy, semantics or similar glitzy arcana. For the most part, Stephenson's prose lacks any particular grace or beauty (at least to my ear), and while he can be mildly satirical at times, these precious moments are few. On the other hand, the descriptions -- of buildings, machines, events -- seem to go on for millennia. Sex is referred to, but never actually seen. Alas, there's worse. I also find the book to be fundamentally unoriginal. If you've read Russell Hoban's brilliant Riddley Walker, you've seen punning word coinages done better and more poetically. If you've read Walter M. Miller Jr.'s sf classic A Canticle for Leibowitz, you know that monasteries are havens of civilization and science (in Anathem's case, of high-

level mathematics and theoretical physics). Most of all, if you've read Gene Wolfe's four-part Book of the New Sun, you can appreciate how this kind of grand encyclopedic vision, with mysteries at its core, can be brought off with far more elegance, wit and artistry. All these, by the way, are masterpieces -- and not just of "their genre." The plot of Anathem is basically this: It's the far future of an Earth-like planet called Orth. We know it's the far future because we're given a long timeline of the planet's past, and the characters repeatedly refer to major figures from their history. Now Orth's past often recalls Earth's and includes figures who resemble Plato and Descartes, movements like the Reformation, and genocidal wars. Currently, though, civilization has bifurcated: Monasteries preserve theoretical knowledge of science and mathematics, and within their walls the brothers (fraas) and sisters (suurs) live simple, highly regulated lives, winding clocks, singing religious services, tending gardens. Only occasionally do they mingle with the outside world, that "extramuros" realm of "praxis," which possesses heavy machinery, cell phones, motorized vehicles and video recorders, and yet somehow seems rather rural and 19th-century in its basic character. After a long build-up, the established routines of the cloister of Saunt Edhar -- note the word play: "saunt" blending "savant" and "saint" -- are strangely

disrupted. A revered teacher is sent into exile, and our hero, a young fraa named Erasmas, is determined to find out why. With the help of his multi-talented monastery friends, he discovers that his mentor Orolo had been studying some strange lights in the night sky. But what are they? Along the way to solving this mystery, Stephenson treats us to numerous interruptions, discourses, explanations, apologia, mathematical proofs and arguments. All these fraas and suurs are super smart: " 'It's a typical Procian versus Halikaarnian dispute,' I said. 'Avout who follow in the way of Halikaarn, Evenedric, and Edhar seek truth in pure theorics. On the Procian/Faanian side, there is a suspicion of the whole idea of absolute truth and more of a tendency to classify the story of Cnos as a fairy tale. They pay lip service to Hylaea just because of what she symbolizes and because she wasn't as bad as her sister. But I don't think that they believe that the HTW is real any more than they believe that there is a Heaven." Attentive readers will actually be able to understand most of this passage. No kidding. More surprisingly, Stephenson sometimes breaks his tone by writing plainly about what sounds like today's world: "An old market had stood there until I'd been about six years old, when the authorities had renamed it the Olde Market, destroyed it, and built a new market devoted to selling T-shirts and other objects with pictures of the old market."

Eventually, Erasmas and his ragtag team all end up leaving Saunt Edhar's, called upon by the secular government to help during some undisclosed state of emergency. In the outside world, these socially naive monks undergo a variety of adventures -- at one point Erasmas is rescued from a mob by an order of kickboxing warrior priests -- and we are, in due course, treated to death rays, multiple universes and, yes, a climax in which the very fate of Orth hangs in the balance. And that's all anyone should say about the plot. Except that the end is really hokey. What forward action the novel possesses is largely generated by the exceedingly gradual unraveling of the various mysteries associated with an alien spacecraft and the past history of Orth. To sum up: Reading Anathem is a humbling experience. Wow, you say to yourself, this guy Stephenson really knows a lot of stuff about philosophy and physics. And he's really ingenious, too, neatly counterpointing Earth/Orth history, creating a series of elaborate puzzles that can only be solved by Encyclopedia Brown and his monastic buddies, and transcribing intellectual conversations that sound like really nerdy Caltech grad students schmoozing at 3 a.m. or Cambridge dons pontificating at high table while they wait for the Stilton to come round.

The sad thing is this: None of these more than 900 pages can have been easy to write, or even to outline. Stephenson truly is gifted in the range of material he can draw on and play with. But he is also the sort of ambitious writer who tends to go too far, which is certainly preferable to playing it safe. Still, this novel is at heart artistically simplistic, despite its technorazzle dazzle. Sigh. The word "Anathem" -- which here refers to either a piece of religious music or an act of excommunication -- is a portmanteau of "anthem" and "anathema" -- in other words, it suggests a song of rejection. I just hate to be singing it. Michael Dirda's email address is mdirda@gmail.com Anathem Neal Stephenson William Morrow, 960 pages A review by Jakob Schmidt Neal Stephenson's new novel brings him back to the fold of science fiction authors. It is about a lot of things, first and foremost the nature of reality. We would have expected nothing less from Stephenson. Neal Stephenson However, those who have Neal Stephenson's

background shows clearly in his writing. He was born in Fort Meade, home of the National Security Agency (NSA), and grew up in a family that included biochemistry, physics, and electrical engineering professors. His own studies included physics and geography. Stephenson is the author ofZodiac, Snow Crash, and the Hugo award-winning The Diamond Age. He also writes with his uncle J. Frederick George under the pseudonym Stephen Bury. Stephenson currently lives in the Seattle area with his family.

been put off by Stephenson's occasionally confusing Baroque Cycle, take heart: Anathem is much more straightforward, narrated from the perspective of only one character, and has a relatively tight and linear plot structure. It is also quite funny, and a comedy at its heart, meaning that it will probably make you feel happy -- but I'm getting ahead of myself. Arbre, the setting of Anathem, is an Earth-like world with a few thousand more years of written history under its belly. It seems to have spent most of this time in a prolonged condition of postAdvertisement modern now: there's no significant social or technological progress, but instead an ongoing profusion of

Cryptonomicon Websi te ISFDB Bibliography SF Site Review: Snow Crash SF Site Review: Quicksilver SF Site Review: In the Beginning... Was the Command Line SF Site Review: In the Beginning... Was the Command Line SF Site Interview: Neal Stephenson SF Site Review: Cryptonomic on SF Site Review: The Cobweb by Stephen Bury SF Site Review: The Cobweb by Stephen Bury SF Site Review: The Diamond Age

technological gimmicks. In the first chapters of the novel, we see little of this world, since its narrator, Fraa Erasmas, is a so-called avout, living in one of many large convents of ascetic scientists and philosophers who isolate themselves from the outside world. Erasmas is a young scholar with a passion for knowledge, who hasn't seen the outside world for ten years and doesn't miss it, since he has found many good friends among the avout. However, on the eve of Apert, the opening of the gates to the outside world that occurs only once every ten, hundred or even thousand years, things start to change. The venerable and eccentric Fraa Orolo has seen something in the sky, and, consequently, is suddenly whisked away from his brethren. Erasmas and his friends form a secret circle to

investigate his disappearance, a course of action that will lead them far beyond the safe walls of their convent, into a world that has become alien to them, and even into space. On their way, they keep up the avout tradition of rational debate, systematically unravelling the mystery that confronts them... ...which is a quite elegant way for Stephenson to fill Anathem with a wealth of theoretical discourse, reaching from quantum physics to epistemological debates between linguistically inclined post-structuralists and advocates of a more rigorous phenomenological world-view. Of course, Stephenson tweaks Arbre's equivalents of these traditions slightly. He also invents new names for them in a quasiLatin idiom, as he does for many other vaguely familiar

concepts. This is something that really only Stephenson can pull off: filling whole chapters with theoretical debates between characters, without even once digressing from his story. It's all essential to the plot. It all feels real. The characters are mostly (and most authentically) defined by their discussion style, and you couldn't wish for a more loveable narrator than Fraa Erasmas, a curious, intelligent and slightly insecure young man with an acute sense of humour. To read Anathem is by no means easy -- the first few chapters especially require a lot of focus, and the concepts at the heart of the novel are challenging. The process of exploring these concepts actually becomes the story. Among other things, Anathem is a

dramatisation of the process of understanding, and Stephenson repeatedly captures the enormous thrill of the eureka moment, as well as the nearly unbearable tension of not-quite-having-itfigured-out-yet. However, not all the adventure is intellectual: Erasmas crosses a freezing polar landscape, escapes a bloodthirsty mob, witnesses the eruption of a volcano up close and makes the most extraordinary, amazing and believable journey into space I've ever encountered in any science fiction novel. There are a few minor gripes I have with Anathem. It is a tad implausible that Erasmas keeps meeting the same people again and again on his adventures (an implausibility that is mitigated by the fact that it is part of why the book works so well as a comedy).

