The Confusion
Encyclopedia
The Confusion is a novel
by Neal Stephenson
. It is the second volume in The Baroque Cycle
and consists of two sections or books, Bonanza and The Juncto. In 2005, The Confusion won the Locus Award
, together with The System of the World
.
In Cairo the Cabal negotiates with d'Arcachon's men for a meeting with the duc himself; as an inducement for this meeting they offer to hand over Jack. Jack cuts off the head of the duc to avenge Eliza, whom the duc had enslaved over a decade earlier. Fighting ensues between the Cabal and d'Arcachon's musketeers. The Cabal manages to escape (short several of its members and a good portion of the gold), fleeing toward Mocha
.
From there they carry the gold to India, where they are captured by a pirate queen who takes the gold. Jack conceives a plan to carry goods through a route that no traders can use because it is controlled by armies of plunderers. Jack shows the Cabal how to produce phosphorus from urine, and they use it to fight their way through. For this role in opening up the trade route, Jack is rewarded with a temporary, three-year kingship over an impoverished part of India. During his reign, Jack directs the construction of a ship made of durable teak wood, using funds invested by the pirate queen who had seized the Cabal's gold, and Sophie, Electress of Hanover
. The ship is christened Minerva.
The Cabal carries watered steel
and other valuable items from India to Japan, and trades them for mercury
. Mercury fetches a high price in the Americas, which need it for use in silver mines. A Spanish Galleon secretly agrees to show Minerva the way across the Pacific and help them establish trade in the Americas. The Galleon sinks, and Minerva takes on the two sole survivors, one of whom is Edmund de Ath. Jack, another member of the Cabal, and de Ath are imprisoned and tortured by the Spanish Inquisition
but are able to buy their way out with silver that they got in trade for mercury.
Jack receives a letter from Eliza urging him to meet her in Qwghlm. Laden with precious metals, Minerva sails there only to find that the invitation was a trap; the French capture them and seize their gold and silver. The letter had been faked by Edmund de Ath, actually Édouard de Gex in disguise, who had been working with Vrej, one of the Cabal members, who believed his family had been wronged by Jack. Minerva and her crew are allowed to leave sans cargo, but Jack is imprisoned by the duc d'Arcachon, son of the man whose head Jack cut off in Cairo, and husband of Eliza. Upon discovering the deceit, Vrej kills the duc d'Arcachon, before committing suicide to prevent retaliation upon his family. The duc had planned to imprison Jack for the rest of his life, but the King of France Louis XIV frees him in order to enlist his help in sacking the Tower of London, England's mint, in order to cripple the enemy country's economy.
in an attempt to escape to England, and is confined to a house in Dunkerque. There both her lover Rossignol, the King's cryptographer, and d'Avaux rush to her. Under blackmail by d'Avaux, Eliza concedes in indefinitely loaning the vast fortune she has earned through trade in Amsterdam to fund the King's war efforts.
Her loss of fortune forces Eliza to return to court life, where she learns that the duc d'Arcachon was the man who had enslaved her and her mother from the isle of Qwghlm. Eliza soon begins plotting to kill him. However, before she can do so, she learns of d'Arcachon's death at the hands of Jack. Jack had pronounced over the body of d'Arcachon that he killed him for a lover. Upon the return of his head to France, d'Avaux realizes who the lover of Jack is. Before Eliza's relationship with Jack can be revealed, Eliza marries Étienne, the son of the duc and becomes Duchess d'Arcachon.
After the marriage, however, Eliza's illegitimate child with Rossignol is kidnapped in order to maintain leverage over her.
The story refocuses on Bob Shaftoe, as he and the Black Torrent Guard participate in William III's campaign
against James II in Ireland.
Comments about Stephenson's humor pervade its reviews. The New Zealand Herald, called it "rich, clever, [and] as dryly funny as ever."
Overwhelmingly The Confusion has an emphasis on the economy that had not been present as fully in Quicksilver. Andrew Leonard contrasted The Confusion with Quicksilver saying "If one could argue that "Quicksilver" was about the birth of the scientific method and the application of Reason to unlocking the mysteries of existence, then one could also say "The Confusion" is about money." The book focuses a lot on bankers, the mining of gold and silver in the new world, the idea of breaking free from precious metals into the use of Money.
