Quicksilver (novel)

infobox Book |
name = Quicksilver
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = First edition cover
author = Neal Stephenson
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series = The Baroque Cycle
genre = Historical novel
publisher = William Morrow
release_date = September 23, 2003
media_type = Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
pages = 944 pp (first edition, hardback)
isbn = ISBN 0-380-97742-7 (first edition, hardback)
preceded_by =
followed_by = The Confusion

"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 17th and early 18th centuries, 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 20th century "Cryptonomicon" handbook from that novel is foreshadowed by a 17th century version in "Quicksilver". As in other Stephenson works, there is a theme of how money works. The novel covers such historical events as the Great Plague of London, 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.

Quicksilver consists of 3 books. The first book centers around Daniel Waterhouse and his exploits as a young Natural Philosopher and friend to Isaac Newton. The second book consists of "Half-Cocked" Jack Shaftoe, his meeting with Eliza and their subsequent adventures together and apart. The 3rd book features Eliza and Daniel in the events leading up to the Glorious Revolution.

In 2004, "Quicksilver" won the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

Major themes

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?

Characters in "Quicksilver"

Main characters

*Eliza, former-harem slave who is made a French countess, investor, spy for William of Orange and Leibniz.
*Enoch Root, alchemist with friends worldwide, traveler
*Jack Shaftoe, English vagabond who rescues Eliza, becomes enemy of French nobleman
*Daniel Waterhouse, son of prominent Puritan, former roommate of Newton also friend of 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, erstwhile bar owner from Dunkirk
*Thomas Ham, Goldsmith, brother-in-law of Daniel Waterhouse
*Otto van Hoek, Captain of the "Minerva"
*Bob Shaftoe
*Sluys (Stephenson character), 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
*Judge Jeffreys, Lord Chancellor of England
*Nicolas Fatio de Duillier
*Benjamin Franklin (as a young boy, referred to as "Ben")
*Robert Hooke
*Christiaan Huygens
*Gottfried Leibniz
*Louis XIV, King of France
*Isaac Newton
*Robert Boyle
*Henry Oldenburg
*Samuel Pepys
*Bonaventure Rossignol, a French cryptologist
*James Scott, the Duke of Monmouth
*James Stuart, as the Duke of York and as James II, King of England
*Edward Teach
*John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester
*William III of England, as William, Prince of Orange (prior to his crowning)
*John III Sobieski of Poland, the king of Poland who leads the Winged Hussars at Vienna
*D'Artagnan who encounters Jack post-mortem in one of Jack's stories
*Caroline of Ansbach

ee also

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

Release details

*2003, USA, William Morrow (ISBN 0-380-97742-7), Pub date 23 September 2003, hardback (First edition)
*2003, UK, Willian Heinemann (ISBN 0-434-00817-6), Pub 2 October 2003, hardback
*2003, UK, Willian Heinemann (ISBN 0-434-00893-1), paperback
*2004, USA, William Morrow (ISBN 0-06-059933-2), Pub date ? June 2004, hardback (Special edition)
*2004, USA, Harper Perennial (ISBN 0-06-059308-3), Pub date 21 September 2004, paperback

External links

* [http://www.metaweb.com/ The Metaweb] was once an extensive Quicksilver wiki, including many pages written by Stephenson, about the historical and fictional persons and events of this book. The old data is mothballed; the website is now the corporate site for a startup spun out of Applied Minds. However, [http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.metaweb.com/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Stephenson:Neal:Quicksilver partial archives of the Metaweb] are still viewable via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.