Tons of thoughts about the Enoch Root character in Neal Stephenson‘s Cryptonomicon. I figured there was something up with Root because of his name: Enoch, a Biblical character that gains some sort of transdimensional Enlightenment. And Root, which is the name of the superuser administrative All Powerful account on *nix systems.
Enoch Root, the shadowy deus-ex-machina/Ascended Master of Neal Stephenson’s brilliant Cryptonomicon is the subject of much debate. Root appears to die midway through the book, in a scene set during WWII, only to reappear in modern times. Inquiring minds want to know: did Stephenson make a boo-boo? Is there more than one Enoch Root? Is he immortal? Here is a great deal of speculation on the subject, from both informed sources and astute guessers:
Here’s my guess: Enoch Root is an alchemist who carries the philosopher’s stone around in a cigar box. He really did die in WWII but was re-vivified by the stone. Consider:
- Enoch’s age is difficult to discern, and he does not seem to get older.
- The contents of the cigar box seem to have healing powers.
- When Detachment 2702 is in Italy, Enoch Root says that he can speak Italian but would sound like a “16th century alchemist” or something similar (don’t have the book in front of me). At first, I assumed that he learned scholarly Italian, but perhaps he was telling the literal truth.
- The symbol on the cover of Cryptonomicon is one used by alchemists.
[via Boing Boing]