Anathem

Anathem is a mixed bag of a book, a real doozy if you will. On one hand, Stephenson has managed to deliver one of the most intelligent and eloquent series of ideas I've ever had the privilege to read. On the other hand, I think it's best to be up front about the plot not starting until you're 150-200 pages in. This is a book with middling characters, some downright awful pacing, and some of the most indulgent tangents i've ever read. This is also a book that I feel smarter for reading, and managed to snowball into something that I could not put down until I finished it. I think this is very much a you-have-to-read-it-yourself book, I can see why opinions vary wildly depending on the reader. To anyone looking to read this for the first time I can safely say that you are not wasting your time, and if you can look past the obvious flaws there is a fairly large nugget of gold in here.

I usually try to start a review with a summation of the book, but Anathem is very strange in that what it is about factors heavily into the plot; to describe the premise is to spoil the book, so instead i'll try to describe the world. Anathem takes place on an Earth-like planet called Arbre; Arbran civilization is much older than ours on Earth. Their society is organized around Mathic Concents and the Saecular world a system that has been in place for ovcer 3000 years. The Concents are scientific monasteries/hermitages where the “avout” live in isolation from the outside world. These concents take the form of massive clocks, and the avout who live within are separated by their maths (orders). Depending on the math they join, either a unarian, decenarian, centanarian, or millenarian, the avout can only leave the concent when the gates of the maths open for 10 days during apert every 1, 10, 100, or 1000 years respectively. We join a young decenarian avout named Erasmus on the eve of his first apert.

Let's talk about strengths because this book has quite a few. There has to be something said for the worldbuilding, this is an aspect that I value heavily and while the world of Anathem is a little austere and generally non-techy it is captivating, complete, and atmospheric. Somewhere in between the giant clock compounds and the in-universe dictionary (to which you will probably need to refer) I did start to lose my patience with the depth that's provided but that's complaining about too much of a good thing. More than anything Anathem's biggest strength is its delivery, there are a set of ideas that Stephenson wants to explore, and by god he explores them. This book is a physics, philosophy, art, and rhetoric class rolled into one, this book is definitely meta at times too. Finally, I have to shout out the humor because it definitely helps to break up the dense idea salad Stephenson is serving. This book is funny, and it's not afraid to riff on itself either. Whether it's giving all the tech silly names or commenting on the absurdity of a capitalist economy, or jokes buried in the footnotes/dictionary there's a light-hearted touch that carries on through the bulk of the novel.

This is my first time reading a Stephenson work cover to cover but I've been exposed to a number of excerpts from Cryptonomicon and a number of his short stories. I only mention this because of his style; Stephenson is fond of extremely complex plots & heavily detailed passages and if that sounds headache-inducing here's your first warning to pull the ripcord. Accordingly, Anathem has a very intricate plot that's centered around two schools of thought (I will be using their earth names): Platonic realism and Nominalism. To grossly simplify, Platonic realism is the idea that things outside of the body exist objectively, while Nominalism posits that anything outside the body is simply what we have observed, interpreted, and labeled. The book takes its time developing these concepts, and it does so with that patented Stephenson attention to detail, so to the reader: be patient and attentive.

Anathem is not flawless. It precluded itself from a perfect 5 when I had to learn a completely new vocabulary in the first 15 pages. I know I said that you can never have too much worldbuilding, and it is true that once you decipher the vocabulary it does serve to enhance the story (and in many cases deliver the humor) but there are almost 260 made-up words in this book and it's a burdensome ask. I don't think I would have had as much to complain about if the characters in this book were done better. Outside of their role in the story, they were flat and uninteresting, especially when compared to the emphasis placed on the ideas. It must be said that the characters are not the focus of this book.

