![]() ![]() On a first reading I didn't cop to Stephenson's borrowing from Julian Jaynes ( The Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind)- though even then I knew that he was completely mangling Chomsky's "deep structures". ![]() The greater the author's audacity, the firmer the pull on our leg, the greater the payoff. You don't enjoy a tall tale despite the fact that it's implausible the implausibility is the point. Tall tales, you'll remember, are those hoary old rousers with frontiersmen riding on top of twisters, giants stomping out Death Valley, and all that. You're not supposed to swallow the Sumerian stuff- it's a tall tale. I've always felt that this misses the point. The usual fan take on the book is "It's fine cyberpunk, especially the part about the Deliverator but I couldn't buy the Sumerian stuff in the middle, and the ending sucks." It's no mean feat to be simultaneously fun, hip, and intelligent. and I was grooving on it just as much on a re-reading. ![]() as may be apparent from the name of my website. This book just slayed me when it came out, eight years ago. Part 4 of an occasional series of essays presenting more verbiage on books too much has been said about already Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash ![]()
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