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Well, I was wondering if this would be a quick read because manga or slow because of the heaviness of the material. Quick won out, though it certainly is very heavy material.

It's two stories interwoven: Mizuki's personal memoir (this volume is from early childhood - young adulthood), and the history of Japan. He's a great storyteller, and the art is beautifully done. At times he editorialises explicitly, and at times intentionally lays off passing judgement. In the middle of the book this was confusing, but by the end I felt like I could understand the editorial choices he was making. It comes across as a very compassionate way to tell stories that in the end he is clearly horrified by--both the politics and some of his behaviour as a kid.

The personal memoir + history book work better together than I'd have expected in this volume. My reservations were about the combo of hindsight and childhood stories specifically (as opposed to vol 2 which will clearly be that much more personal), but the childhood stuff ends up illustrating the social atmosphere in interesting ways. My one complaint is that the timeline jumps around in ways that make sense for the personal story, but at times make the history hard to follow. Probably if I had been less clueless about Japanese history before reading this it would have been less distracting.

I'm very glad I read this, both for the enjoyment and to start filling a big hole in my knowledge. I'm looking forward to getting hold of vol 2.

Anathem leads you down a garden path: The first few chapters happen in a compound that seems a lot like a monastery here on Earth, except that it’s sort of like a university too. The avout who live inside its walls study philosophy and theoretics, having contact with the outside world for only ten days each year.

“Avout”? Stephenson invents words that straddle the two perspectives, like “concent” (the compound isn’t quite a convent; it studies thought, so let’s bring in some of the word “concentrate’) and “saunt” (revered thinkers aren’t saints, but savants, which kind of works if you remember how Latin U and V are the same letter). Indeed, the book title itself is one of these, a cross of “anthem” and “anathema”. The words soon become familiar, and depending on the context, and maybe your prior knowledge of classical languages and religious rituals, you can figure many of them out, but if you don’t want to, there is a glossary at the end of the book.

It all feels very comfortable and familiar. And then Erasmus, the relater of the story, is pulled from this safe environment and thrust into the outside world, which resembles a version of our own in a slow decline. The world needs the help of Erasmus and others from the concent, and from other similar communities across the planet. This is a global crisis, and it has something to do with something in the sky.

From here, the story snowballs alarmingly in ways that would spoil the surprise for me to even hint at. Every step is plausible, but the plot grows exponentially and the climax is out of this world.

All through the story, the characters engage in Dialog, extended discussions covering seemingly random topics like philosophy, geometry, nuclear physics, the many-worlds hypothesis, and consciousness. These topics are very much not random, though, and they play a pivotal role in the plot.

Stephenson borrows heavily from the classics, deliberately, with reasons that turn out to be sensible in terms of the plot. It’s clear that he’s having fun breaking the fourth wall. If you’re not trained in philosophy you’ll probably fail to link the historical characters mentioned in Anathem with their equivalents in Earth history—I certainly did—but it doesn’t matter a lot. There’s plenty of references you will still get.

I’ve read a few Neal Stephenson books, including his classics Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon. I feel compelled to point out that Stephenson is normally terrible at writing endings, but with Anathem he lands a satisfying denouement.