Also, the quantum-theoretical concept falls a little flat in the end. It is slightly reminiscent of Greg Egan's Quarantine, and less impressive in terms of its realisation within the narrative. But all of this is far outweighed by how engaging, intelligent, funny and optimistic Anathem is. There, I said it: optimistic. Not everything is alright in this novel. In fact, the historically stalled Arbre is a quite depressing place in many ways. Nevertheless, there's a strong sense that humankind can figure out ways to move forward, provided that at least some of its members stay rational, keep an open mind and try hard and sincerely to understand the world around them. Stephenson doesn't just postulate fundamental human goodness. Instead, he works his way towards the precious

and precarious feeling that there is a definite chance of human goodness.Anathem convincin gly sells something far more outrageous than all its quantum-mechanical epistemology: the notion that things might turn out quite alright in the end. Copyright 2009 by Jakob Schmidt Jakob is part of the orial team of the German magazine Pandora. That's in his sp

Planet of the Monks

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To paraphrase an old Greek guy: I have always from my earliest youth had an awe and love of Neal Stephenson, which even now makes the words falter on my lips. But a man is not to be reverenced more than the truth, and therefore I will speak out. In the acknowledgments of ANATHEM (Morrow/HarperCollins, $29.95), Stephenson, the author of such meticulous historical novels as Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle, gives inspirational cr for his latest work of fiction to a long line of distinguished thinkers, from Thales and Plato to Husserl and Gdel. But it is the spirits of the Greeks that exert the greatest influence on Anathem: at its best, the book is a thought experiment in narrative form, a m ation on how far a society can go on pure reason and arguments from first principles. It is an intricate Socratic puzzle, yet though you may wish to banish me or pour hemlock down my throat for saying this Im not entirely sure its a novel. Set in a world that is similar but not identical to our own, Anathem imagines a modern-day monastic order whose members have pledged to live their lives without computers or electronic technology. Having long ago set aside such unanswerable questions as Does God exist? these alternative Augustines are free to contemplate issues of math, physics and philosophy; depending on the order they belong to,

they are allowed to visit the outside world as much as once a year or as little as once a millennium. (Needless to say, only those members of the latter group with good timing and health care will get to enjoy this benefit.) Of course, Stephenson does not simply hand over this information to his reader on a platter. Seen through the eyes of a young ascetic named Erasmas, the universe of Anathem and its properties are revealed methodically over hundreds of pages, and at first, there is much joy to be found in watching this plausible other reality assemble itself and in observing how it parallels our own. This world has its own Socrates and Plato (a pair of classical philosophers named Thelenes and Protas, who challenged a troupe of freelance rhetoricians similar to the sophists) and equivalents of basic principles like Occams razor, the Pythagorean theorem and the parable of the cave presented in Platos Republic, as if to show that such ideas are so fundamental to intellectual development they must arise in any thinking society, regardless of its history. Stephenson, too, delights in the language and etymology he has designed for his fictional world (where revered scholars are given the title Saunt, derived from the word savant) and in the 7,000 years of detailed history he has given it: before Erasmas has set foot outside his cloister, he has

introduced the reader to numerous disputes and schisms that his mathic tradition has spawned over the centuries philosophical (and sometimes physical) battles that have arisen between rival groups of Deolaters and Physiologers, Bazians and counterBazians, Procians and Halikaarnians. Whether you are able to keep track of the differences between these factions (theres a helpful glossary at the back of the book for dopes like me), it doesnt obscure Stephensons larger point, perhaps the most resonant and consequential in all of Anathem: the absence of religion does not prevent passionate and violent disagreements over theoretical matters; such conflagrations can occur even in societies that hold rational thought as their highest virtue. So far, so good, but here comes the heresy. Eventually, Erasmas spies what he thinks is an alien ship in the sky, leading to his dismissal from his monastery and finally setting the plot of Anathem in motion. While his narrator is engaged in his wanderings, Stephenson amuses himself with other interpretations of worship: a faith based on an ancient craftsman and his vision of a triangle in the heavens, and another structured around the unlikely trinity of a condemned man, a magistrate and an innocent girl. But there is still another triad the author should have heeded more carefully. Back in The Republic, a work Stephenson has evidently spent some time with,

Socrates delineates three categories of art: one which uses, another which makes, a third which imitates them. The last of these three Socrates holds in the lowest regard, because it is a copy of a copy of the truth an inferior who marries an inferior, and has inferior offspring. And my reluctant conclusion is that Anathem spends so much time engaged in copying, in conjuring up alternative formulations of our real-world science and religion, that it forgets to come up with much that is new or true. Too much of the book is dominated by lengthy dialectical debates, whose conclusions are hardly earth-shattering (if you are reading this review, I suspect you already know how to divide a rectangular cake into eight equal servings) and which do little to promote a readers engagement with the characters of Anathem, any more than one cares about the interior lives of Pausanias or Eryximachus while reading The Symposium. Whats worse, the books fixation on dialogue leads Erasmas (and Stephenson) to simply tell us what is happening or has happened in pivotal scenes, instead of allowing us to see the events for ourselves through descriptive action. And when Erasmas and his confederates at last make their way onto that alien ship, you may wonder what all of this has to do with the larger themes Stephenson spends the first 300 pages of his 900-page novel laying out.

But you dont have to know Plato from Play-Doh to sense that Anathem doesnt completely work on its own terms. Throughout the book, we see Erasmas tinkering with a tool called a sphere: a flexible, amorphous blob that he can variously fashion into a bushel basket, a stool, a toboggan and a life buoy. Likewise, it is immensely entertaining to watch Stephenson play with an admixture of science, history and language, and stretch it into as many different forms as he can imagine. Id also like to believe that he had a more ambitious and rewarding intention in mind than playing around with sophisticated toys.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson About.com Rating3 Star Rating Be the first to write a review By Mark Flanagan, About.com Guide See More About: science fiction neal stephenson

