I am entirely perplexed by this trilogy! Usually by the time I have read the first book in a trilogy - let alone the second - I know well whether I am intending to keep the series for an indulgent re-read in the future. After reading the first book, I had been intrigued enough to read the second but felt that overall I would be discarding the series.

What a difference a book makes! Over the course of this second book, I found myself musing on the story even while I was not reading about the continued adventures of Eliza and Jack. This book is reward for struggling through the first, which was enormously dense and detailed.

The book is shared between Eliza (Juncto) and Jack (Bonanza), their stories intertwining. We find Jack alive and well, and free from the French pox (syphilis). He has been captured by Barbary pirates and his tale involves a convoluted plot between him and other members of the Cabal - to capture a shipment of gold that will lead to their fortunes being made. His story leads him across the world - through the Far East and finally taking a dangerous trip to Acapulco. The capture of the gold has massive repercussions across the world, affecting many including Eliza, who starts her story being waylaid by Jean Bart and carried back to France, where she once again begins manipulating trade.

This time both stories are equally gripping for one reason or another, and the skipping between both allows Stephenson to develop two different tones - the formal, slow burning plot of Eliza and the swashbuckling adventures of Jack Shaftoe.

Many, many characters take centre stage here and become beloved to the reader over the course of 800 pages. Obviously Jack and Eliza will have the attention of the reader, but there is also Leibniz (the dignified and friendly Natural Philosopher who has befriended Eliza from the beginning); Bob Shaftoe (brother of Jack, more upright and stolid); Princess Caroline (beautiful and fiercely intelligent); and the many entertaining members of the Cabal.

We also see the beginnings of Minerva - the ship that is carrying Daniel Waterhouse back to England at the start of the first book in the trilogy - and meet her captain van Hoek (a Dutch captain who feels the need to shed body parts when in gravest danger).

Altogether I am being overwhelmed gradually by the trilogy of books, and can find much to love about them. On the flipside, the writing is still inpenetrable at times and leaves me feeling confused as to what is actually occuring. At times the pacing of the story is woeful - leaving spells where I actually avoid picking up the book, although curiosity in the fates of Jack and Eliza always brings me back.

I would tentatively recommend this book to everyone I know - with the proviso that it is still not *easy* reading (and that they have to suffer through book one to reach the heights of book two). ( )

Neal Stephenson is absolutely awesome as always. If this guy rights a book about cheese I will read it too, because I think anything he rights about becomes a great read. ( )

The second installment in Neal Stephenson’s massive Baroque Cycle, i.e. The Confusion, concentrates on the exploits of Jack Shaftoe and his merry band of multiculti galley slaves, as they both make plays and are played all around the known world in the late 17th century. The adventures of the series’ other two main characters – i.e. Daniel Waterhouse the natural philosopher, and Eliza the Duchess of various parts who’s also a hot babe/financial genius – are downplayed when compared to the Cycle’s first volume, Quicksilver.

Given this shift of emphasis to Jack, the book is actually more coherent and easy to follow, especially since there are few new characters introduced on the European stage. But since I found the picaresque exploits of Jack Shaftoe the least interesting of this series’ main storylines, I enjoyed The Confusion perhaps a bit less than Quicksilver, even though it was easier to read.

Never the less, several episodes in the adventures of Jack’s own little cabal stand out: their encounters in India and Japan are especially good fun. Much less interesting is the book’s rather interminable section in the New World; Stephenson seems to lose his narrative energy here, as if he felt he had to throw in some adventures in Spanish-colonial Mexico just to get his main characters across the western hemisphere and back over to Europe.

This series isn’t for everyone, but since I’m still finding the frequent asides on subjects ranging from science and technology to shipbuilding and navigation to money and banking highly diverting and indeed instructive, I’m looking forward very much to finishing off the cycle with volume III. ( )

I'm continuing the Baroque Cycle with "Book 4: Bonanza" which is paired with "Book 5: Juncto" in The Confusion (2004) by Neal Stephenson. This shows how stubborn I am to read one book at a time since Bonanza is "confused" together with Juncto making for a lot of page flipping.

Bonanza is all Jack Shaftoe as he connives to escape slavery and make a fortune in gold in an around the world adventure. Jack and his polyglot cabal of escaped galley slaves travel through Algiers, Egypt, India, the Phillipines, China, Mexico, and the mysterious land of Qwghlm over a dozen years. Topics covered include global commerce, colonialism, religious conflict, the Inquisition, Jesuits, alchemy, piracy, shipbuilding, metallurgy, numismatics, vulgarity, and slapstick humor.

Despite the adventure, I didn't feel as engaged with this book as the earlier ones. It all seems to be leading somewhere - with tangents - but I'm not enjoying the ride as much. I should have read it mixed-up with Eliza's book Juncto. I'll find out soon when I read that book in the coming weeks.

By the way, I have to give credit to Vermeer's Hat for covering the Manilla trade which involved Chinese merchants living in the outskirts of that city and an annual sailing of a galleon from New Spain bearing silver bullion. This was a good background for many of the events in Bonanza.

The Confusion (2004) by Neal Stephenson continues with Book 5 of The Baroque Cycle, "The Juncto." This book is all Eliza, with a good share of Bob Shaftoe, plus helpings of Daniel Waterhouse and Leibniz, sprinkled with the monarchy and aristocracy of late 17th-century Europe, both real and fiction. At times the narrative of this book appears to be no more than a roundabout way of telling the history of banking, finance, numismatics, and cryptology. Despite all this, "The Juncto" is much more lively, entertaining, and funny than it's intertwined book "Bonanza." Of course, maybe if I read them together like I was supposed to I would not be making these comparisons. And it would have made a whole lot more sense. ( )

The second massive volume in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle is The Confusion (Morrow, 2004) (my review for the first volume, Quicksilver, is here). Only slightly less voluminous than its predecessor (815 pages compared to 927), The Confusion is, I promise, just as complicated and just as bizarre.

There are two major plot-lines in this volume (amid millions of smaller ones): in the first, Jack Shaftoe (whose resemblance to Disney's Jack Sparrow continues here) and his Cabal - a motley crew of misfits if ever there was one - manage to escape from slavery, capture a treasure, lose said treasure, recapture said treasure, lose said treasure again, get captured again, &c. as they meander their way around the world. In the second plot-line (Stephenson has designed the volume with alternating sections - con-fusing them, as it were - so the reader bounces back and forth between the two with some regularity) we find our old friends Leibniz and Waterhouse, Eliza (now a duchess twice over, with a few children under her skirts), Sophie the Electress of Hanover, and all their assorted associates and hangers-on. They're mucking about with the politics and finances of Europe, par usual.

I mostly enjoyed the book, but it's hard not to get bogged down in Stephenson's minutiae, and I found myself frustrated at times, not particularly caring what happened to any of the characters. But I slogged through, and in fact the last few chapters did make the book well worth reading. I'll get to the third volume ... someday.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2008/... ( )