Initially slow and an accelerated ending, but spectacular effort. ( )

I have pretty mixed feelings about this book. It is quite an epic romp, covering WWII and modern day simultaneously. The book tries to accomplish a lot in its 1000+ pages, and I don't think it quite makes it to the masterpiece finish line, but the ride is tons of fun. Definitely recommended to anyone with an interest in computers or cryptology.

The biggest problem I had with the book was the lack of female characters or perspective...Cryptonomicon feels very much like a book written by a man, for men. The only, very few female characters are secretaries and/or sex objects, and are often described as being the polar opposite of the tech-savvy or battle-ready men. I don't think the overarching misogyny was really intentional, and I've heard that his other books contain some female main characters, but the constant feeling of "This book is full of computers and war! We are men! Only men do those things! Arr!" was pretty disappointing. ( )

A great book most of the way through as Stevenson does a masterful job of weaving together the storylines from WW2 and the present time. But toward the end, he just seems to give up; perhaps he just didn't have the skill to deliver the type of satisfying payoff this book deserves. And after reading over 1100 pages, the reader deserves a lot more. You just keep asking yourself, where is the sequel? And where was his editor, to send it back to him and say "Neal, you can do a hell of a lot better than this."? Lazy lazy lazy. ( )

Cryptonomicon has a multi-linear story line that works like a jigsaw puzzle. As you read the lives of grandfathers and grandsons inter-spliced, you gain a better understanding of the motivations of one through the actions of the other. Not to mention the vast conspiracy about currency in the digital world. ( )

Cryptonomicon probably wouldn't be your first pick for a beach novel either, but hey really, it's a huge book chock-full of gripping action, low-brow humor and wild adventure. What else do you need? Romance? Well...forget about it, then. Actually, the length (900+ pp.) was the deciding factor in my case, and so it was the first thing I packed before I left to Turkey this past summer.

My plane leaves at 6:30 a.m., which means I'll have to get up at five, which in turn really doesn't agree with my sleep pattern of getting up at elevenish. So after three invigorating hours of sleep that night I'm just flying through the book, giving it all my meager attention, chewing gum like crazy, not even glancing at the safety leaflet or the in-flight movie. Three main characters are introduced: Lawrence Waterhouse, socially inept, technologically adept; his grandson Randy Waterhouse, ditto; and self-describedly gung-ho marine Bobby Shaftoe. From the get-go this is clearly a book for real capital-M Men. After a plain breakfast I fall into a shallow, spasmodic sleep, jerking awake frequently to wipe drool off my chin. With all these distractions the four-hour flight just flies rightafkjflhjhafdhgd

In Turkey: an airport display reports an outside temperature well in excess of 40°C (104°F). Stepping into the sun my dark blue jeans promptly combust (why am I wearing jeans?), or at the very least feel like it, and we still have a two-and-a-half-hour bus ride to the hotel ahead of us. My cryophilic ass isn't cut out for this kind of climate. The view from the bus window isn't very exciting, mostly what to me seems like desert with the occasional cactus or palm tree thrown in for good measure. In the distance there are some pretty impressive mountains though, which the guide informs us are called the Taurus Mountains and which I immediately rename the Tauri. At least I'm making nice headway with the book. Lawrence Waterhouse discusses theories with some fictional and factual personages at Princeton in the end of the 1930s, joins the navy as a glockenspielist, and, via a scenic tour of Pearl Harbor, gets recruited to help the Allies to decipher Axis communications. At roughly the same time Bobby Shaftoe is in Manila clashing with the Nips but not without befriending one by the name of Goto Dengo. Sadly they get separated when the war begins, as do Bobby and his pregnant girlfriend Grace Altamira. The third thread happens in the 1990s, when Randy Waterhouse is in the process of establishing a telecom company in Manila with his friend Avi. To Avi, however, this is only the beginning.

The hotel is really a larger complex of buildings of various sizes and distances from the main building, where the restaurants are. Pools and over-priced trinket shops are scattered about. I haven't been abroad in quite many years, and as a consequence have no idea how touristy this place is compared to others, but I assume it would rate pretty high. But when I get to the hotel room the air conditioning dispels all my petty complaints. Oh, AC, we're going to have breezy, oscillatory week together, aren't we?

