Belarius's Reviews > Anathem

Anathem is the story of a world in which most academic scholarship (including most pure science and most philosophizing) is done not by institutions of higher learning, but by unisex monasteries that shut themselves off from the world to degrees. In this world, the preservation of knowledge is considered not on a scale of years or decades, but rather on a scale of centuries or millennia. Largely shut off from the world, these scholars keep the flame of knowledge alive while civilizations rise, fall, and rise again outside their walls. Until, that is, the monastic protagonists are swept up in a series of events that threaten to change the world as they know it.

On its face, Anathem seems like an impossible proposal: a science fiction epic about a bunch of monks who study Platonic philosophy. To make matters worse, it's one of those speculative works that insists on having its own vocabulary. The title, for example, is a term that fuses the words Anthem and Anathema. And instead of merely having a new meaning, it has multiple meanings, ranging from technical to colloquial. The book is riddled with this special vocabulary, and when combined with the weighty philosophical tangents, the book seems as though it should fall flat.

For some readers, in all likelihood, it will. But I found it fascinating. Instead of inventing scores of terms for no reason, Stephenson (in typical fashion) has a master plan, and his deviations from normal reality are all part of that plan. Because he is trying to build an entire world from scratch, the author's attention to detail rewards a very close reading. More than a novel, Anathem is a puzzle wrapped in the cloak of a novel.

Anathem also rewards readers who have a liberal arts education, particularly knowledge of philosophy and the humanities. This will sadly lock away some its cleverness from many readers. Seeing, for example, that a rule of thumb called "The Steelyard" is actually a disguised version of "Occam's Razor" will amuse and delight those readers who are in on the joke. Those who are not may appreciate the idea, but lacking insight into its source would seem to me to potentially diminish the impact of the book's ideas.

These factors, combined with the kind of methodically slow pacing (especially earlier in the book) that one would expect from a story narrated by a monk, will turn off many readers. It's tempting to say that Anathem is "too smart" a book for such readers, but it is unfair to conflate intelligence with the sort of "classical intellectualism" that the book resonates with.

For readers who are up to the task, however, Anathem rises to the occasion. Stephenson strives to present us with a world perhaps more perfect (and certainly stranger) than out own, and his careful attention in constructing this world is all the more striking when the reader takes a step back and considers the scale on which he is working.