January 05, 2006
Mister Efficiency
I just crossed about 20 things off my to-do list this morning: a big backlog of crap delightfully crossed out.
I'm a compulsive list-maker, particularly to-do lists. Mind you, none of that "300 things I need to do before I kick" sort of crap, just lists of books, mainly, as well as things that happened on a particular date. I also anotate my date book calendar with cartoons and pictographs---little doodles of people for their birthday, the rotunda when I'm over at the UVa library, big weather events, random stuff. (As an aside---when I'm doodling myself, I draw me as a moose, not a llama. Yeah, I know: now you can die in peace!) Some days just feel more strongly connected to each other, not because of something monumental that happened then, but rather almost if the fabric of time, instead of hanging straight and vertical, was bunched up in certain places, kind of like a drapery. I know it's just the random synapses firing, but I've decided to enjoy it, rather than fight it.
I've kept the calendars going back now to 1989--I've got them all except for 1995, where I was pretty thorougly depressed. I also have one for 1986, where I wrote down all our crew workouts for a month. My only regret about college was that I didn't keep a calendar like I do now---it would be invaluable to have all that laid out in order.
This past year I started keeping the old to-do-lists in a file. It turned out to be great, because it has given me a chance to look back at the past year and spot where I was being effective, and where were the areas where I put things off. Also to note why certain things dropped off of the list entirely---was it sloth, or did it resolve itself?
On the LLamabookshelf at the moment is Quicksilver, the first book in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, and the pre-cursor of sorts to his epic Cryptonomicon. Whole. E. Cow. I'm about halfway through it (which means I'm around page 450) and it's unbelievably good. It's going to go onto the reserved shelf, along with The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum and Cryptonomicon as books to return to again and again.
The character of Enoch Root has infected my dreams.
Posted by Steve at January 5, 2006 12:00 PM | TrackBackHere's my highly subjective appraisal of the series:
Cryptonomicon remains the book that I enjoyed the most, but The Confusion would be my personal fave out of the Baroque Cycle. I still haven't finished The System of the World, which is my Embarrassing Literary Confession for the day.
No question, Stephenson is a writer who gets more impressive almost with every book. It will be very, very interesting to see what he comes up with next.
Posted by: utron at January 5, 2006 06:59 PMGreat subject matter -- there's nobody better, excepting Umberto Eco. I got through Quicksilver, but ran out of steam about halfway through Confusion. He needed an editor to rein him in, as he got a little out of hand. He's a little too in love with is writing.
The whole Qwghlm thing is not nearly as good an idea as he thinks it is; the beauty of the books is its historical verisimilitude, from which Qwghlm distracts, in my opinion. An initially clever idea that gets built up into too much.
Just my thoughts.
The progression in his work from Snow Crash to Crypto to The System of the World is pretty impressive, too. He shows unbelievable growth as a writer and as a man of ideas in just a few short years. I admire him a lot.
I loved Cryptonomicon. But the reviews for the Baroque Cycle were so horrible that I didnt even pick it up. Maybe I'll take a second look.
Posted by: Lynellen at January 6, 2006 11:33 AM
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