Quicksilver (novel)

Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson is the first volume of his series The Baroque Cycle. The second and third volumes (released in the second and third quarters of 2004 respectively), are entitled The Confusion and The System of the World.

Quicksilver is set in the late 17^th and early 18^thcenturies, mostly in England, France, and the United Provinces, with sections that take place further east and in Massachusetts. The scenes from the 18th century are narrated in the third person present tense, while the scenes from the 17th century are third person past tense.

It deals with the science, economy, and politics of that era. Ancestors of the characters of Stephenson's novel Cryptonomicon appear prominently; analogously, the 20^th century Cryptonomicon handbook compiled by the 20^th century characters is foreshadowed by a 17^th one available to some of their ancestors. As in other Stephenson works, there is a theme of how money works. The novel covers such historical events as the Great Plague, the Great Fire of London, the Edict of Fontainebleau, the Monmouth Rebellion, the Bloody Assizes, the Battle of Vienna and the Glorious Revolution, though many details, such as each member of what he calls the CABAL, have been changed.

Theme

In the section entitled Daniel Aboard Minerva, Daniel Waterhouse finds himself shipboard, and thus pondering a shipwreck. He imagines a shipwreck as an opera, which progresses from a first act in which everything is peaceful and orderly, down to a fifth act when the ship has been destroyed with anyone left alive experiencing a brief interlude of horror prior to death.

The ship can be seen as a metaphor for human society. The regression of the ship from order and harmony to chaos and destruction represents the religious worldview in which mankind began in a Paradise, and has been steadily descending into chaos ever since, with Armageddon on the horizon. The scientific worldview sees man progressing from Act V, a Hobbesian chaos, towards Act I, orderly and harmonious civilization.

The human race has been in Act V for most of history and has recently accomplished the miraculous feat of assembling splintered planks afloat on a stormy sea into a sailing-ship and then, having climbed onboard it, building instruments with which to measure the world, and then finding a kind of regularity in those measurements...

...But they had, perversely, been living among people who were peering into the wrong end of the telescope, or something, and who had convinced themselves that the opposite was true - that the world had once been a splendid, orderly place...and that everything had been slowly, relentlessly falling apart ever since.

This clash of worldviews would appear to be the main conflict in the early part of the book, and the rise of the scientific worldview the main theme.

Alchemy in Quicksilver

The conflict between a traditional religious and a scientific worldview is tied to the issue of alchemy, which in Quicksilver is presented as a search for the essential nature of a thing that underlies its material nature. If such an essential nature exists, it gives rise to a thing's identity. This is in contrast to a purely mechanistic view of nature, in which a thing's identity is determined purely by mechanical or material factors. By proving the existence of these essences, the alchemist proves the world cannot be reduced to crude materialism. Since one of those things presumed to have an essence is humanity, alchemy promises to prove the existence of a higher, non-material soul, and thus by implication the existence of God.

Accordingly, the obsessively religious Isaac Newton spends most of his time studying alchemy in a desperate attempt to justify his religious presumptions. Leibniz, on the other hand, believes materialism is no threat to God and rejects alchemy as a waste of time. Thus the conflict between the two men is foreshadowed to be, not merely a question of who first invented calculus, but a broader conflict of fundamental worldviews.

The nature of money is apparently treated in a parallel manner. Is there such a thing as "real money", i.e., money with an intrinsic worth? Or is money simply a measurement of value and a mechanism for trade?

Main characters

• Eliza
• Enoch Root
• Jack Shaftoe
• Daniel Waterhouse - Empiricist friend of Newton and Leibniz.

Other characters

• Louis Anglesey - Earl of Upnor.
• Thomas More Anglesey - Cavalier, Duke of Gunfleet.
• Duc d'Arcachon - French admiral who dabbles in slavery.
• Etienne d'Arcachon - Son of the duke, most polite man in France.
• Gomer Bolstrood - Dissident agitator.
• Clarke - Alchemist, boards young Isaac Newton.
• Charles Comstock - Son of John Comstock.
• John Comstock - Earl of Epsom and Lord Chancellor.
• Roger Comstock
• Dappa - Nigerian sailor aboard Minerva.
• Mr. Foot - Ertswhile bar owner from Dunkirk.
• Thomas Ham - Goldsmith half-brother of Daniel Waterhouse.
• Otto van Hoek - Captain of the Minerva.
• Bonaventure Rossignol - French cryptologist.
• Bob Shaftoe
• Sluys - Dutch merchant and traitor.
• Drake Waterhouse - Puritan father of Daniel Waterhouse.
• Faith Waterhouse - Wife of Daniel Waterhouse.
• Godfrey Waterhouse - Son of Daniel Waterhouse.
• Mayflower Waterhouse - Half-sister of Daniel Waterhouse, wife of Thomas Ham.
• Raleigh Waterhouse - Brother of Daniel Waterhouse.
• Sterling Waterhouse - Brother of Daniel Waterhouse.
• Yevgeny the Raskolnik - Russian whaler.

Historical figures who appear as characters in the novel

• John Churchill
• Nicolas Fatio de Duillier
• Benjamin Franklin, as a young boy
• Robert Hooke
• Christiaan Huygens
• Gottfried Leibniz
• Louis XIV
• Isaac Newton
• Henry Oldenburg
• Samuel Pepys
• James Scott, the Duke of Monmouth
• James Stuart, as the Duke of York and as James II
• John Wilkins
• William III of England, as William, Prince of Orange

See also

The Age of Unreason cycle by Keyes shares many of the historical characters of Quicksilver such as Benjamin Franklin, Newton, Louis XIV of France and Nicolas Fatio de Duillier.

Editions

• ISBN 0380977427 : First hardcover edition, released September 23, 2003.
• ISBN 0060593083 : Paperback edition, released September 21, 2004.

External links

• The Metaweb (http://www.metaweb.com/) has an extensive Quicksilver Wiki (http://www.metaweb.com/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page), including many pages written by Stephenson, about the historical and fictional persons and events of this book.