In article <87fxt3nmd5.fsf@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Mark Jeffcoat <jeffcoat@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>mvp@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Mike Van Pelt) writes:
>
>> In article <877iehn5jh.fsf@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>> Mark Jeffcoat <jeffcoat@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>Enoch Root is likely a little less jarring if you've read
>>>Stephenson's previous novel, _Cryptonomicon_.
>>
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>
>[Spoilers for _Cryptonomicon_:]
>
>
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>>
>> I haven't read "The Baroque Cycle", but I have read and
>> enjoyed "Cryptonomicon." Enoch Root was something of an odd
>> character. I was thinking, in the 21st century parts of the
>> story where he finally shows up that Root really should be
>> quite a bit older than that. I don't recall catching on to
>> any indication that he was an immortal, other than that.
>
>That's most of what I meant by "less jarring".
>
>In my mind, there are two outstanding bits of weirdness
>around Root in _Cyrptonomicon_. First, as you said, he
>doesn't appear to have aged nearly enough.
>
>Even more miraculously, he dies in Sweden during WWII,
I simply assumed he hadn't actually died. It seemed a bit
ambiguous to me. I wasn't sure why they'd let Shaftoe think
he had died, but he clearly had hidden agendas. I figured
the explanation was in one of those.
>> The other thing that bother me was that there's no way,
>> even if your last name is "Root", that anyone but the
>> system administrator is ever going to have an email address
>> "root@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
" This was something of a plot point; the
>> 21st century protagnoist assumed he was the sysadmin, and
>> was about as surprised as I was that he was not. But still.
>
>Does he ever claim not to be the sysadmin for eruditiorum.org?
>
>Root strikes me as the kind of character who would enjoy the pun.
Yeah... It seemed to me that Root wasn't computer-savvy
enough to have been the sysadmin, though. My memory of
that part of the book was that he wasn't even aware that
"root@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
" would have certain ... connotations.
I could be wrong, though.
--
Mike Van Pelt | Wikipedia. The roulette wheel of knowledge.
mvp at calweb.com | --Blair P. Houghton
KE6BVH
|
