Well, I managed to finish Stephenson’s WWII/cryptothriller tome. Again!!
Given that it’s been well over seven years since I originally read it in hardback, I didn’t really remember much of the storyline. A few things surfaced from dusty memories, such as Enoch Root, Golgotha, Amy Shaftoe and the river of gold at the end. However, I was still entranced by the interlocking historical, technical, and philosophical arcs, despite the numerous and lengthy sidebars.
But this time around I appreciated the Lawrence Waterhouse character, and his storyline, quite a bit more. Since my first read of Cryptonomicon, I had the opportunity to dig into the history of computing. Thus there was much more context available regarding Turing, the Enigma machine, Bletchley park, and the first computers. The resulting “backstory” really makes Waterhouse, and by extension Randy, much richer characters.
Just for the record, the actual completion date was 9/2/2008. Took me slightly over a month to read, end-to-end.