Neal Stephenson, moral thinker Tom Smith

I‘m linking to this Instapost because I really liked Cryptonomicon, and thought, perhaps like Glenn, that the book did not get enough credit as social criticism.  One thing I really liked about the book was the hero’s (sorry, senior moment on remembering his name) rejection of unbearably tedious political correctness in “love”, or whatever they would call it, and going instead for more traditional romance.  As someone who spent several unbearably tedious years with an English PhD candidate girlfriend, I can only say he captures the horror the horror of it perfectly.  The over-intellectualizing, the dithering, the unwarranted sense of superiority to people who work for a living, and so forth.  The novel is the absolute opposite of the boo-hoo, I can’t decide what to do chick fiction that descended upon us in the late ’70s and ’80s.  It is also a hilarious irony when hero’s useless ex-girlfriend sues him for what she can get for palimony, though she would have despised any notion of bourgeois commitment, and settles out shortly before our hero discovers (spoiler ahead) the horde of Nazi gold. Yuk yuk.  It might be time to read that book again.