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Ads Marry Foreign SinglesMen From USA, UK & Europe Seek African Ladies. Join Free Today! AfroIntroductions.com/Marriage One Man's StoryLife was good but then it started falling apart. Then dad died.www.thoughts-aboutgod.com William Morrow, September 2008 In another cosmos and another time millennia from now, on the planet Arbre, the avout of Saunt Edhar's cloister themselves within concent walls, as have generations of avout before them. Fraa Erasmus, along with his brothers and sisters, live according to the Cartasian Discipline, a strict path they must follow in their pursuit of truth in the realms of math and science. The discipline dictates every facet of their lives, from the bolts and chords they wear like monk's robes to their very separation from extramuros, the world outside of Saunt Edhar's. The length of an avout's commitment to the discipline varies according to the "math" they've joined - there are unarians, decenarians, centenarians, and even millenarians. When Anathembegins, Fraa Erasmus, a "tenner" or decenarian, approaches his tenth year and with his decenarian fraas and suurs prepares for the

celebration of Apert, an opening of the concent gates for ten days, during which sightseers from the outside may enter and the avout can venture extramuros. Anathem centers thematically around this divide between the avout and the saeculars, the pure pursuit of truth in the mathic world and the ugly consumerism and warring arks (churches) outside. There is much more than this to Neal Stephenson's sprawling 900 page block of a novel, but in order to fully access it, the reader must spend a few hundred pages cloistered with Erasmus and his fraas and suurs as the history, philosophy and, yes, the vocabulary of their world are spun. This is where Neal Stephenson, the master worldbuilder, lives and thrives. As with his previous three novels, Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World, a trilogy of meticulously researched and arduously wrought historical fiction, Stephenson revels in methodically and intricately detailing every aspect of his universe, elaborately setting the stage for any action that is to play out. Once set, Anathem tackles such heady topics as cosmology, the nature of consciousness, and parallel universe notions inherent in string theory. The story, involving mysteriously Arbre-like visitors from another cosmos, unfolds at a glacial pace and

oftentimes seems to serve mainly as a platform upon which the author can unfurl his more theoretical ideas. Put simply, this is not the Neal Stephenson of pageturners like Snow Crash and The Diamond Age. Anathem is at times densely philosophical and would not feel out of place on a shelf of works by philosopher-mathematician Kurt Gdel and a few quantum physics texts, which is what I suspect fills the shelves in Stephenson's writing room. Long philosophical discourses between the characters frequently forestalls the novel's forward motion, and while these are eventually tied into plot, they oftentimes failed to hold my attention and left me wondering if perhaps I wasn't smart enough forAnathem. . Fortunately, Stephenson's powers of description and wry sense of humor in satirizing our own world make the journey through Arbe largely a pleasurable one. In the opening scene of the novel, in which Fraa Orolo interviews a handyman from extramuros, we get a sense of the divide between the avout and the saeculars: "Do your neighbors burn one another alive?" was how Fraa Orolo began his conversation with Artisan Flec. Embarrassment befell me. Embarrassment is

something I can feel in my flesh, like a handful of sunwarmed mud clapped on my head. "Do your shamans walk around on stilts?" Fraa Orolo asked, reading from a leaf that, judging by its brownness, was at least five centuries old. Then he looked up and added helpfully, "You might call them pastors or witch doctors." The embarrassment had turned runny. It was horrifying my scalp along a spreading frontier. "When a child gets sick, do you pray? Sacrifice to a painted stick? Or blame it on an old lady?" Now it was sheeting warm down my face, clogging my ears and sanding my eyes. I could barely hear Fraa Orolo's questions: "Do you fancy you will see your dead dogs and cats in some sort of afterlife?" As I plunged through Anathem, I found myself growing attached to Stephenson's avout. After all, it was no insignificant amount of time that I had spent with these young fraas and suurs who, despite their commitment to theoretical inquiry, are driven by the same forces of young adult humans. Ultimately however, I longed for these characters to do more and talk less, which happened mostly in Anathem's latter parts and then in a way that felt somewhat campy and

unsuited to a work otherwise thoughtfully rendered. Neal Stephenson is truly a brilliant thinker and an ambitious author, and reading Anathem is not an undertaking for the feint of heart or mind. I have no doubt that many of his devotees will laud this book as a masterwork and that a number of cognoscenti will find deep satisfaction within its pages. Some readers however, like me, will discreetly breathe a sigh of relief upon the closing of Anathem's covers and look around for something that requires perhaps just a tad less devotion.

Interview with Neal Stephenson author of Anathem October 1, 2008 - Boulder, CO By Mark Flanagan, About.com Guide See More About: author interviews neal stephenson

Courtesy Neal Stephenson. Ads We Want to Read Your BookPublishing poetry, novels, memoirs, how-to, religious, most genres.DorrancePublishing.com Looking for All Ebooks?Find All Ebooks on Facebook. Sign Up Free Now!www.Facebook.com Cheki Kenya Cars17 000+ Cars, Bikes, Trucks & More! See cheki.co.ke for the Latest Now.www.cheki.co.ke/cars Contemporary Literature Ads Author Books Book Author Book by Author Audio Books Author

Ads Find A Foreign HusbandChat With Men From USA, Europe & Canada. Browse Profiles & Join FreeAfroIntroductions.com/Marriage Conferencing SystemsFor Boardrooms & Conference Venues Very Competitive Prices! 0118841270www.clayton.co.za Neal Stephenson broke onto the science fiction scene with his seminal cyberpunk hit Snow Crash in the early '90s and followed up with The Diamond Age, a more fully realized novel in the same genre. Since then his novels have grown in length and complexity and have tackled World War II era cryptography, 18th century science and adventure, and in his latest, Anathem, the far flung planet of Arbre, where the intellectually-inclined are cloistered within monastic concents, apart from the ugly consumerism and warring churches of the saecular world. I sat down with Neal Stephenson in The Boulder Bookstore to speak about Anathem and the heady subject matter contained within as well as the author's writing habits and regimen. MF: I understand that the inspiration for Anathemcame from The Long Now Foundation's Millennium Clock. Can you tell me a little about that?

NS: Well I'd been hearing about the idea of theMillennial Clock since shortly after Danny Hillis came up with it, and talked to him and Stewart Brand about it at Hackers' conferences, circa 1995. And in 1999 or thereabouts, the Long Now Foundation was sprucing up its web site and they asked me and several other people to contribute sketches of what we thought such a clock might look like. So I contributed one that had some of the basic elements that show up in Anathem. It had gates that opened like doors on a cuckoo clock at certain times, and it had these sort-of clock monks. And that's still up there on the Long Now's web site. That was in the middle of the Baroque Cycle project, so I shelved it for a few years. Then in about '05 when I was getting ready to write another book, that idea kept bobbing to the surface. I liked it better than any of the other ideas, so I wrote it. MF: It's a compelling idea. How did that single image evolve into a novel? NS: Well, that was the question. You can't be sure if it's going to work. You have to ask yourself, "Ok cool image, but is it really going to become a story?"

So the approach I took was to start writing the conversation that opens the book. That seemed ok so I kept writing, and I developed the world as necessary as I was telling the story. MF: So this was more of a "write and see what happens approach" rather than a "plan it all out approach" to novel-writing? NS: Well, I've never been a "plan it all out" person, because the planning phase might last for a day or a week or a month, and then the project lasts for years. It's very unlikely that in the day or the week or the month you'll come up with a plan that's so perfect that you won't be able to improve on it during the next few years writing the book. So, you have to make it up as you go along anyway. I think it's good to have a few points that you're going to connect - a few plot points. MF: However Anathem is so rich in its philosophy and pre-history, it seems that at some point you had to do some amount of mapping, right? NS: Well, the philosophy is just a highly simplified, stream-lined rendition of Earth philosophy and science. The reason I put it on another planet was because to tell that history of ideas story on Earth and to get it right would have taken many many volumes.

