Reading the Chunksters discussion

Lorna wrote: "A day a late but here is the new folder for this week. I wanted to ask this last week but what is everyone opinion of all the language and adult content of cryptonomicon? What I mean do you like it..."

Personally, I don't ever think curse words make good adjectives or interjections, so I would not use them myself.

However, I don't feel they are excessive to the point where I am not able to enjoy the story, and I do realize that some amount contributes to whether a story is believable.

I probably veer towards more wholesome books overall, but am not opposed to books that may not be considered "wholesome." Life isn't always altogether wholesome and I don't believe in keeping my head in the sand either. That's just my take.

I tend to read older stuff, or non-fiction, but this is about as raunchy as most modern stuff I do pick up.

I hadn't even noticed any cursing or adult content and was wondering what your question referred to ... so that must say something about the books I read! ETA: Just reached the last chapter. There is a lot of cursing in that!

So in this section we have Bobby Shaftoe's granddaughter(?) running a dredging operation and being hired by Randy Waterhouse in the present day. I did enjoy their meeting. And I bet people do make judgements like that about body hair!

I imagine the product Randy and Avi are developing is something like Skype or Facetime?

I had to look up "epiphyte". It's a plant that grows on other plants (e.g. on trees) without harming the host plant (so, not a parasite). Like moss, lichen and also orchids and some ferns. They exist on land and in the ocean.

Lorna wrote: "I do not know how to do spoiler alerts on these comments so do not read if you have not completed the reading, but who else enjoyed the meeting of Randy and America, he did not know what to make of..."

I loved everything about randy meeting America. I think she is my favorite character. I would imagine she is Glory’s daughter, and this brings up a lot of questions since she seems to have grown up in the states, but I just love her. She is like the girl version of Shaftoe.

Overall, I have enjoyed how the stories are interweaving where the young Waterhouse meets the young shaftoe and the old Waterhouse is working on the same project 2702 that the old shaftoe is assigned. It is intriguing and it is also enjoyable to see the family resemblance.

This was my favorite line in the story this week.

“I don’t want to hear the lizard story, Sergeant!” “Sir! Yes, sir!”

Gosh that’s just funny to me.

I also loved the character participation in Ultra. It is one of the reasons this book fascinated me to begin with because I remember reading about some of these things in a computer science class and wondering what it would have been like to be there.

It is one thing to get the impression from a historical perspective. It is another to introduce a character who experiences it and be able to entertain all the questions and feelings you would have during that experience.

We are witnessing the birth of data science basically through the eyes and ears of Waterhouse. I just love it.

The reason 2701 is a big deal is because it's a significant number mathematically, and their German former friend Rudy who is now working for Hitler's war machine, presumably in codebreaking, is likely to recognise this (as Waterhouse immediately did) and guess that Detachment 2701 is linked to spying or some other special code-related task.

So it would draw his attention. And they don't want this because they want to hide whatever special activities they are doing and look like a regular military troop.

Oh, so that is why Waterhouse basically said that he knew Turing thought of the number because it was the product of two prime numbers. Rudy would also recognize that Turing was involved and that this wasn’t an ordinary military operation.

That makes so much more sense. I didn’t really catch that either.

The cursing doesn’t bother me. I read a wide range of genres so this is about as “bad” as it gets for contemporary books that I pick up. Well, except for one particular new release I read this year, that one was so over the top I almost stopped listening to the audiobook except that I really wanted to see where the story went. In retrospect, that one would have been a good candidate for print where I could just skim over that stuff. Anyway, in this book it feels appropriate as it seems to fit with the characters.

Marie - that lizard quote was hysterical. Lol. :D

I also like the parallel of characters between the two different time periods, and seeing how the three different threads at the beginning are starting to weave together.

Either I’ve missed something or it hasn’t been revealed yet, but I don’t understand the reasoning in faking the dead butcher’s coffin and cremation. What is the plan for the actual body, then? Maybe I will find out in the next section.

One of my favorite lines was when Lawrence is at the Mansion for the meeting...

They kept saying “woe to hice!” but just as he actually begins to feel sorry for this Hice fellow, whoever he is, he figures out that this is how they pronounce “Waterhouse.”

Linda wrote: "What is the plan for the actual body, then?"

No, it hasn't been revealed yet AFAIK. It reminds me of a situation where the British secret service dropped a dead body with false information in his pockets, where the Germans would find it and think he had died in an accident on an important mission. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operati...

I guess this is something similar. But I don't know for sure.

Rosemary wrote: "It reminds me of a situation where the British secret service dropped a dead body with false information in his pockets, where the Germans would find it and think he had died in an accident on an important mission. "

Oh, interesting! I was not aware of that.