Finishing Snow Crash

Wow, I finally finished Snow Crash! I have to say that the end seems to be a completely different book from the beginning, a different writer. I thought the end was just very well done. He finally brought a sense of controlled chaos to the book. One that the reader could follow, understand and identify with. Towards the first half of the novel he was trying to hard to be inventive. He put too much effort into creating this world and not enough into expressing who the characters are and developing the action that takes place. Although, the more I think about this book and the great attention that Stephenson pays to detail, the more that I think that what we perceive as a weakness in writing was, actually, a strategy he used to represent the bigger picture he was bringing to our attention... the theme of the novel.

As we have discussed before, the constant description of the reality that Hiro lives in is distracting. He pays more attention to the setting rather than the characters. I think I recall one discussion where we hypothesized that he does this on purpose to give us this sense of chaos that the characters are feeling and experiencing. He puts is in the mindset that Hiro and Y.T. are in so we can understand the characters better. Maybe in their world (our future) they are neglected. Money, franchulates, propoganda take precedence of people. However, as the story unfolds until we reach the end, he allows the characters to unfold greatly. They take control of the their environment and we learn who they are as they engage themselves and take charge. I think we didn't know who they were because they didn't know who they were. Like us, they were lost in their reality, overwhelmed. Maybe Stephenson is using this as a warning. We must take control. We must conquer our surroundings as technology progresses and challenges our conventional ideas of government, social roles, right, wrong and even reality itself. Once again, he's making important statements about society and who we may become if we continue on this path. His novel is disguised in the characters and actions on the surface using aquired language, but like the deep structure or "linguistic infrastructure" Hiro describes, he makes much more profound statements that we may not even realize are there. Maybe I'm taking this all too far, but I just a have a feeling that he wasn't just writing a virtual reality novel for entertainment purposes only.

I really enjoyed the way he developed the characters such as Raven towards the end. He gave them a certain depth, such as the fact that Raven loved Y.T., that made you identify with them, make the story more believable. He brings them to life and he goes to extremes with this so the characters will be able to take charge over the environment. I also like the idea that these characters that are supposed to be the "bad guys" are softened, like Raven and the Mafia. It brings an unexpected edge to the story. I really enjoyed this last part of the novel, much more than the first.

Finally, I LOVED the way he tied up the lose ends connecting the mythology presented earlier in the story to present day and the spread of Snow Crash. He was bringing so many different elements into it in the beginning of the novel that I was very confused. I really couldn't put it all together by myself, but once Hiro explained it in the Metaverse starting in Chapter 56 it all made sense. I was in awe. It made perfect sense and was fascinating. Rife was right by trying to take over the world by using language. Communication is such a critical part of our lives and is becoming more easily accessible to everyday. We are in constant contact with eachother as we disucussed in Smart Mobs by Rheingold. By taking away your higher thinking abilities through a virus similar to what we see in our communication devices that we use to keep us constantly in contact everyday-all day, was very creative on Stephenson's part. To draw on the past and connect it to the future in such a realistic way was great.

Overall, it was a very good book. I give Stephenson a great deal of credit.