What is really holding Anathem back is its pacing. For a plot to not get underway within the first 100 pages is inexcusable, there is very little to hook a reader aside from the worldbuilding early on. The mathic world is fascinating but I can see a lot of people putting this down after one or two, of seemingly endless philosophy lectures or the 10 pages of clock winding early on. Once the plot gets going Stephenson liberally applies the brakes every other chapter with one thought experiment detour after another. In my opinion, the constant distractions ultimately pay off, and understanding the ending is predicated on these philosophical detours. I may have fallen prey to the sunk cost fallacy but as I learned more I had more questions, and that slowly snowballed until I had to know what was going on. I could easily see it the other way.

I came away positive on this book, I saw it said somewhere else but I think I agree, “Anathem is the best book I would never recommend”. 7/10 (Closer to a 3 than a 4)

I don't really understand how Neal Stephenson is a bestselling New York Times author. Is there really that large of an audience for a 900+ page book that sandwiches a narrative of Greek philosophy, quantum mechanics and astronomy with a time line at the beginning and an ending of 50 pages of glossary and mathematical problems?

That's not to say I didn't like Anathem, although, having said that, in large part I liked it because I had the time to memorize entries from the glossary (you grow out of needing it around page 400 or so), to look up quantum mechanics, google philosophers and work out a proof of the Pythagorean theorem. This is a book to be read on vacation.

I loved Anathem. It's one of the few books that really begins on a small scale and then gradually scales up to epic scale problems, while entertaining the reader along the way. Similarly, it is one of the few books in which the author tries to posit scientific and philosophic hypotheses while still remaining an entertaining work of fiction and without becoming preachy or (unlike many of Stephenson's other works) an unreadable information dump. His science is entertaining and while it is bettered by outside knowledge, he explains his points in such detail that outside knowledge is not necessary. Stephenson is respectful of quantum mechanics, in contrast to myriad “science” fiction novels that throw around Everett and quantum mechanics as excuses for all manner of convenient magic.

That's not to say that I had no complaints: whole sections of the book drag, particularly because they seem to be rehashing what the reader already has either been told explicitly or intuited and many plans made by characters seem to ultimately go nowhere. More grievous is the closing arc, which has an unfinished feel. After 850 pages of having every action described to the minute detail, the last few pages feel like they're in outline form. Time jumps, plots are dropped, key points are ultimately only intimated and never explained outright. All of these are fine narrative devices but are in stark contrast to the rest of the book and therefore feel unfinished.

I have to admit, after the first page of snargalfarg I seriously considered giving up, but I'm glad I didn't. Although it takes a while to get your head around the language and world, once you do it the book becomes a fascinating discussing of various philosophies, set against the backdrop of a more prosaic sci-fi story. Having said that, after finishing the book I feel more like I've been to the (mental) gym that read a ripping yarn.

If you like your books to make you think, this one will definitely give you your money's worth. On the other hand, if you want a light read, maybe skip this one...

Clever and thought-provoking; really enjoyed the world-building centered around cloistered mathematicians and physicists and their relationship with engineers and the rest of the outside world.

The book starts with a lot of descriptions and made up words, two of the things I hate most on books. Then it is followed by nonsense dialog. I imagine it will make sense latter, but this is no way to start a book for me. I felt a completely lack of connection to the story or empathy for the characters.

I stopped reading during a scene in a classroom I believe, where the “students” where arguing about their “religion” in a textbook like excitement.

My fourth Neal Stephenson book. His books are clearly not my kind of reading.

The emphasis (added by me) in the following comment captures one of the two aspects I most dislike about his books.

“You probably couldn't get a lot of people to read a frequently dry 937 page text on the material Stephenson is covering, but you might could if you dressed it up in the form of a science fiction story about an alternate world where the schism between science and religion occurred at the dawn of Western Civilization and both retreated to cloisters to observe their respective discipline.”
Matt

The second one is the hard sci-fi thing, with lots of made up concepts/words. It is not the difficulty to understand, just the usefulness of that kind of language is lost on me.

READ 7% 2:24/32:14

Did not finish.

I've taken the audiobook out of the library twice now and am only about half way through the book. I just don't think it's for me, I found the still of storytelling just to not be engaging, as it feels like it's 90% characters explaining things about the world to eachother rather than through things happening.

