I should have been reading it, but I’ve been listening to Anathem. And I’m nearly through. Though, it has left a few lingering questions in my brain that I’m starting to consider might not be answered — or rather, might be puzzles left for the reader. If I had the dead-tree version I could have flipped back to review, or seen the text with my own eyes, and this might have helped with subdue this feeling.

Alas.

In my efforts to seek a little more information on this, the latest tome by Neal Stephenson, I dug, and ultimately I came across, online, a comment by someone who claimed that it was — and I’m paraphrasing here — like reading a fictionalized version of Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter.

So, I’ve pulled Gödel, Escher, Bach from my shelf — sitting there idly for a couple years now — and for a few days I’ve been attempting to read that book, too. And this has made things rather stranger, but only because “…[Gödel, Escher, Bach] is not about mathematics, art, and music but rather about how cognition and thinking emerge from well-hidden neurological mechanisms.” And the former is what I was thinking Anathem has been discussing, at least in its own meandering and full-bodied sort of way.

But now I’m not so sure.

Far be it from me to sum the notions of a patiently told story, explicitly based around the themes of the long now, in a few rambling words on my blog. Far be it from me to clip the plot into a quick précis. So, if you’ve read this book — or are planning to — let it be known that I am seeking a conspirator to discuss the implications.