On the far-future Earth-like planet, Arbre, scientists, philosophers and mathematicians—a religious order unto themselves—have been cloistered behind concent (convent) walls. Their role is to nurture all knowledge while safeguarding it from the vagaries of the irrational saecular outside world. Among the monastic scholars is 19-year-old Raz, collected into the concent at age eight and now a decenarian, or tenner (someone allowed contact with the world beyond the stronghold walls only once a decade). But millennia-old rules are cataclysmically shattered when extraterrestrial catastrophe looms, and Raz and his teenage companions—engaging in intense intellectual debate one moment, wrestling like rambunctious adolescents the next—are summoned to save the world.

I just finished Neal Stephenson’s “Anathem.” Considering it took me about 4 months of occasional reading to get through the 761 pages of “Blue Mars,” completing the 981 pages of “Anathem” in just under two months was definitely faster than I expected.

I’ve read all of Stephenson’s previous work, so it was a no-brainer that I would read “Anathem.” I didn’t even really know what it was about other than it took place on another planet, which immediately differentiates it from all of his prior works. You also know you’re in for it when the book starts out with a “note to the reader” containing a detailed historical time line and almost Dune-like glossary. Oh oh! So the first few chapters were pretty rough, trying to wrap my brain around the new vocabulary and immersing myself in the world of Erasmas, the narrative main character. Arbre is a strange place, but luckily there are similarities to our own world. For example, can you guess what kind of person an Ita is from this definition in The Dictionary?

Ita: A caste dwelling in the mathic world but segregated from the avout, responsible for all functions having to do with syntactic devices and the Reticulum.

Sound like anyone you know? There’s a hint in the first two letters. 😉

While perusing Neal Stephenson’s website earlier this evening, I discovered that there’s actually a trailer for the book!

There are also some good interviews here where Stephenson describes how he came up with the idea (he even mentions “Dune” and the glossary!) and how it ties in with his other books at a philosophical level. If you’re thinking about reading “Anathem” take a few minutes and watch the videos, it’s worth it. In fact, all of the introductory information on his site of course does a better job than I could do here describing the book. Be sure to go back when you’re done too, he’s even got some of the avout chants there from the musical score.

I worked out to my benefit that I started “Anathem” during my trip to Arizona for Spring Training because it gave me the chance to really focus and get sucked into the story. If I had started reading it in 20-page chunks as I am wont to do, I probably would have been more confused and not as enthralled. Check out this blog post I found that’s pretty accurate in describing how it can be hard to “get into” this particular book.

To close out this post, here’s a funny quote from the book that I actually marked so I would remember to mention it. I found it to be a comedic, yet strangely accurate, summary of the novel:

“Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs,” I said. “We have a protractor.”
“Ok, I’ll go home and see if I can scrounge up a ruler and a piece of string.”
“That’d be great.”