I might try to pick it up again someday as I really want to like Stephenson, but I have to let it go for now.

On an episode of the Think Relevance Podcast, a book was mentioned where monk chants were used to convey and solve mathematical problems. That was the first I'd heard of Neal Stephenson, and knew I had to check it out. The Anathem world is different from our own. It's a world where scientists and mathematicians live in the equivalent of buddhist monasteries with limited access to the outside world — some only interacting with it every 100 years. The abundance of made up terminology takes some getting used to in this book, but it's worth the ride.

Amazing world-building. This was a page-turner.

I was 1/3 of the way through the book before anything really happened. I was 1/2 way through the book before it was going somewhere. Still, it was worth reading, and I will read more by [a:Neal Stephenson 545 Neal Stephenson https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1430920344p2/545.jpg] in the future.

A master work, best book I've read in recent years.

Why is it that Neal Stephenson writes such huge books both figuratively and literally and yet I always feel that there is a lot left unfinished or unexplored. For someone that is not that great at characterization I just love his narrative, the sometimes aimless plots, the side turns, the unexpected and original ideas. It is probably because I no longer really expect a plot that I am usually surprised when one turns up, and the trip to get there has been always, enriching and thought provoking. And that is the slight frustration. Just like the end of Seveneves, which I read before Anathem, one is left dying for more at the end, to explore the next box of goodies he has opened up for you. Sequels? Not bloody likely from what I hear. Stephenson has too many other great things to write before he might revisit an old story.
11/6/23
Just re-read it. Even better second time round

Wow that was a long read. It was complicated by my return to the working world, but still I've rarely felt the uphill struggle of the protagonist mirrored with my own reading like that.

I liked a lot of this book. I adored the idea of “Narratives” and our subconscious desire to belong to one. I loved the “math” and the challenges living within and outside of one. I loved the Geometers and the ambiguity surrounding exactly who they are, the subtle nods and misspellings to earth culture. I loved representing the foundations of physics and mathematics in subtly different but parallel means. All of these made this book a fascinating read.

Personally, as someone with very little math/science background, I struggled a bit through the various expostulations of thought and technical details, but I was impressed at how Stephenson keeps the Story going through these technical parts. It seemed like you could just yank an entire philosophy textbook out of the book and still have a coherent story.

The ending did leave a lot to be desired for me , and I had trouble with finishing on a wedding. For such an epic piece to end on something so cliche brought me down. Ala and Raz's love story is so secondary to the real plot, that it felt a bit of a downer. I also am still working to understand the idea of alternate Narratives, how Jad could be alive and dead at the same time, how Raz could live all these concurrent lifetimes. Maybe if I'd seen more of that leading up to the ending, I'd have felt less brain-snapped by the whole thing.

This was a daunting read, but proved to be an absolute blast. I started and got stuck pretty early, but on coming back I was able to pick up the vocabulary and names a lot more easily and blasted through the rest in a few days. To be sure, this seems to happen for me a with a lot of books, so it's hard to say if this is Anathem-specific, but the ride that Stephenson takes you on is absolutely worth it.

I tried describing this book to people and struggled to get it into words, so here's my best shot. Anathem takes place on a planet similar to Earth in a lot of ways, but most notably there are orders of monastic scholars called avout that segregate themselves off from the rest of the world. We spend a good chunk of the book just figuring out how this life works and dealing with relatively petty drama, and then the plot kicks into high gear.

The first thing that distinguishes Anathem for me is the reworking of vocabulary for many common things. While obviously presenting some barrier to entry, I found this impressive because not only did the words seem like they could easily have existed in English, they reflected something interesting about how we privilege the words we happen to use. For example, “theorics” is a catch-all term that distinguishes academic/theoretical study from “praxic” or practical/actionable affairs. I found this to uniquely emphasise the thought-action distinction as central to scholarship, as opposed to the more discipline-based division we tend to talk about with phrases such as physics vs applied physics.