He particularly explores the amount of excess involved in period governments and the financial system as well as the upper classes. Leonard points out that "Stephenson seems to be telling us throughout the "Baroque Cycle" is that the actual way things really happened—the way systems of credit were created, or timber delivered—is just as kooky as anything that a fabulist could concoct out of the wild speculation of his or her own mind." The style too, mimics this excess emphasizing exaggerated ideas ad actions. One reviewer, examining this complexity and excess, called it "a baroque church organ, in the middle of playing a complicated fugue at full throttle. At its end, either the reader has fled or is mesmerised, waiting to know what will happen next."
Andrew Leonard of Salon.com noted that Confusion moved much faster than Quicksilver did, not getting bogged down in an overwhelming amount of detail. Again, though, he notes that Stephenson is willing to go into excess on certain ideas, developing some plot twists in exhaustive detail.
On the other hand, David Larsen of the New Zealand Herald noted "The title is a praiseworthy piece of truth in advertising." His overall commentary on the piece notes how overly complicated the plot was, drawing heavily on the complexity developed in Quicksilver. Yet still discussing his interest and appreciation of the story he wrote "but don't be deterred. Bring on volume three."
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Neal Stephenson
Neal Stephenson
Neal Town Stephenson is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction.Difficult to categorize, his novels have been variously referred to as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and postcyberpunk...
. It is the second volume in The Baroque Cycle
The Baroque Cycle
The Baroque Cycle is a series of novels by American writer Neal Stephenson. It was published in three volumes containing 8 books in 2003 and 2004. The story follows the adventures of a sizeable cast of characters living amidst some of the central events of the late 17th and early 18th centuries in...
and consists of two sections or books, Bonanza and The Juncto. In 2005, The Confusion won the Locus Award
Locus Award
The Locus Award is a literary award established in 1971 and presented to winners of Locus magazine's annual readers' poll. Currently, the Locus Awards are presented at an annual banquet...
, together with The System of the World
The System of the World (novel)
The System of the World, a novel by Neal Stephenson, is the third and final volume in The Baroque Cycle.The title alludes to the third volume of Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which bears the same name....
.
Background
Like the other volumes in the series, Confusion was written as multiple novels. However, unlike in the other two volumes of the Series, the two novels are set in concurrent periods. In the publication of the two novels as a single volume, Stephenson chose to publish the volume as alternating sections between Bonanza and The Juncto, book 4 and 5 respectively.Plot
Though the first publication of the Series in 3 volumes combined the two novels Bonanza and The Juncto, here the plots will be dealt with as separate entities, true to the author's original intention.Bonanza
The beginning of Bonanza finds Jack Shaftoe awakened from a syphilitic blackout of nearly three years. During this time he was a pirate galley slave. The other members of his bench, a motley crew who call themselves "The Cabal" from Africa, the Far East and Europe, create a plot to capture silver illegally shipped from Central America by a Spanish Viceroy; they convince the Pasha of Algiers and their owner to sponsor this endeavor for their freedom and a cut in the profit. They capture the ship, but upon boarding it, they find it full, not of silver as they had expected, but of gold. Fleeing the Spanish they are followed by a frigate in the employ of the duc d'Arcachon, an investor in their plan and a man who wishes to kill Jack for ruining a party in The King of the Vagabonds. Believing the Duke plans to cheat the Cabal in the investment, they sail to Egypt and transport the gold over land to Cairo.In Cairo the Cabal negotiates with d'Arcachon's men for a meeting with the duc himself; as an inducement for this meeting they offer to hand over Jack. Jack cuts off the head of the duc to avenge Eliza, whom the duc had enslaved over a decade earlier. Fighting ensues between the Cabal and d'Arcachon's musketeers. The Cabal manages to escape (short several of its members and a good portion of the gold), fleeing toward Mocha
Mocha, Yemen
Mocha or Mokha is a port city on the Red Sea coast of Yemen. Until it was eclipsed in the 19th century by Aden and Hodeida, Mocha was the principal port for Yemen's capital Sana'a.-Overview:...
.
