Kory Hurst

On his old website, Neal has expressed his dislike for “The Big U”.

“The fact that virtually all of the first edition ended up getting pulped created an unnatural scarcity of the printed book, which is only now being alleviated by a new edition from HarperCollins. This scarcity caused the price of the first edition to become ridiculously high, and led to bootleg editions being posted on the Web. If the book were judged on its own intrinisic merits, it would not attract such a high price or engender such curiosity. “The Big U” is what it is: a first novel written in a hurry by a young man a long time ago.”

I think he is selling the novel a bit short. Although not of the depth and breadth of his more recent books, especially The Baroque Cycle. Nor the technical details of Cryptonomicon.

The one thing that The Big U has in greater supply than any of Stephenson’s other books that I have read is his trademark wry humour. Not to mention the as advertised scathing satire. There are several really humorous passages, that had me laughing out loud, but the following is the funnest, and is largely plot independent. As a bonus, this is one of the passages where his computer science expertise shines through.
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“If you are a victim of crime, a police officer, politician, lawyer or judge; if you are the parent of an addict, child of an addict, or a recovering addict yourself; if you believe that drug users are simply immoral or weak; if you are like millions of other angry citizens, read In the Realm ofHungry Ghosts. I cannot begin to tally how many revelatory, shocking and reassuring words, lines, paragraphs and whole pages I have highlighted in this astonishing book.”
Susan Musgrave, writer and poet

The following are a bunch of excerpts from “The Realm of Hungry Ghosts Close Encounters with Addiction” by Gabor Mate. This is not meant to summarize the book as it is filled cover to cover with revelations. These are just some passages that I found particularly profound. I have included section and chapter titles in order to provide some context. The page numbers are from the first edition. There is no intent to infringe on copyright although given the length of this post, it might seem so. In fact, I recommend that you get a copy at Amazon. Of course you could also sign it out at your local library. For reference, the page numbers are from the first edition.
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