The other big difference is that Anathem is a book that follows nerdy scholars, and so if you happen to like literally having characters describe thought experiments to each other this book will definitely appeal. In particular, the book discusses a great deal topics on the philosophy of consciousness and thought. I have no idea what the analogues or bases are for these discussions in real philosophy, but the effect (combined with the vocabulary thing) is to make you strongly question the foundations of why you think the things you think, or what you consider to be true and real. As the book develops, this quickly becomes a feature of not just the style but the plot, but I won't spoil any more.

So we are left with a beautifully put together, rich world with good characters, infused with a heavy dose of philosophy and science. Anathem is a trip, truly, that will keep you thinking.

P.S. If I'd make one nitpick, it's that there didn't need to be a romantic subplot...

There are 2 notes of advice from my side when starting this book.
First, don't skip the “Note to the reader” section at the beginning the book, even though Stephenson teases you to do so, by “puzzling things out on your own”. Just don't. Do yourself a favor and read it all.

Second, the glossary. Although Stephenson explains a lot of terminology by inserting lemma's from a fictional dictionary he has an annoying habit of explaining made up words and names way later then he introduces it in the narrative. Don't wait for the explanation whenever you encounter a new confusing fictional word, look it up in the glossary. Otherwise you'll find yourself re-reading whole chapters when you finally do find out the meaning of some crucial terminology.

So why these advices? Neal Stephenson loves to invent a new word for almost everything.
Some people think it's annoying and just self-indulgent. I do understand why he does it, it fits the plot line and the main ideas portrayed in this novel. On the other hand, he writes his book in English and not in his self invented languages Orth or Fluccish, so why not using the English words?
Whatever your opinion on it, it slowed me down considerably for the first 200 pages or so.

What is this book about? To me it is a mix of Carl Sagan's Contact and Blake Crouch's Dark Matter. But then Stephenson-style. So that means a lot of explaining on philosophy, quantum mechanics and science in general. He goes pretty far down the rabbit hole (as you might expect from him). Although I could grasp quite a big portion, some still went over my head. But Google is your friend here.
If you are the kind of person who likes scientific speculative fiction, this book might be for you. If you expect strong characters, great prose and an engaging plot line you might want to skip it.

For me, I rate it 5 stars in this universe and any universe.

7/10

Too many books packed into one, and (for the most part) a tedious slog at that. It just feels like Stephenson is trying so hard, to show how smart and well-read and clever he is, that the story has to take distant second place to the author. I could go on for pages about what I liked, disliked, paused to reflect on, and/or rolled my eyes at... but there's no need. I'm glad I read this; I'm glad it's over; and I'm unlikely ever to read his books again. Move along.

On an episode of the Think Relevance Podcast, a book was mentioned where monk chants were used to convey and solve mathematical problems. That was the first I'd heard of Neal Stephenson, and knew I had to check it out. The Anathem world is different from our own. It's a world where scientists and mathematicians live in the equivalent of buddhist monasteries with limited access to the outside world — some only interacting with it every 100 years. The abundance of made up terminology takes some getting used to in this book, but it's worth the ride.

A fantastic journey. Stephenson's alternate world is compelling, realistic and interesting. His device of moving you through many different aspects of the world continues his tradition of changing scenery to keep the story compelling while characters maintain their consistency.

Anathem deserves a whole wiki devoted to understanding the rich world Stephenson created. I was slightly let down by the final stage of the story, but not much really. No spoilers so I can't really go into why, but part of my let-down might be that it had to end.

Wow, this one is so much better and easier(?) to follow than the Baroque Cycle. I really like it, and might have to read it again to get more of the nuances. I started by listening to the book on CD and had to get a copy of the book to follow along and to use the glossary in the back. But it was totally worth it.

I haven't read a Neal Stephenson book that I haven't enjoyed and this was another pleasure to read.