Alas, it quickly becomes evident that there isn't much to do here at the hotel, because I don't swim (life-threatening experiences as a kid), for which reason my travelmates make cruel fun of me, and because the basketball court promised in the brochure apparently is no more. Time to hit the city!

In spite of the bus driver's flagrant disregard of safety regulations we somehow get there. And the moment my shaky foot touches terra firma, I am accosted by hucksters. The most common opening line slash greeting among them seems to be "Yes, please". It's also disturbing how many work out my nationality before I even open my mouth, though some incorrectly guess German or Russian. Anyway, I'm the kind of guy who would be perfectly happy buying everything I need, including groceries, online with minimal human interaction, so haggling soon becomes a drag. It feels rude walking past and only cursorily acknowledging these fine polyglot men but I don't feel like playing their game right now. I think I'll just pop into the corner store and buy a fixed priced bottle of good old aitch-two-oh.

Speaking of nationalities, the tourist contingent here in the city as well as back at the hotel looks to be mostly from Germany and Benelux. OK, I haven't met any Luxemburgers. The lingua franca is still mainly English, even though to my untrained ear the hotel staff sound more fluent and loquacious in German. This gets me thinking about how ESL (English as a second language) speakers are represented in movies and literature written and directed by native English speakers (or NAMBLA). In the case of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, which I'm reading here, under a parasol, almost every character, regardless of nationality, speaks perfect English. Actually, only this one German guy, Rudy, who studies at Princeton has an accent and struggles occasionally in the beginning. There was even a nice line—let's see here...quote Julieta speaks great English like all the other Finns unquote. That's very flattering, but it's just not true. And was no doubt even less true during WWII.

In most mainstream movies and TV shows we come across characters who either no habla Ingles or else speak basically faultless English with a cheesy accent and no contractions and are able to use complicated words with ease, but then have a total presque vu moment with some no-brainer like, "Unbeknownst to Cinderella, her evil stepmother had, as a matter of fact, poisoned the, how you say? Hmm? Ah, ze apple, yes?" To me it always sounds really caricatural and inauthentic. And no ESL speaker ever really refers to her- or himself in third person unless he or she is kind of a dick.

While we're on the subject, what's up with Sergeant Shaftoe calling the Nipponese Nips? Isn't that kinda derogatory? Or is it merely a convenient abbreviation? I think it was also mentioned in the book that jarheads are disinclined to waste precious syllables. And so the same went for Chink, as Bobby was in Shanghai at the time. After all, no one thinks Turk is offensive. Or Swede, Finn, Aussie, Brit, Pole, Dane, point made. These surplus syllables can then be used, as Shaftoe did, to write bad haiku:

Stray dog sniffs pant leg
Midday sun beats down, reading
Cryptonomicon

Oh, shade, I must leave you for the nonce as my stomach is starting to grumble. Being a cheap bastard, I repair back to the hotel to eat because it's free. Free as in paid-in-advance all-you-can-eat free. It's good stuff, much better than the junk I eat at home. Sustenance of the mind is equally important, so I seek shade by the swimming pool and continue reading. Goto Dengo, a civil engineer and a lieutenant, emerges as a semi-main character. Goto-san is charged with the assignment of burying Nazi gold in the Philippines, and, as he finds out, himself with it. It's really amazing and horrific how suicidally brainwashed the Imperial Nipponese Army was during WWII. I need to read more...if only someone would just turn down that awful Euro techno music. They keep blaring out maybe one CD's worth of songs on repeat every day from dawn to dusk and on random nights as well. It's hard not to feel like a curmudgeon sometimes.

Taking a chilly shower I am hit with an excellent idea: I'll do a pictorial review of Cryptonomicon for LibraryThing! But every picture I take with my camera phone turns out like crap. I burrow under the itchy skimpy hotel blanket and go through a time warp. It's the final night. I've read about 650 pages in seven days now. The AC automagically switches itself off after two hours and has to be turned on again, so it gets unbearably hot during the night when everyone's asleep. And yet I've managed to acquire a sore throat in this hyperventilated room. I'm as pale as always. I went to the beach only twice. It's been a fun week. Cryptonomicon is a great novel and it woke up in me a desire to read some more WWII history, especially about Nippon. My plane leaves tomorrow morning at half past eight but I'll still have to get up at five to catch the bus. ( )