The Baroque Cycle Totally Explained

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The Baroque Cycle is a series of novels written by Neal Stephenson. Appearing in print in 2003 and 2004, the cycle contains eight novels originally published in three volumes:

Quicksilver, Vol. I of the Baroque Cycle
- Book 1 - Quicksilver
- Book 2 - The King of the Vagabonds
- Book 3 - Odalisque
The Confusion, Vol. II of the Baroque Cycle
- Book 4 - Bonanza
- Book 5 - The Juncto
The System of the World, Vol. III of the Baroque Cycle
- Book 6 - Solomon's Gold
- Book 7 - Currency
- Book 8 - The System of the World

The story follows the adventures of a sizeable cast of characters living amidst some of the central events of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries in Europe. Despite featuring a literary treatment consistent with historical fiction, Stephenson has characterized the work as science fiction, due to the presence of some anomalous occurrences and the work's particular emphasis on themes relating to science and technology. The sciences of cryptology and numismatics feature heavily in the series. Quicksilver takes place mainly in the years between the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in England (1660) and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The Confusion follows Quicksilver without temporal interruption, but ranges geographically from Europe and the Mediterranean through India to Manila, Japan, and Mexico. The System of the World takes place principally in London in 1714, about ten years after the events of The Confusion.
The books feature considerable sections concerning alchemy, with protagonists including Isaac Newton, Gottfried Leibniz, Nicolas Fatio de Duillier and sundry other Europeans of note during late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The principal alchemist of the tale is the mysterious Enoch Root, who, along with the descendants of several characters in this series, is also featured in the Stephenson novel Cryptonomicon.

Main characters

Daniel Waterhouse, an English natural philosopher and Dissenter

Jack Shaftoe, an illiterate adventurer of great resourcefulness and charisma

Eliza, a Qwghlmian girl abducted into slavery, and later freed, who becomes a spy and a financier

Enoch Root, a mysterious personage who flickers about Europe and who never ages

Bob Shaftoe, a soldier in the service of John Churchill, and brother of Jack Shaftoe

Families

Below is a list of families appearing in both Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle. In cases where multiple members of the family appear (example: Wait Still Waterhouse), only the primary member(s) are listed.

	The Baroque Cycle	ryptonomicon 1940s	ryptonomicon 1990s
Waterhouse	Daniel Waterhouse	Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse	Randy Waterhouse
Shaftoe	Jack & Bob Shaftoe	Bobby Shaftoe	Douglas MacArthur Shaftoe, America Shaftoe
Hacklheber	Eliza, Johann von Hacklheber	Rudolf von Hacklheber
Goto	Gabriel Goto	Goto Dengo	Goto Dengo, Goto Furudenendo
"Silver" Comstock	John Comstock	Major Earl Comstock	Attorney General Paul Comstock
Bolstrood	Gregory, Knott, & Gomer Bolstrood	Gomer Bolstrood Furniture	Gomer Bolstrood Furniture
Foot	Mr. Foot	Foote Mansion	Sultan of Kinakuta
Root	Enoch Root	Enoch Root	Enoch Root
Churchill	Winston, John Churchill	Sir Winston Churchill

Other characters

Louis Anglesey, Earl of Upnor

Thomas More Anglesey, Cavalier, Duke of Gunfleet

Duc d'Arcachon, French admiral who dabbles in slavery

Etienne d'Arcachon, son of the duke; most polite man in France

Henry Arlanc (1), Huguenot, friend of Jack Shaftoe.

Henry Arlanc (2), Son of Henry Arlanc(1), porter of Royal Society

Mrs. Arlanc, wife of Henry (2)

Gomer Bolstrood, dissident agitator

Clarke, Alchemist, boards young Isaac Newton

Charles Comstock, son of John Comstock

John Comstock, Earl of Epsom and Lord Chancellor

Roger Comstock, Marquis of Ravenscar, Whig Patron of Daniel Waterhouse

Will Comstock, Earl of Lostwithiel

Dappa, Nigerian Linguist aboard Minerva

Moseh de la Cruz, galley slave, Spanish Jew

Vrej Esphanian, galley slave, Armenian Trader

Mr. Foot, galley slave, erstwhile bar-owner from Dunkirk

Édouard de Gex, Jesuit fanatic

Gabriel Goto, galley slave, Jesuit priest from Japan

Lothar von Hacklheber, German banker obsessed with alchemy

Thomas Ham, of Ham Bros Goldsmiths, half-brother-in-law of Daniel Waterhouse

Otto van Hoek, galley slave, Captain of the Minerva

Jeronimo, galley slave, a high-born Spaniard with tourettes

Mr. Kikin, Russian diplomat in London

Nyazi, galley slave, camel-trader of the Upper Nile

Norman Orney, London shipbuilder and Dissenter

Danny Shaftoe, son of Jack Shaftoe

Jimmy Shaftoe, son of Jack Shaftoe

Mr. Sluys, Dutch merchant and traitor

Mr. Threader, Tory money-scrivener

Drake Waterhouse, Puritan father of Daniel Waterhouse

Faith Waterhouse, wife of Daniel Waterhouse

Godfrey Waterhouse, son of Daniel Waterhouse

Mayflower Waterhouse, half-sister of Daniel Waterhouse, wife of Thomas Ham

Raleigh Waterhouse, brother of Daniel Waterhouse

Sterling Waterhouse, brother of Daniel Waterhouse

Charles White, Tory, Captain of the King's Messengers, who bites off people's ears