Most of the negative comments that I have read are about the made up words. This is a sci-fi novel. There are made up names for things in almost every sci-fi novel I have ever read. In a phrase: Get Over It. Amongst the reasons for this are to remind you that this is a different world with different ways of going about things, that the devices are not exactly analogous to those in our world and that Mr. Stephenson chose to do it this way.

Still, I loved the book even if it did take me even longer than normal to get through it (many diversions with work, comics and life got in the way. Pre-schoolers have a way of destroying reading time unless you are reading with them.

I've had a hard time with some of the other Neal Stephenson books I've tried, but for some reason this one was right up my alley. I disagree with most of his thoughts on metaphysics as presented, but the overall narrative was able to keep me interested much more than I expected. I went into this book expecting to probably set it aside (as I have done with some of Stephenson's other works). I was pleasantly surprised when I found myself staying up late to see where the story would go next.

I FINALLY finished Anathem. I guess it was only kind of ok for me. There were parts I liked, but the barrier to entry into its world was very high. It took me awhile to really get into it, and there were several moments where I almost sang my own rendition of Anathem and DNF'd because I just didn't know what was going on. Reading it over a couple months was surely not the most enjoyable way to experience it, but Stephenson just didn't hold my interest the way a lot of other concurrent reads did so it ended up taking a long time to slog through. It wasn't all disappointing, I enjoyed much of the book in the middle, though I got a bit confused in parts 12 and 13. 

I have read several Stephenson books, but this is by far the beast of them. Amazing story, his really good writing combined together make this an amazing read from the first page to the last page.

Kajsa (age 7) asked me what this book was about when I was more than 200 pages in and I couldn't really come up with a satisfying answer for her. I got 264 pages into this huge book before giving up. That was far too many pages than it deserved. Not much of anything happened in that first quarter of the book.

Then I started checking out what some GoodReads members said of the book. It's rated greater than 4 of 5 stars by the 12,000+ readers who have read/attempted it. Lots of Stephenson fans out there. I, too, am a big fan of Snow Crash, and Cryptonomicon even more so. This book is not like those books. And, since I had decided to abandon this, I checked out some reviews with spoilers. None of those did much to make the book any sexier, either.

In Anathem we have a far-future Earth-like planet called Arbre, where scientists, philosophers and mathematicians live like monks, closed off from the rest of the secular world. One such monk, 19-year-old Erasmus, narrates the story but “story” is a bit of a stretch. First of all, there's a maddening glossary of terms that you constantly have to check to figure out what the hell a character is talking about. Second of all, there's just lots of talking about arcane bits of science, math, etc, all of which does nothing to move the story toward any direction that is evident at this point. There's more than that but, who cares? It's really terribly dull. So screw that.

Straight to favorites.

As much as it looks like a longer A Canticle For Leibowitz, it is not. They are quite different in basically everything. 

There is no way to tell what this book is about without spoiling it. Understanding it slowly is one of its joys. So it is better to avoid reading most reviews because they possibly contain some spoilers. 

This is one of those books I wanted to reread immediately after finishing it—almost a thousand pages of pure metaphysical speculation.

A bit of patience is needed to get through it, as by the 200-page mark is when everything just starts unwrapping. I mean this in the sense of understanding what the book is about and the meaning of the made-up words.

It will get some more complexity, but in the form of concepts. There will be ideas from Plato and Socrates on philosophy, Pythagoras and Einstein from mathematics and physics, and religion from St. Augustine and others, just to name a few. If you are familiar with that, it will be cool to make the connections, and if not, you can look up after finishing to match which current of thought belongs to the Earth counterpart.

By the last third of the book there will be more than that, just pages of dry academic discussion, materialism, metaphysics, interpretation of quantum mechanics, mathematics, and philosophy all thrown in the form of discussing-over-a-meal.

If you like reading and watching all those "old" debates and discussions about these themes, you will certainly enjoy this; if not, this might be another mountain to climb to finish the book, but by this point you might be enjoying the ride already.

PS: Iolet (The Music of Anathem) is an album that collects sequences and chants from the ones described in the book, which apparently come from mathematical formulae.