The Rise And Fall Of D.O.D.O — Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland
When her career as a linguistic lecturer seemed to be going nowhere, Melisande Stokes decided almost on a whim to join a secretive organization which by happenstance Tristan Lyons offered her. The job at the beginning was merely translating old and rare documents, until she found out what the organization, through Tristan, was really looking for. Partly intrigued to participate in what felt like a larger than life mission, and partly enamored by Tristan’s persona, Melisande agreed to chance possibilities whereby magic was involved.
Written in the form of a chronologically compiled documentation of various journal entries, letters, office correspondence and newly established office policies, the book told a story about the rise of Department Of Diachronical Operations that was initiated by a military-backed research of four in finding the answer as to why magic seemed to disappear, and the invention of a machine which was based on the thought experiment of Schrodinger’s cat that could bring humans back in designated time and place; to its fall when political intrigues and manipulations clouded its purposes and goals.
I happened to stumble upon this book when I was browsing Scribd for light reading. The algorithm suggestion following my last read was this 850-pages book where its summary didn’t shed any light on what the story was about. But I liked Tristan’s character immediately; about his casual attires, his height, his seemingly intimidating pose, and his too good to be true military rank that was a bit over the top for someone his age (I imagined he was somewhere in his mid thirties), somehow led me to visualize Matthew Goode. With him in mind, I perused further.
(I admire you, Matthew!)
One of my favorite scenes was at the congressional hearing when Erzebet stormed out of the room in anger. The chairwoman then asked Dr. Blevins how to calm her to which he answered:
“It always seems to help to listen to her spend a few uninterrupted minutes besmirching the reputations of certain people, with Colonel Lyons being a particularly frequent target of abuse”.
The detailed description of the characters and surroundings made it easy to understand the humor in this book.
But of course my main favorite one was when Melisande was rescued and Tristan held her close in his arms.
“…burying my face against Tristan’s chest. I never wanted to let go of him, and his arms gripped me tight. Having just been steeped in Victoriana for the past several weeks, I noted that his delight in seeing me once again (important detail: seeing me entirely unclothed for the first time ever) was reflected in every inch of his healthy and vigorous frame, not excluding the matrimonial organs bestowed upon him by the Creator for the propagation of the race. I put my arms around the small of his back and pulled him into me, just to give him a hint that I had noticed.”
That and a little glimpse of Tristan and Melisande first time sex. Which abruptly changed to a less than romantic and in the tone as matter of fact scene where a helicopter landed with loud noise in the following morning. Putting the story back to business-related thriller.
I have guessed the sudden change was due to the fact that this book was written by two persons. And it is why I was hesitant to start reading it, because often the transitions between one writer to another seemed to be choppy (Although not so much in Will Grayson will grayson by John Greene and David Levithan, that the differences there were on point describing the two personalities telling the story of the book): At one part the story narrated an alluring and borderline to erotica kind of writing that got me giggling with anticipation, to, without prior warning, change into facts-filled and suspense induced kind of writing. So it was rather a smart decision to write the book in journal and formal email liked kind of documentation which had helped a little bit to softened the differences that would have been stark otherwise and still made it an entertaining and funny read.
I gave this book a five, for all the above I have shared here and also for the way magic was treated and presented so differently from how magic in Harry Potter was.
In this book magic was the essence of a scientific experiment and widely accepted as a waning natural phenomenon worth preserving for, an idea that I could imagine the conversation of its writers would have been something like this:
Writer 1: Let’s say that magic is real and people don’t ridicule it as a superstition.
Writer 2: Yeah, like something natural happens to people. Some have it and some don’t.
Writer 1: In that situation, let’s say it is suddenly disappeared!
Writer 2: There should be a scientific explanation!
Writer 1: It would be spiced up with a little bit of romance too…
Writer 1: Let’s write!
Something like that..