Yevgeny the Raskolnik, Russian whaler and anti-tsarist rebel

Peter Hoxton (Saturn), Horologist

Colonel Barnes, John Churchill's Peg-legged military commander

Historical figures who appear as characters in the novel

Charles II of England

John Churchill

D'Artagnan

Nicolas Fatio de Duillier

John Flamsteed

Benjamin Franklin (as a young boy)

George I of Great Britain

George II of Great Britain, the Prince of Wales

Mother Goose

George Frideric Handel

Christiaan Huygens

George Jeffreys

Robert Hooke

James Stuart, James II and the Duke of York

Bonaventure Rossignol, a French cryptanalyst

James Scott, Duke of Monmouth

Solomon (anachronistic), traveling incognito as Solomon Kohan

Sophia of Hanover

Sophia Charlotte of Hanover

Edward Teach

John Wilkins

William III of England, Prince of Orange

Christopher Wren

Jack Ketch

William Penn

Deviations from real history

The IJsselmeer didn't exist in the 17th and 18th centuries: it originated only in 1932. The equivalent body of water had the name of the Zuiderzee. Note, too, the correct capitalization: it should be IJsselmeer, not Ijsselmeer.

Port of Scheveningen didn't exist until the end of the 19th century.

Spij; a street in The Hague, is a misspelling of Het Spui. Het Spui at the time of the story wasn't a street but a feeder canal to Hofvijver. Many canals in The Hague were not filled in until the late 19th century.

The song of the corsair galley; Havah Nagilah Havah, is a Jewish drinking song not composed until the beginning of the 20th century. Even though the melody is ancient, the name and lyrics of Hava Nagila were not penned until around 1918.

The yo-yo never existed as a bladed weapon, although inhabitants of the Philippines used a non-returning weapon otherwise similar in concept (but made from stone) in the 16th century.

Blackbeard is shown aboard the "Queen Anne's Revenge" in 1713. He in fact didn't take possession of that ship until 1717.

Quicksilver begins in 1713 with the execution of a witch on Boston Common. But the last such execution in Boston took place in 1688. (External Link

) (Stephenson probably chose that scene to complete the symbolic bracketing of the cycle; it begins with a witch-hanging — a vestige of the Renaissance — and ends with Daniel inspecting a steam engine — the birth of the Industrial Revolution.)

Nicotine appears in pure form in the series, although it was first isolated in 1828.

Jack escapes from Cairo by water to the Red Sea; but the Suez Canal wasn't built until 1869, and ancient canals linking the Nile and the Red Sea had long been destroyed.

In Eliza's party in Paris, 1692, (II, the Confusion, p. 361) there's mention of M. Pontchartrain playing on the clavecin a "new air by Rameau". Jean-Philippe Rameau was born in 1683, and published his first Livre de pièces de clavecin not until 1706.

Father Édouard de Gex is stabbed in the chest by the tailpin of a violoncello in London, 1714. (III, p. 581) Until the Belgian cellist Adrien-François Servais started to propagate the tailpin in the 1830s, the instrument was clasped between knees and thighs.

Leibniz mentions St. Petersburg (as the capital of Russia judging by the context) in his letter in 1700. The city was in fact founded in 1703 and didn't become capital until 1712.

"Princes learning to dance a passable Ricercar" (I, p. 144). A Ricercare can't be danced to in this sense as it doesn't have a fixed meter, it being an instrumental version of ancient polyphonic styles in strict contrapuntal manner.

"that fine golden beer from Pilsen," (I, p. 421). The beer we call Pilsener wasn't invented until the 19th century.

Daniel Waterhouse founds a fledging "Massachusetts Bay Colony Institute of Technologickal Arts" that's strongly implied to be the ancestor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, when in fact MIT was founded in 1861.

King Charles' Cabal Ministry consists of fictional characters, although their initials still spell "CABAL", as those of the historic version did.

Tranquebar is referred to as an English settlement (II, p. 605); in fact it was controlled by the Danish East India company. Tranquebar didn't come under British rule until 1845, when Danes sold the territory.

A Newcomen Engine is described operating at a coal mine in Cornwall (III, p. 883). There is no coal in Cornwall, but Newcomen Engines (including probably the first engine) were used at a number of Cornish tin mines and at coal mines in the West Midlands.

Jack christens the Minerva with "a bottle of fizzing wine from the province of Champagne", in 1697 (II, p. 609). Champagne was still known for its still wines at that time, and sparkling Champagne wasn't used for christening ships until the 19th century.

Many words and phrases used by the characters, particularly slangy ones, are anachronistic. (for example "homosexual", "lesbian")Further Information

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