mikeShriver

I’m walking down the long hall of an early 20th century Methodist temple, towards the high gothic sanctuary and the hard pew where I will be spending the rest of my evening completely enraptured by the man who most influenced my current philosophy. Around me are the devotees, with their long hair and dark colored clothing, each hefting what can only be described as a tome, and eagerly awaiting the words of our priest.

The gathering is, of course, not a religious one, but a book signing. The Author is Neal Stephenson. The volume being brandished is Anathem, a novel that is, in true Stephensonian style, as grand as it is detailed. It is a sprawling yarn that tells of a culture that holds intellectual curiosity in the same spheres as the people of Earth would regard a monastic order.

But I am not here for the novel, I have not even read it. In fact, my attention span has collapsed under the sheer length of at least the last three of Stephenson’s epics. I am here because of a lesser known work written almost ten years ago, a long essay that I came across during my freshmen year of college. It is something that the author certainly considers one of his minor works, something that he would pass over with a dismissive comment if it were brought up at an event such as this. It is called “In The Beginning Was the Command Line” and it is the single most influential thing I have ever read.

I usually attend these things with a certain level of detachment. I tend to think that the hype, the aura of anticipation and awe that usually surrounds these things is unfounded. Any successful author, no matter how brilliant, is subject to a certain amount of inflation and I tend to distrust anything that large groups of people adore without reserve.

Of course there is always an exception to attitudes like this one, especially for someone as emotionally inconsistent as I am. Neal Stephenson is certainly no more deserving of my devotion than Graham Greene, Kurt Vonnegut, or Thomas Pynchon. My rational brain knows that. But I still found myself stammering like a lovestruck schoolgirl when I stood before him to get my copy of Anathem signed for a friend.

And, of course, I forgot to bring ‘In the Beginning’ to have signed for myself. Damn.

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