watcha readin, crispy?
been tackling william james. but also for recreation neal stephenson's baroque cycle. just finished the first massive volume: quicksilver. it is remarkable on many levels. it is, among other things, the adventure of the invention of modern science, and people such as hooke, huygens, newton, and leibniz are actually plausible characters, the last being particularly delightful and thoroughly explored. the treatment of intellectual themes is amazing in its depth and accuracy, while still being actually part of a novel, with narrative momentum. indeed the evocation of the era - in politics, religion, economics, etc - is astonishingly vivid, the product of more than research: stephenson must have just soaked in this atmosphere (1660-1710, say) until he was a sort of native. the characters are recognizably of their time and recognizably of ours, so you are drawn into intimate historical connection. and the writing just sparkles: by turn hilarious and profound.

it's a moment when the modern scientific consciousness is emerging from religious and alchemical models, and newton himself regards his physics as a religious text, and is as or more interested in wild alchemical speculations/experiments than in his own astonishing achievements in straight geometry or what we would consider to be empirical science. that is right, and has the effect of complicating our sense of what science currently is as well as of what it once was. in some ways a or even the central character is the royal society: a rich wild world in which things we would think of as insane or perverse are juxtaposed with fundamental scientific advancements, and in which nobody can be perfectly clear on the difference.

one amazing idea: parts of quicksilver are written in the literary forms of the era: picaresque novel , epistolary novel, restoration comedy , and scientific treatise, for example. that is a brilliant conceit, and becomes quite the hall of mirrors, as characters seem to be perfectly aware, for example, that they are living in a picaresque, or as characters in stephenson's picaresque novel become the subjects of picaresque novels being devoured by other characters. perhaps people have done this before, but it adds tremendously to the sensation that you're entering into a whole world of culture and knowledge.