From there they carry the gold to India, where they are captured by a pirate queen who takes the gold. Jack conceives a plan to carry goods through a route that no traders can use because it is controlled by armies of plunderers. Jack shows the Cabal how to produce phosphorus from urine, and they use it to fight their way through. For this role in opening up the trade route, Jack is rewarded with a temporary, three-year kingship over an impoverished part of India. During his reign, Jack directs the construction of a ship made of durable teak wood, using funds invested by the pirate queen who had seized the Cabal's gold, and Sophie, Electress of Hanover
Sophia of Hanover
Sophia of the Palatinate was an heiress to the crowns of England and Ireland and later the crown of Great Britain. She was declared heiress presumptive by the Act of Settlement 1701...
. The ship is christened Minerva.
The Cabal carries watered steel
Damascus steel
Damascus steel was a term used by several Western cultures from the Medieval period onward to describe a type of steel used in swordmaking from about 300 BCE to 1700 CE. These swords are characterized by distinctive patterns of banding and mottling reminiscent of flowing water...
and other valuable items from India to Japan, and trades them for mercury
Mercury (element)
Mercury is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum...
. Mercury fetches a high price in the Americas, which need it for use in silver mines. A Spanish Galleon secretly agrees to show Minerva the way across the Pacific and help them establish trade in the Americas. The Galleon sinks, and Minerva takes on the two sole survivors, one of whom is Edmund de Ath. Jack, another member of the Cabal, and de Ath are imprisoned and tortured by the Spanish Inquisition
Spanish Inquisition
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition , commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition , was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval...
but are able to buy their way out with silver that they got in trade for mercury.
Jack receives a letter from Eliza urging him to meet her in Qwghlm. Laden with precious metals, Minerva sails there only to find that the invitation was a trap; the French capture them and seize their gold and silver. The letter had been faked by Edmund de Ath, actually Édouard de Gex in disguise, who had been working with Vrej, one of the Cabal members, who believed his family had been wronged by Jack. Minerva and her crew are allowed to leave sans cargo, but Jack is imprisoned by the duc d'Arcachon, son of the man whose head Jack cut off in Cairo, and husband of Eliza. Upon discovering the deceit, Vrej kills the duc d'Arcachon, before committing suicide to prevent retaliation upon his family. The duc had planned to imprison Jack for the rest of his life, but the King of France Louis XIV frees him in order to enlist his help in sacking the Tower of London, England's mint, in order to cripple the enemy country's economy.
The Juncto
The book opens explaining how Bob Shaftoe had come into possession of the correspondence of d'Avaux, the French diplomat whom Eliza had fooled as a double agent for William of Orange in Quicksilver. Eliza has been captured by Jean BartJean Bart
Jean Bart was a Flemish sailor who primarily served the French crown as naval commander and privateer.-Early life:...
in an attempt to escape to England, and is confined to a house in Dunkerque. There both her lover Rossignol, the King's cryptographer, and d'Avaux rush to her. Under blackmail by d'Avaux, Eliza concedes in indefinitely loaning the vast fortune she has earned through trade in Amsterdam to fund the King's war efforts.
Her loss of fortune forces Eliza to return to court life, where she learns that the duc d'Arcachon was the man who had enslaved her and her mother from the isle of Qwghlm. Eliza soon begins plotting to kill him. However, before she can do so, she learns of d'Arcachon's death at the hands of Jack. Jack had pronounced over the body of d'Arcachon that he killed him for a lover. Upon the return of his head to France, d'Avaux realizes who the lover of Jack is. Before Eliza's relationship with Jack can be revealed, Eliza marries Étienne, the son of the duc and becomes Duchess d'Arcachon.
After the marriage, however, Eliza's illegitimate child with Rossignol is kidnapped in order to maintain leverage over her.
The story refocuses on Bob Shaftoe, as he and the Black Torrent Guard participate in William III's campaign
Williamite war in Ireland
The Williamite War in Ireland—also called the Jacobite War in Ireland, the Williamite-Jacobite War in Ireland and in Irish as Cogadh an Dá Rí —was a conflict between Catholic King James II and Protestant King William of Orange over who would be King of England, Scotland and Ireland...
against James II in Ireland.
Style
Andrew Leonard points out that Confusion features more bent reality like Stephenson's science fiction than Quicksilver. Also, Leonard notes that the book is more focused on "Kidnapping, murder, torture, war, poison, treachery, romance and despair" than Quicksilver had been.Comments about Stephenson's humor pervade its reviews. The New Zealand Herald, called it "rich, clever, [and] as dryly funny as ever."