It would have been like 'Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy.' The history of the world itself is really just sketched out. There's not a lot of detail there. There are some general ages - there's sort of a classical age, a dark age, a renaissance - that's all taken from Earth history. But beyond that, we don't really see the details because after the Reconstitution, the avout basically stop being very interested in the details. MF: Can you tell me more about the philosophy in Anathem and how it relates to Earth philosophy? NS: In the ancient world, the Haalikaarnians are kind of like the Platonists, the Socratic school, and the Procians are like the Sophists. And you can trace the same tendencies up through the 20th century of Earth. The Vienna Circle philosophers were kind of like the Sophists, so they're kind of on the Procian side, and Kurt Goedel was a Platonist, so he was on the Halikaarnian side. And that's an argument that still goes on today in philosophy. MF: So you, I'm guessing from the book, are a Platonist? NS: Well, it's not that I don't think there are good

arguments on the other side, but I'm sort of fascinated by the persistence of Platonists among mathematicians and scientists. So, all mathematicians agree that 3 is a prime number. If you ask them if it was a prime number a billion years ago before there were human beings to think about such things, most mathematicians will say "yes." And if you say yes, you're basically a Platonist. You're saying that there's some inherent quality of primeness that transcends human thought as a fundamental property that is true whether or not there are human brains around to think about it. Prev nterview with Neal Stephenson author of Anathem October 1, 2008 - Boulder, CO By Mark Flanagan, About.com Guide See More About: author interviews neal stephenson

Ads We Want to Read Your BookPublishing poetry, novels, memoirs, how-to, religious, most genres.DorrancePublishing.com

Looking for All Ebooks?Find All Ebooks on Facebook. Sign Up Free Now!www.Facebook.com Business Owner?Get a Free Site for your Business With Google. Try it now for Free!www.kbo.co.ke Contemporary Literature Ads Author Books Proposal Writing Book Author Reading Books Book by Author (Continued from Page 1) MF: Let's talk about your writing habits a bit. What prompted you to switch from typing your novels on a laptop to writing them out longhand with pen and paper? NS: Well, I noticed that when I was stuck and I couldn't get something going, the thing that always worked for me was to walk away from the computer, pick up a pen and start writing. And since there seems to be something about the pen that worked for me, why not try writing a whole book that way. So I tried it, knowing that I could always change back to the old system. What I found was that the quality of the first draft was higher. Because I'm a very fast typist, if an idea comes into my head I can slam out several paragraphs of

material before I've had time to think about it. My fingers can kind of get ahead of my brain. When writing with a pen it's much slower, so the material has to stay resident in my brain for a little longer while I'm writing it out. During that time a lot can happen. I can think of ways to improve that sentence; I can rearrange things in my head; or I can think better of it altogether and decide not to write that sentence or paragraph at all. I liked that about it, and I found that liked ing with a pen better too because it's faster to cross a word out than it is to backspace over it. I like the physical engagement of it - I'm moving around more with the pen than I am when I'm just locked into one position at the keyboard. So there are a number of advantages to it and no disadvantages that I can detect. MF: Do you have a specific writing routine that you adhere to? NS: I pretty much get up every morning, have my breakfast, and then try to get into my work space before anything has happened that's going to distract me, annoy me, or get my brain on the wrong track. I'll pick up the 10 or 15 pages I wrote the day before and read through them and them. By the time I'm done with that I've kind of gotten back in the swing of the chapter I'm writing.

At the end of a day, I like to stop in the middle of a section - not at the end - because it's easier to get going again. If you stop at the end of a chapter, it's harder to restart. Then I'll write another 10 or 15 pages of new material. That's pretty much my production schedule. MF: What do you do when you're not working? NS: I find that most of writing takes place in the back of the mind, while you're not consciously thinking about it. So what I've found a long time ago is that after getting some pages banged out in the morning, I need to go do something for the rest of the day that's going to occupy my thoughts and consume my attention that's completely unrelated to writing. If I do that, I find that the next morning when I go to my work space I find that there's stuff sitting there in my head ready for me to write down.

the complete review - fiction

Anathem by Neal Stephenson general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

Title: Anathem Author: Neal Stephenson Genre: Novel Written: 2008 Length: 935 pages Availability: Anathem - US Anathem - UK Anathem - Canada Anathem - India Anathem - Deutschland Il pellegrino and Il nuovo cielo - Italia Anatema - Espaa

- Return to top of the page Our Assessment: B : tries to do too much See our review for fuller assessment.

Review Summaries Source Rating Date Reviewer Financial Times . 20/10/2008 James Lovegrove The Guardian . 27/9/2008 Christopher Brookmyre The LA Times . 7/9/2008 Laura Miller NY Post . 7/9/2008 Glenn Harlan Reynolds The NY TImes Book Rev. . 19/10/2008 Dave Itzoff Salon A- 11/9/2008 Andrew Leonard San Francisco Chronicle . 26/9/2008 Michael Berry The Telegraph A- 4/10/2008 Andrew McKie TLS. 7/11/2008 Tom Shippey Wall Street Journal . 9/9/2008 Paul Boutin The Washington Post C- 7/9/2008 Michael Dirda

From the Reviews: "Anathem belongs to the larger-than-you-might-think subgenre of religion-centric science fiction. Its heavy stuff, but the weightiness is leavened by a knowing humour." - James Lovegrove, Financial Times "Weighing in at 800 head-stretching pages, Anathem demands a near-avout level of commitment, but rewards those who enter its concent with bounteous gifts of wisdom, beauty and "upsight". The only catch to reading a novel as imposingly magnificent as this is that for the next few months, everything else seems small and obvious by comparison." - Christopher Brookmyre, The Guardian "Whenever you feel you have a handle on the story, at the moment you settle in, thinking, "Now I see what this book is about," the novel is liable to pivot on some previously unnoticed axis and head in another direction entirely. Anathem is also a campus novel, a counterpoint to Stephenson's little-known debut, The Big U. (...) True, Erasmas is a bit callow (his cluelessness in romantic matters is one of the novel's running jokes), and his workmanlike first-person voice strips the customary brio out of Stephenson's prose. But what could be more literary than the metaphysical conclusions the novel wends its way to, which are that human imagination is a quantum device and the

cosmos itself a kind of story ?" - Laura Miller, The Los Angeles Times "All this could have been a very simple morality tale: Science good, repression of science bad. And, in the wake of things like Bill Joy's call for us to renounce some advanced technologies rather than risk social dislocation, such a morality tale might even have been useful. But Stephenson aims higher. Stephenson created this world and its inhabitants mostly so that he could explore a wide variety of philosophical and social ideas, with sources ranging from Pythagoras, Thales and Plato all the way to Godel and Danny Hillis." - Glenn Harlan Reynolds, New York Post "It is an intricate Socratic puzzle, yet -- though you may wish to banish me or pour hemlock down my throat for saying this -- Im not entirely sure its a novel. (...) Too much of the book is dominated by lengthy dialectical debates, whose conclusions are hardly earth-shattering (if you are reading this review, I suspect you already know how to divide a rectangular cake into eight equal servings) and which do little to promote a readers engagement with the characters of Anathem, any more than one cares about the interior lives of Pausanias or Eryximachus while reading The Symposium. Whats worse, the books fixation on dialogue leads Erasmas (and Stephenson)

to simply tell us what is happening or has happened in pivotal scenes, instead of allowing us to see the events for ourselves through descriptive action." - Dave Itzoff, The New York Times Book Review "Anathem pulls off what most writers would never dare attempt -- it is simultaneously a page turner and a philosophical argument, an adventure novel and an extended existential m ation, a physics lesson, sermon and ripping good yarn. Anathem also resonates with social observations rooted in our time, right now, on earth (.....) The names have changed, but the geometry remains the same. If you are already a fan of Stephenson, you will not be disappointed -- you will be utterly engrossed. If you like a little dash of philosophy in your science fiction you will be delighted. If you wrote a dissertation on German idealism you will think you've died and gone to heaven. Can I hear an amen ? If you don't like philosophy, hate math and desire more character development than Kant in your fiction ... best to stay away." - Andrew Leonard, Salon "It's almost impossible to not be impressed by Anathem; there's simply too much erudition, wit, craft and risk-taking on display to write this novel off as some kind of pretentious, badly ed prank. But many who tackle the book, including some longtime

Stephenson fans, may find that it doesn't stimulate their reading pleasure centers the way they had hoped." - Michael Berry, San Francisco Chronicle "I think this novel is wonderful. So I don't want to put you off. But let's be clear: there is plenty to put you off. There is a strong case for thinking this book utterly tiresome. Please, don't. You'll miss quite a lot if you do." - Andrew McKie, The Telegraph "Stephensons motive, then, must be at least partly evangelical, but it is a consciously elitist form of evangelism. Does his immensely detailed and even laboured historico-philosophical approach succeed? On the one hand, the seriousness, the multilayered texture of hint and allusion, the quantity of data imparted and demanded, all these make most mainstream literature (and most science fiction too) look marginal, introverted, or at best ill-informed. On the other, one cannot help feeling that Stephensons ideal reader -- the sort who will go and look things up on the website, and then follow the references -cannot exist in very large numbers." - Tom Shippey, Times Literary Supplement "The 937-page novel isn't a cautionary tale; it's an escapist fantasy for readers who miss the joys of studious immersion in math, science and philosophy.

