My feelings about Neal Stephenson and his writing style range from ambivalent to complete irritation.  I’m always looking for the story amongst the cruft.  There is so much cruft in Anathem, that just holding up the book to attempt to read it is physically tiring.  I guess I frequently slog through Stephenson’s tomes because the story usually does develop in compelling ways, despite the cruft.  In Anathem the cruft has become a nearly impassable mire of muck and well,  I am weak.

So what is this cruft?  In Anathem it’s the trappings of an invented world with a completely different dialect.  My reaction to the book (complete anathema for Anathem) is probably due to a few factors:

• I am a borderline Science Fiction fan and a very rare Fantasy fan.

• I do not like J.R. Tolkien.  In fact, I found The Lord of the Rings to be insufferable.  (The movies were ok, mostly because I really like the large walking trees.).  I also hate hobbits and their hairy feet.

• It’s not Neal Stephenson’s best work, albeit possibly the longest.

This is somehow invigorating to actually not finish a book, and to admit that — “Guess what! I work with technology and I’m not a rapid Science Fiction/Fantasy fan.”  I don’t like having to solve math problems to understand all the fricking references.  Instead, I want a world to unfurl itself and surround me.  Perhaps, I’ll need to look up a word now and again, or reread a sentence or two, but the transport needs to be seamless.

It’s definitely not the “complexity of the plot” in Anathem that is inspiring my anathema.   Thomas Pynchon counts amongst my top ten favorite authors and I read and thoroughly enjoyed Infinite Jest (RIP DFW).  It’s the cruft.  The extraneous and tiresome plot devices coated in the black tar-like cruft bubbling out of Anathem.