Themes
Again, like in Quicksilver, Stephenson is concerned with the development of modern economics, science, politics, currency, information technology, trade, religion and cryptography. Even though Stephenson deals with these ideas at extreme length, "His attention to detail and relish for providing historical context provide the attentive reader with a liberal education, while his imagination and humor delight."Overwhelmingly The Confusion has an emphasis on the economy that had not been present as fully in Quicksilver. Andrew Leonard contrasted The Confusion with Quicksilver saying "If one could argue that "Quicksilver" was about the birth of the scientific method and the application of Reason to unlocking the mysteries of existence, then one could also say "The Confusion" is about money." The book focuses a lot on bankers, the mining of gold and silver in the new world, the idea of breaking free from precious metals into the use of Money.
He particularly explores the amount of excess involved in period governments and the financial system as well as the upper classes. Leonard points out that "Stephenson seems to be telling us throughout the "Baroque Cycle" is that the actual way things really happened—the way systems of credit were created, or timber delivered—is just as kooky as anything that a fabulist could concoct out of the wild speculation of his or her own mind." The style too, mimics this excess emphasizing exaggerated ideas ad actions. One reviewer, examining this complexity and excess, called it "a baroque church organ, in the middle of playing a complicated fugue at full throttle. At its end, either the reader has fled or is mesmerised, waiting to know what will happen next."
Main characters
- Eliza
- Bob Shaftoe
- Jack ShaftoeJack ShaftoeJack Shaftoe is one of the three primary fictional characters in Neal Stephenson's 2,686-page, Clarke Award-winning epic trilogy, The Baroque Cycle.Born in 1660 to a poor London...
- Daniel Waterhouse
Other characters
- Dappa, galley slave, Nigerian, sailor aboard Minerva
- Enoch Root
- Moseh de la Cruz, galley slave, Spanish Jew
- Vrej Esphahnian, galley slave, Armenian
- Mr. Foot, English galley slave, ex-privateerPrivateerA privateer is a private person or ship authorized by a government by letters of marque to attack foreign shipping during wartime. Privateering was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend public money or commit naval officers...
, ex-publican, ex-slave merchant - Édouard de Gex, Jesuit fanatic
- Gabriel Goto, galley slave, Jesuit priest from Japan
- Jeronimo, galley slave, a high-born Spaniard with Tourette syndromeTourette syndromeTourette syndrome is an inherited neuropsychiatric disorder with onset in childhood, characterized by multiple physical tics and at least one vocal tic; these tics characteristically wax and wane...
- Lothar von Hacklheber, German banker obsessed with alchemyAlchemyAlchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
- Nyazi, galley slave, camel-trader of the Upper Nile
- Otto van Hoek, galley slave, pirate-hating Dutch captain of the Minerva
- Yevgeny the Raskolnik, galley slave, Russian whaler
- Bonaventure Rossignol, French cryptologist
- Danny Shaftoe, son of Jack Shaftoe
- Jimmy Shaftoe, son of Jack Shaftoe
- Nasr al-Ghurab, rais (commander) of the galleot
- Queen Kottakkal, sovereign of the MalabarTravancoreKingdom of Travancore was a former Hindu feudal kingdom and Indian Princely State with its capital at Padmanabhapuram or Trivandrum ruled by the Travancore Royal Family. The Kingdom of Travancore comprised most of modern day southern Kerala, Kanyakumari district, and the southernmost parts of...
pirates.
Critical reception
Again, like Quicksilver, reviewers of Confusion were impressed by its quality, some noting the greater complexity and others its more action oriented approach.Andrew Leonard of Salon.com noted that Confusion moved much faster than Quicksilver did, not getting bogged down in an overwhelming amount of detail. Again, though, he notes that Stephenson is willing to go into excess on certain ideas, developing some plot twists in exhaustive detail.
On the other hand, David Larsen of the New Zealand Herald noted "The title is a praiseworthy piece of truth in advertising." His overall commentary on the piece notes how overly complicated the plot was, drawing heavily on the complexity developed in Quicksilver. Yet still discussing his interest and appreciation of the story he wrote "but don't be deterred. Bring on volume three."
Publication history
- ISBN 0-06-052386-7: First hardcover edition, released April, 2004.
- ISBN 0-06-073335-7: Paperback edition.