(...) He adapts a standard sci-fi plot as an excuse for lengthy ruminations on big-think topics of philosophy and cosmology. By explaining highbrow concepts about the nature of consciousness and the universe entirely within his alternate universe, he's able to cast them as new and interesting ideas. (...) The third act, in which Erasmus and friends suit up to save the world, is a throwback to classic sci-fi. It feels like literary red meat and comes as something of a relief after so much cerebration. But the lasting satisfaction of Anathem derives not from the action but from Mr. Stephenson's wry contempt for today's just-Google-it mindset. His prose is dense, but his worldview contagious." - Paul Boutin, Wall Street Journal "Oh, Anathem will certainly be admired for its intelligence, ambition, control and ingenuity. But loved ? Enjoyed ? The book reminds me of Harold Brodkey's The Runaway Soul from 17 years ago -much anticipated, in places quite brilliant, but ultimately grandiose, overwrought and pretty damn dull. That's an awful thing to say about a novel as formidable as Anathem, but there's no getting around it. The made-up language is rebarbative (though often clever), the plot moves with elephantine slowness, and much is confusing (the process of decipherment actually drives the book, as characters and the reader Try to Figure Things Out), and every so often we just

stop for a long info-dump or debate about cosmology, philosophy, semantics or similar glitzy arcana. For the most part, Stephenson's prose lacks any particular grace or beauty (at least to my ear), and while he can be mildly satirical at times, these precious moments are few. On the other hand, the descriptions -- of buildings, machines, events -- seem to go on for millennia. Sex is referred to, but never actually seen. Alas, there's worse." - Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure. - Return to top of the page The complete review's Review: Neal Stphenson begins his Acknowledgments:

Anathem is best read in somewhat the same spirit as John L. Casti's The Cambridge Quintet, which is to say that it is a fictional framework for exploring ideas that have sprung from the minds of great thinkers of Earth's past and present. Prescriptions ('is best read' ...) at the beginning of a novel are always worrisome, and the nod to Casti's extremely poorly written work hardly inspires more confidence; in this case, it's also superfluous, as it is soon obvious that Anathem is such a 'fictional framework' for exploring certain ideas. Stephenson has imagined an entirely new world, called Arbre -- which bears a striking resemblance to Earth. A couple of thousand years earlier the planet had gone through a stage of development much like the world we inhabit has in recent centuries, a fivehundred-year-long period of technological progress called the Praxic Age (there's a convenient Chronology provided, noting the most significant Arbre-dates). This culminated in disaster: 'The Terrible Events'. Since then there has been a division between the Scular world, which is where people lead more or less everyday (and Earth-like) lives, and those committed to a 'mathic' life, 'avouts' who live in 'maths' and 'concents' (two or more 'maths' close together).

The maths resemble cloisters, and living there is like being in a religious order: no technology is allowed, and avout have only three worldly possessions, a bolt (a fancy and flexible piece of cloth), sphere (which can change size and shape, and emit light), and chord. There is some communication between the Scular world and the maths, but it is generally strictly regulated and limited; for most of the avouts (and most regular folk) the only contact with the outside/inside world comes with Apert. Depending on the math, this happens anywhere from annually to once a millennium, as maths are divided into those with Unarians (a one-year cycle, making this a popular math among Scular folk, who spend one or a few years in these), Decenarians, Centenarians, and Millenarians. Anathem is narrated by Erasmas, who came to his math when he was eight and is now, ten years later, getting ready for his first Apert, allowing Stephenson to contrast the two kinds of lifestyles on Arbre. With no technology allowed in the maths, the avout basically do a lot of philosophising. They resemble religious orders, but god-belief isn't widespread (in fact, it's far more widespread in the Scular world); instead, it's much more like what we like to imagine the ancient Greek philosophers practised -- lots of talk and arguments. Meanwhile, the Scular world anno 3689 (in their reckoning) is

technologically at a similar stage that Earth is presently, with 'jeejahs' (that "ubiquitous handheld device used by Sculars, combining functions of mobile telephone, camera, network browser, etc."), a 'reticulum' (the Internet -- along with the problem of spam (simple 'crap', here)), and the like; technology has not, however, run rampant, and life is still very similar to Earth-life in the early 21st century. Stephenson has invented a language, of sorts, for Arbre -- actually, there are several, but the one Erasmas writes his account in amounts to English sprinkled with a few words that are used on Arbre. Cleverly (and/or irritatingly), many of theses words resemble English words or even take actual English words and give them a slightly new or different meaning: 'maths', 'avout', 'feral', etc., etc. This might seem more trouble than it is worth, or just a simple (or simplistic) means of creating a sense of 'otherness' that is, of course, obligatory in a work of 'science fiction', but Stephenson takes it a step further: not only does the language of the book mirror that we're familiar with, but so do the idea that are at issue (and constantly being discussed and deconstructed). There is 'theorics' (what we think of as math, logic, philosophy -- and what they practise in the maths) and 'praxis' (technology), for example. By giving many of these concepts new names and making his alter-world slightly different, Stephenson

gives himself an excuse to re-introduce the concepts to readers; indeed, Anathem can be seen as an exercise to re-consider many of the major advances and issues in Western thought, dressed up in slightly different guise. That's a decent idea -- especially since the slightly offkilter different perspective can make one see these things anew --, but tough to pull off in a work of fiction (witness Casti's failure with a much more closely circumscribed premise in The Cambridge Quintet), and stretches of Anathem do resemble Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World. But Stephenson also wants to be a storyteller and entertainer: he wants his book not to be a philosophical work, but rather an adventure story that happens to provide great insight into human thought-processes and fundamental philosophical ideas. That, of course, is an even taller order, and a tough mix. For stretches, Stephenson manages fairly well. Writing a novel of ideas of this sort is not easy, and Stephenson is more successful than most (perhaps that's also why he mentioned the Casti, setting the bar very low ...). However, it feels both a bit forced and very simple. Not helped by its very young narrator (not yet twenty, and with little experience of the outside world), much of Anathem reads like a youngadult novel. Indeed, its ideal audience would be teens for whom all this is novelty (i.e. who haven't really occupied themselves with the ideas tossed around here

-- as anyone who has gone to even just a bad college (or even just stayed up until three in the morning discussing the meaning of life) has). Disappointingly, Stephenson sticks pretty much to the basics; understandably, too -- it's a long book, but given the intellectual territory he wants to cover, there's only so far he can go. Anathem requires a bit of a leap of faith on the part of the reader, who has to trust that this is all going somewhere: it starts off very slow, describing Erasmas' life in the math and then Apert and the interaction with the extramuros (outside, Scular) world, including his handy-with-tools sib, Cord (hmmm, wonder whether we'll run into her again later in the story ...). It takes a while to get used to Stephenson's terminology (though it is consistent, and has its uses -- and there's a Glossary provided), and it's hard at times not to think as one character puts it: "Oh," he said, in a mild and polite tone of voice, "you are talking bulshytt." (Which isn't exactly what you think it is, but you do get the right idea.) So the set-up -- explaining how these philosophical orders work, and what the different schools of thought are, and everyday life -- takes a while. It comes as no surprise, however, that the action eventually moves extramuros -- i.e. into the real world. Just when Erasmas thinks he's back safely in his math

