meish dot org: life, unfolding

I’ve just finished reading Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon for the second time.

Phew. Such a fantastic book.

And such a different book from what I remembered, from the first reading.

Thanks to having 9+ years of blog archives on this site (!) I can accurately pinpoint the first reading to December 2000 – I was up in the Hebrides with my family for Christmas and New Year and (true to form, at that time of year) there were loads of powercuts (winter storms) and not much else to do. So I just curled up on the sofa in front of the fire and ploughed through the book in a matter of days, stopping only to sleep and occasionally rummage for another candle to illuminate the pages. As a result, it read like a blockbuster movie – a long, exciting romp of characters and scenes and intermingled plots.

This time around, I didn’t have the luxury of an uninterrupted read. Instead, I had to tackle it a chapter or so at a time on my 80+ minute (each way) commute by bus and train every day. That meant that the experience of reading it was entirely different.

For a start, I didn’t remember great chunks of it, while other bits seemed very familiar. And it was harder to keep track of the various threads of the story (each chapter is focused on one of several characters, taking place across 60 years and many airmiles. I kept picking it up and having to remind myself. Oh yes, this guy was there, and he was just about to do thaaat. Gottit.

But there was something else, too – the fact that I’d read a chapter in the morning meant that all day at the back of my head, behind any other task I was performing, there were a few firing synapses devoted to dandling through the latest turn in the plot. What would happen next? Is this somehow related to that other part of the story? Then I’d read another chapter on the way home, and have another 12 hours of sleepy (and asleepy) consideration of the story.

Despite the fact that my first reading of Cryptonomicon was immersive, this second readthrough has felt infinitely more considered and enveloping. And possibly more enjoyable for it.

Yesterday, though, on my final day of reading it, with only a tiny handful of pages to read, I was sitting on the early morning tube with the book open, when a woman came and sat next to me, glanced over at the page I had open, tutted loudly and then moved elsewhere in the carriage.

It was only after a moment that I realised what she must have glimpsed as she glanced at this wonderful, well-written and intelligent book about cryptanalysis and war and hacking and espionage.

Please see the photo below and see if you can spot it.

I swear, that’s only about the third mention of same in the entire book.

It just goes to show: you can’t judge a book my its cover. Or sometimes, not even by its content.

If you haven’t read it: do.