for another decade, everything changes. There have been small hints of big things before, but suddenly their world is upended. And instead of whiling away his time in the math, Erasmas gets to embark on some rollicking adventures. (Stephenson's ambition only extends so far: a purely theoretical-intellectual thriller is decidedly beyond him.) Suddenly all those forbidden technological advances are available to him -- or at least available to those travelling with him, so they can help him out. And, of course, he is exposed to the ways of the (outside) world, while also (occasionally) trying to keep up the traditions of his order. Where is it all going ? The reader may well feel like Erasmas: "Fine. After the picnic I'll go north. Though I do not understand what that means." "Then keep going north until you understand it," Fraa Jad said. Yes, there are lots of wise old men and cryptic sayings in the book (allowing the lightbulb in Erasmas' head to repeatedly go on as he suddenly gets it ...), and the reader keeps pushing north in the hopes of understanding. Or getting somewhere. Stephenson doesn't make it too frustrating a ride -- if anything, much of it is not (intellectualy) challenging enough -and so one isn't left going around entirely in circles (or analemmas ...), but for the most part the action is fairly

carefully dosed (and occasionally a bit forced, as when Erasmas is saved by what can only be described a gang of ninja-avouts). One of the main questions the book concerns itself with is describing the completely other-worldly: is it possible to have other realities, other universes completely different from that known on Arbre, and if so how would one communicate with beings from there, or exchange information -- a popular philosophical question. (Of course, Arbre is already such a world to earthling-readers .....) But Stephenson looks at the big picture, so the focus of the book is, to put it mildly, dispersed, and the reader has to wade through a great deal of material, not all of which is particularly engaging. The story does, however advance: "One is shunted into an altogether different Narrative", one characters notes, and that's part of what's being played here too, though Stephenson only briefly plays this out fully, to make it all a: "polycosmic chess game". Adventure, like philosophy, is also minutely observed, which can make it less adventurous; Stephenson heaps a great amount of detail on, and it has a way of getting in the way of the story. Anathem is one of those books that seems just the wrong length, feeling like it would have worked much better if tightly ed -- or expanded into a much larger work. As Erasmas complains:

"I am fascinated," I insisted. "That's the problem. I am suffering from fascination burnout Burnout -- or at least a certain type of overload -is certainly a potential problem here (though, alas, fascination isn't the best word to describe its root), as Stephenson keeps invention and new possibilities coming. Stephenson does do the idea-talk fairly well -- the dialogues are quite interesting, even when they rehash familiar ideas -- which helps obscure some of his weaknesses, such as his characters. There are some student-teacher relationships and some friendships, and Erasmas feels love and lust, but on the whole the book is devoid of any real emotion and populated by (colourful) cardboard cutouts. Extreme emotion is the best Stephenson can do with them to make them appear 'real', but for the most part they are either mouthpieces or representative types, and there is just too little to them. There is a lot to Anathem, but Stephenson doesn't seem to find the right balance between action- and intellectual-thriller -- and much too rarely manages to keep the novel on both tracks. It's certainly readable and occasionally (though not often enough) thoughtprovoking, but ultimately it can't justify its length. - Return to top of the page -

Links: Anathem: HarperCollins publicity page Profile in Wired Q & A in The Onion Reviews: Aardvarchaeology Asking the Wrong Questions Barnes & Noble Review Booklist BookLoons CCLaP Discover Fantasy Book Critic The Guardian Hidden Peanuts The Internet Review of Science Fiction io9 Jandy's Reading Room Kirkus Reviews Locus The Los Angeles Times Lyza.com martlet metal arcade MostlyFiction Book Reviews New York Post

Notes from Aboveground Wendy Palmer Preposterous postings Punkadiddle Reporter San Francisco Chronicle Scotland On Sunday Seattle Times SF SIgnal SF Site The Story's Story Strange Horizons The Telegraph Threat Quality Press Times Literary Supplement Tor.com Torque Control Wall Street Journal The Washington Post Neal Stephenson: Neal Stephenson Official page Interview at Salon Interview at Locus Other Books by Neal Stephenson under Review: The Baroque Cycle: I. Quicksilver II. The Confusion

III. The System of the World Cryptonomicon The Diamond Age In the Beginning ... was the Command Line Reamde Snow Crash Zodiac Other books of interest under review: See Index of Contemporary American fiction See Index of Science Fiction and Fantasy books - Return to top of the page About the Author: American author Neal Stephenson was born in 1959. After his novel about academia, The Big U, he wrote "the Eco-thriller" Zodiac and then began writing true science fiction, with which he has had great success.

Anathem From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Anathem

Cover of the hardcover first ion, featuring an analemma behind the author's name Author(s) Neal Stephenson Country United States Language English Genre(s) Science fiction Publisher William Morrow and Company Publication date 2008-09-09 Media type Print (Hardback) Pages 928 pp

ISBN 9780061474095(first ion, hardback), ISBN 006147410X (mass market paperback) OCLC Number 191930336 Dewey Decimal 813/.54 22 LC Classification PS3569.T3868 A53 2008 Anathem is a speculative fiction novel by Neal Stephenson, published in 2008. Major themes include the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and the philosophical debate betweenPlatonic realism and formalism. Contents [hide] 1 Plot summary 2 The "Discipline" 3 Philosophical and scientific content and influences 4 Characters 5 Production 6 Reception 7 References 8 External links [ ]Plot summary Anathem is set on and around the planet Arbre. Thousands of years prior to the events in the novel,

ISBN

society was on the verge of collapse. Intellectuals entered concents, much like monastic communities but focused on intellectual endeavors rather than religious practice. Here, the avout intellectuals living under vows and separated from Scularsociety, fraa (derived from Latin frater) for male avout and suur (derived from Latin soror) for female avout retain extremely limited access to tools and are banned from possessing or operating any advanced technology (at a level beyond paper and pen) and are watched over by the Inquisition, which answers to the outside world (known as theScular Power). The avout are forbidden to communicate with people outside the walls of the concent except during Apert, a 10-day observance held only once every year, decade, century, or millennium, depending on the frequency with which a given group of avout is allowed to interact with the Scular world. Concents are therefore slow to change - unlike the rest of Arbre, which goes through many cycles of booms and busts. Interaction between the avout and the Scular world is not, however, limited to Apert. The secular power may "Evoke," or remove from the concent, members of the avout, when needed to address pressing scientific ("theorical") issues facing Sculars. Such removal is one of many "Auts" (ritual acts) performed on certain occasions much like rituals orsacraments of the Roman Catholic

Church. The act of removing an avout from a concent at the request of the Scular Power is called "Voco" (a Latin word meaning "I call": most of the technical words used in Anathem are derivations or puns on Latin words, cf. Lucub a late-night study session from the Latin lucubratio), or "evocation", the avout called being "evoked". The narrator and protagonist, Erasmas, is a fraa at the Concent of Saunt Edhar (Saunt, abbreviated St., is a corruption of the ancient word savant and is a title bestowed on influential intellectuals of the past). His primary teacher, Orolo, discovers that an alien spacecraft is orbiting Arbre a fact that the Scular Power attempts to cover up. Orolo secretly observes the alien ship with a video camera which is prohibited by Cartasian Discipline. Erasmas is unaware of the content of Orolo's research until he deciphers it after Orolo is banished in a rite called Anathem (cf. the Christian rite of bell, book, and candle anathematization) as the result of his possession and use of proscribed technology within the concent. The law of the Second New Revised Book of Discipline that governs the lives of the avout at the time of the narration which bans the avout from owning anything but two pieces of clothing and a sphere with multiple uses, and bans them from using or even knowing how to use any technology but paper

and pen was developed in response to the third large-scaleplundering of concents by the Sacular world, which itself was initiated due to the Scular belief that certain avout, especially of the Millenarian Maths, had developed a praxis(technology) that required nothing more than the mind, and was (depending on a specific avout's inclination or area of study) able to effectively change the past ("the Rhetors") or the future ("the Incantors") through an unknown method, making it much more powerful and dangerous than any "real" technology. It was later recognized as some sort of many-worlds interpretation "narrative shifting," in being able to shift consciousness which is hypothesized as the driving force behind reality, as something is not measurable until it is observed in quantum theory, thus a phenomenon called wave function collapse occurs from many very similar cosmi to the "real" one. This is made possible because the mind is found to inhabit many slightly different cosmi, and moments of thought where everything "falls into place" are recognized as the mind's reaction to waveform collapse. There is much discussion of a methodology by which narrative shifting occurs. In general it is centered on the idea that information may flow between different worldtracks (known in the books as "Narratives") via a method modeled using directed acyclic graphs, in

which information may only flow in one direction. This premise, which is discussed in an appendix (a "Calca"), is key to understanding later events in the book. Several months pass, and Erasmas falls in love with Suur Ala, another avout at Saunt Edhar. Immediately after this, the Scular Power removes (Evokes) her along with several other avout, and Erasmas expects never to see her again. Erasmas, still upset about Orolos banishment, throws himself into his work. The presence of the alien ship soon becomes an open secret among many of the avout at St. Edhar. Several weeks later, a laser shines down from the ship and illuminates the Millenarian Math of Saunt Edhar. Now that the aliens have shown themselves openly, the Scular Power evokes many avout from Saunt Edhar, this time including Erasmas himself, along with one Millenarian - Fraa Jad. Erasmas and the rest of the avout are told to travel to the concent of Saunt Tredegarh, two thousand miles away. But Erasmas and some like-minded avout also desire to find Orolo first, and subsequently enlist a few extramuros (non-avout) volunteers (including Erasmas' half-sister Cord) on an unauthorized journey to Bly's Butte, where they think Orolo has traveled to continue his astronomical observations. Upon arriving there they discover that Orolo had already left for a destination unknown. Fraa Jad urges Erasmas to

continue his search for Orolo towards the North (over the frozen pole of Arbre), suggesting that Orolo has valuable information about the aliens. Erasmas agrees and sets off with just three companions to pursue Orolo, while the others turn back and head to Tredegarh. Along the way, they determine that Orolo's destination is likely to be the isolated former concent of Orithena, far in the opposite hemisphere of Arbre. They also acquire another companion named Yulassetar Crade, a tough wilderness guide with skills important for their trek. By this time, the aliens have come to be known as the Geometers because of a graphical proof of Pythagoras' Theorem(which in the alternate world of the book is referred to as Adrakhones' Theorem) seen inscribed on the hull of their ship. After a dangerous journey over the planet's frozen pole, Erasmas and his comrades eventually arrive at a concent-like establishment called Orithena, and reunite with Fraa Orolo. Orolo holds discussions with Erasmas about the nature of the cosmos and consciousness, and how he believes that the Geometers are not simply from another planet, but from another cosmos which is influenced by Arbre. During the discussions between Orolo and Erasmas, a small spacecraft lands on Orithena. A female Geometer is on board, but dead of a recent gunshot wound. She brings with her four vials of blood

presumably that of the Geometers and much evidence about their technology. Shortly thereafter, the Geometers propel a massive metal rod at a nearby volcano, triggering a massive eruption which destroys Orithena. Orolo sacrifices his life to ensure the safety of the dead Geometer's remains, an event that leads to his canonization as Saunt (Savant) Orolo. Erasmas soon arrives at Saunt Tredegarh, which is home to a joint conference (convox; from "convocation", meaning "speaking together") of the avout and the Scular Power dedicated to dealing with the military, political, and technical issues raised by the existence of the alien ship in Arbre's orbit. Tredegarh is where the Scular Power had brought many of the evoked avout of Saunt Edhar (including suur Ala) to work on methods of collecting and interpreting the limited information regarding the alien spacecraft, as well as researching possible military options. Much research is done on the Geometers, who are found to come from four planets in four distinct parallel worlds (cf. Many-worlds interpretation): Urnud, Tro, Laterre and Fthos ("The Earth" in French: "La Terre"). Through observation and experiment, Erasmas and his companions determine that the conference is infiltrated by the aliens, and unmask a Laterranlinguist - Jules Verne Durand, known to them as Zh'vaern. He explains that the Geometers are experiencing internal conflict between two factions.

The currently ruling faction intends to attack and raid Arbre for its resources, while the opposing faction favors open negotiation. Jules Durand offers to assist the avout of Arbre in resisting the ruling faction of the Geometers, believing that they can bring the situation to a peaceful conclusion. On discovering that their infiltration had been uncovered, the Geometers attack Saunt Tredegarh, and the Anti-Swarm is started (an organized dispersal of the avout throughout the planet, amongst regular society). Erasmas and several of his old and new avout friends are taken to a distant sanctuary, where they receive training for a mission to board the Geometers' ship the Daban Urnud and disable its weaponry. They are launched into space, unknowingly bringing with them "Everything Killers", which the Scular Power intends to use as a last resort should the explicit goal of the avouts' mission fail. Three people including Fraa Jad are issued detonators. The avout team boards the ship and the narrative of the novel splits several ways, in keeping with the book's theory of multiple parallel universes. Several avout trained in martial artsdestroy the ship's main weapon, perishing in the attack. In one Narrative, Fraa Jad leads Erasmas into the command center of the "Daban Urnud", where it emerges that the Millenarian avout of one thousand years in the past may have used their "incanting" powers to summon the ship to their

cosmos from another parallel (or higher?) one. In yet another Narrative, Jad opens a door into a protected area and, upon being attacked, triggers the Everything Killers; Erasmas dies and most people on the Daban Urnud starship are killed. In the final Narrative (the one that continues ahead) Erasmas awakens in a hospital on the starship to the perplexing news that Fraa Jad had died soon after their launch, contradicting his obvious presence and memories up to that point. It remains unclear which (or how many) of these contradictory narratives is real, and what may have happened in different worldtracks that have crossed and overlapped. However, Fraa Jad had hinted that the Incanters (and possibly Rhetors) were capable of operating simultaneously in parallel universes, so Jad is likely to have survived in other world lines. Erasmas discovers that the Geometers have brought up a high-powered delegation from Arbre, including Ala and his sister Cord. A funeral ceremony for those lost on both sides of the attack forms part of the signing of a peace treaty between the "aliens" and the Arbrans. On Arbre itself, the Scular Powers and the avout have agreed to cooperate as equal powers. The people of Arbre inaugurate a second historical "Reconstitution", revising many of the rules that had restricted the work and lifestyle of the avout (which included drug-induced sterility). Erasmas and friends

set about the task of building a new concent, though they do not call it such, as a temple dedicated to Saunt Orolo. The closing scene is a rousing double wedding, with Erasmas marrying Ala, and his sister Cord marrying Yulasseter Crade. [ ]The "Discipline" In the novel, avout follow a life path called the Discipline, sometimes referred to as Cartasian Discipline, after Saunt Cartas, the founder of the mathic world. It is a set of rules governing what is (and is not) allowed for avout to know and/or do, and was codified centuries before the time of the story in the Second New Revised Book of Discipline. Chief among these is that the avout are separated, both mentally and literally, from the Sculum, or outside world. There are different levels of separation. For example, within a concent, there are different terms of residency. There are 1-, 10-, 100-, and 1,000-year orders. Each of these celebrates "Apert", a festival opening the concent to the outside world and allowing the flow of information between them, on an interval determined by that number. For example, a 10-year order would celebrate Apert once every ten years, remaining isolated otherwise. Likewise, a 100-year order would only celebrate Apert every hundred years, and a 1,000-year order once every 1,000 years. It is an essential part of this that at any time an order celebrates Apert, all orders below it also celebrate

Apert. For example, a Millenarian (1,000-year) order would celebrate in the year 3000. Because 3000 is also a multiple of 100, 10, and 1, Centenarian, Decenarian, and Unarian orders would also celebrate. Exceptions to this rule include "hierarchs" (those who administer the concent) who are required to confer with the Scular Power on decisions of weight. The main secondary aspect of the Discipline is that the avout are allowed to own only their "bolt, chord, and sphere". These objects are made with "newmatter" (matter made with a modified atomic structure to be more versatile), and can be made to alter their shape, texture and other physical properties without the use of tools or other outside technologies. The bolt is a length of newmatter fabric and is used as clothing; the chord is a newmatter rope used to secure the bolt; and the sphere is a newmatter balloon of adjustable size, shape and hardness, and serves as a multipurpose tool. There are several restrictions governing, for example, the use of "sequencing" (genetic engineering), "syntactic devices" (computers), or other "praxis" (technology). Due to the restrictions, avout can only work on an entirely theoretical basis de facto. [ ]Philosophical and scientific content and influences

A geometric proof of the Pythagorean theorem is written on the side of the alien ship Large portions of the book involve detailed discussions of mathematics, physics, andphilosophy. Most of these discussions use fictional Arbran terminology, but treat ideas from actual science and philosophy. Stephenson acknowledges the work of author Julian Barbouras the source for much of this material.[1] A major theme of the novel is the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics based on adirected acyclic graph, which accounts for the various "worldtracks" and "narratives" explored by Fraa Orolo and manipulated by Fraa Jad.[1]Another major theme is the recurring philosophical debate between characters espousing mathematical Platonic realism (called "Halikaarnians" in the novel) and characters espousing mathematical formalism (called "Procians" in the novel).

Stephenson cites the work of Roger Penrose as a major influence on the novel. Specific ideas from Penrose's work include: the idea that the human mind operates in certain fundamental ways as a quantum computer, espoused in Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind; Platonic realism as a philosophical basis for works of fiction, as in stories from Penrose's The Road to Reality; and the theory of aperiodic tilings, which appear in the Teglon puzzle in the novel. [1] Stephenson also cites as an influence the work of Kurt Gdel, whom the character Durand mentions by name in the novel.[1] Much of the Geometers' technology seen in the novel reflects existing scientific concepts. The alien ship moves by means of nuclear pulse propulsion, a technique developed byARPA. As an appendix to the novel, Stephenson includes three "Calca", discussions among the avout of purely philosophical or mathematical content. The first is a discussion of a cake cutting procedure corresponding to the geometric problem of "doubling the square" presented in Plato's Meno. The second presents configuration spaces (called "Hemn spaces" in the novel) as a way of representing threedimensional motion. The third discusses a "complex" Platonic realism, in which several realms of Platonic ideal forms (called the "Hylaean Theoric Worlds" in the novel) exist independently of the

physical world (called the "Arbran Causal Domain" in the novel). The mathematical structure of a directed acyclic graphis used to describe the way in which the various realms can influence one other, and even the physical world can function as part of the realm of ideal forms for some worlds "downstream" in the graph. [ ]Characters Erasmas (nickname "Raz"): The protagonist of Anathem; a Decenarian fraa from the Concent of Saunt Edhar. The neglected son of slines, he was Collected by the concent at the age of eight. Orolo: A Decenarian fraa from the Concent of Saunt Edhar. He is an eminent cosmographer and Erasmas's mentor at the concent, but he's later Thrown Back for using forbidden technology to observe the Geometers before the Scular Power has officially confirmed their existence. Arsibalt: A Decenarian fraa from the Concent of Saunt Edhar and one of Erasmas's friends. The estranged son of a Bazian prelate, he seeks to reconcile religion with theorics. Lio: A Decenarian fraa from the Concent of Saunt Edhar and one of Erasmas's friends. He's known as an absent-minded eccentric and is interested in military history, Vale-lore, and unusual gardening techniques. Jesry: A Decenarian fraa from the Concent of Saunt Edhar and one of Erasmas's friends. Unlike Erasmas,

Jesry comes from a prosperous burger family, and is bored with the routine of mathic life preceding the arrival of the Geometers. He becomes famous for going into space with the Warden of Heaven (a religious leader of the Scular Power) to investigate the Geometers' ship. Ala: A Decenarian suur from the Concent of Saunt Edhar and later a major organizer of the Convox. Although they disliked each other as children, she and Erasmas become romantically involved in the course of the story. Jad: A Millenarian fraa from the Concent of Saunt Edhar. Jad is evoked in the same aut as Erasmas and accompanies him to Bly's Butte in search of Orolo. He later reappears at the Convox. Cord: Erasmas's half-sister and a machinesmith who lives extramuros near the Concent of Saunt Edhar. She accompanies Erasmas on his search for Orolo. Sammann: An Ita (computer expert) from the Concent of Saunt Edhar who accompanies Erasmas on his search for Orolo. Yulassetar Crade (nickname "Yul"): An extramuros wilderness guide, member of the exp ion to find Orolo. Jules Verne Durand: An alien, descendant from the planet "laterre", who infiltrates the convox to gather information for the Geometers. [ ]Production

The novel was partly inspired by Stephenson's involvement with the Clock of the Long Nowproject, to which he contributed three pages of sketches and notes.[2][3] A separate compact disc, entitled IOLET: Music from the World of Anathem, containing eight experimental vocal compositions by David Stutz, will be sold separately through CD Baby and the Long Now Foundation, with profits going to The Clock of the Long Now project.[4][5] To create the world of Arbre, Stephenson constructs new vocabulary. In order to familiarize the reader with the new words, many of which are analogous to English, Latin, or Greek words and ideas, he put a glossary at the end of the book. Each chapter begins with a definition of one of these words, which usually relates to the chapter in some way. In addition, the Orth language spoken by the characters was created by Jeremy Bornstein at the author's request,[1] and has been documented.[6] The word anathem was invented by Stephenson, based on the word anthem and the Greek word anathema. In the book, an anathem is a mathic ritual by which one is expelled from the mathic world. [ ]Reception Anathem received mostly positive reviews. Paul Boutin wrote in The Wall Street Journal that "the lasting satisfaction of Anathem derives from Mr. Stephenson's wry contempt for today's just-Google-it

mindset. His prose is dense, but his worldview contagious."[7] OnSalon.com, Andrew Leonard described the book as "a page turner and a philosophical argument, an adventure novel and an extended existential m ation, a physics lesson, sermon and ripping good yarn."[8] Michael Dirda of the Washington Post disagreed, remarking that "Anathem will certainly be admired for its intelligence, ambition, control and ingenuity", but describing it as "fundamentally unoriginal", "grandiose, overwrought and pretty damn dull."[9] The novel entered The New York Times Best Seller list for Hardcover Fiction at number one [10] and achieved the rare distinction for a novel of being reviewed in Nature.[11] Anathem won the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 2009 [12] and collected nominations for the Hugo, Arthur C. Clarke, and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards the same year.[12] In 2008, the novel received a nomination for the British Science Fiction Award.[13] [ ]References ^ a b c d e Neal Stephenson, Clocks, Orreries, etc., acknowledgements forAnathem ^ Anathem, By Neal Stephenson The Long Now ^ Long Now: Projects: Clock ^ Neal Stephensons Anathem and Music ^ Iolet: The Music of Anathem

^ Monastic.org ^ Boutin, Paul (September 9, 2008)."Bookshelf: Internet-Free And Glad of It".The Wall Street Journal: pp. A23. Retrieved 2008-09-15. ^ "Philosophy! Theology! Global catastrophe! Adventure!". September 15, 2008. Retrieved 2008-0915. ^ "Michael Dirda on 'Anathem'".Washington Post: pp. BW10. September 7, 2008. Retrieved 2008-09-15. ^ "Hardcover Fiction". The New York Times (New York Times Company). September 28, 2008. Retrieved 2008-09-28. ^ Book review in nature ^ a b "2009 Award Winners & Nominees".Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-07-21. ^ "2008 Award Winners & Nominees".Worlds Withou

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