Joe's
Digital Garden

Snow Crash

Themes

  • Is Snow Crash really anti-capitalist or even a dystopia? It seem like a satirical exageration of our current circumstances, but Stephenson doesn't really seem to be critical of the setting of Snow Crash. The characters fight to maintain the status quo and uphold the existing power structures. They appear to validate the economic disparity between the rufus of the raft and the mainland. Stephenson himself has worked as a visionary for Bezos and has even been hailed as "The Billionaire's Bard."
  • Traditional power structures (the government, religion) vs non-conventional power structures (organized crime and corporate interests). Our heroes support the former against the later.
  • Language and culture as a memtic virus.
  • Memes as a virus, memes and media as an organic self-replicating process. Much of what we see as disinformation could be thought of as literally viral information processes.
  • Linguistic architecture. Is there a fundamental linguistic structure behind all languages? A hardwired ability to communicate within the mind?
  • Hyper individualistic. Wheras Evangelion, which came out a few years later struggles with the question of whether expanding human consciousness and breaking down the barriers between individual aspects -- Hiro never addresses this thought. Protecting individuality is assumed. Group consciousness is immediately seen as villianous.
  • Control. There are a lot of systems of control in the world of Snow Crash, but they all appear to be ineffective and easily bypassed. Y.T. easily walks out of the Clink. Hiro wrecks a car into a pool without consequence. Even access to the raft is easily achieved.

Setting

  • The metaverse is very very camp. Which makes Facebook co-opting this term very appropriate. It's an environment that is ultimately corporate controlled and a means of controlling and empowering existing power structures with a surface appearance of being counter cultural.
  • The setting is almost satirical but played straight. The government is ineffectual. Environmental degradation is rampant and accepted. The middle class lives in suburban fortresses overseen by private police forces. A kind of hyper-home ovwner association. Organized crime has taken over consumer goods. There is rampant sexism, racism and disparity between nations. Religion still exists, but is the evangelical propserity gospel types.

Characters

  • Hiro and Y.T. are likely characters. It is easy to root for them. They represent underdogs, people living on the margins of this society who have found an ability to thrive through unique skills. They very much exist in a romantic tradition.
  • The characters here are very much in contrast with the characters of Cryptonomicon who are played very realistically. I would characterize Snow Crash as a romance and Cryptonomicon as a modern realist novel. The later contains characters who are misogynsts, racists and rather outright scum. It is a damning illustration of the reality of the tech industry and it's close relationship to colonialism and the military-industrial complex. Although, I am unsure if this was Stephenson's intention. Cryptonomicon, I should point out, I could not finish since it felt too much like work.
  • Hiro is of mixed race. His mother is Korean and his father was African American. He has a connection to WWII (father was a POW). He is a weeb, but also seems to delight in turning Japanese cultures against themselves. He is a hacker, having worked on foundational work with the metaverse.
  • Raven is an interesting antagonist in that he is an elemental force of nature. He appears, does something disappears. He has a motivation of revenge for American colonialism but doesn't really seem to be engaged with it.
  • Uncle Enzo, Mr. Lee and Ng make up the collition working to stop the distribution of snow crash. They are portrayed in a sympathetic light, even when Enzo is threatening to kill a subordinate.
  • Rife is the principal antagionist, supported by the fed and pearly gates. He is a Texan billionaire working in telecommunications and is the real owner of the metaverse. He is a religious fundamentalist and control freak.

Structure

  • Begins in medias res. Hiro delivering a pizza is rescued by Y.T. He repays this favor by helping her get out of the Clink.
  • We enter the long middle of the book. Which I enjoyed the most. Hiro explores the metaversae and regales the reader about it's short history. Y.T. makes deliveries and ends up hooking up with Uncle Enzo and the mob. Eventually the snow crash maguffin is introduced. A virtual virus that wipes your higher level language skills by merely looking at it. This virus impacts Da5id. Another hacker and friend of Hiro. Hiro begins exploring snow crash.
  • Thinking about [[kishotenketsu]]. Snow Crash is a western novel. But it is interesting that Hiro and Y.T. are both very disaffeted protagonists. The conflict that the snow crash maguffin introduces is pretty much ignored for a long time (shou). Hiro explores it, but prioritizes putting on a concert. Y.T. gets involved through an external antagonist (Uncle Enzo).
  • This shifts once Y.T. is kidnapped and Hiro decides to rescue Juanita from the raft. Suddenly the story shifts to a traditional western plotting. The characters have goals (escape the raft, rescue the girls) and it plays out as such. Interestingly, I loose interest at this point. It is difficult to end a novel. This one just turns into a mess of different characters fighting. Stakes are suddenly created and forgotten. We don't really hear the voice of Hiro and the end. The narrator pulls back and speaks from the perspective of the audience to his fight. He then just disappears. Y.T. phones her mom who picks her up while the fight is still ongoing as the final sentence of the book.
  • One annoyance is the long winded info dumps in the book which are regurgitated twice, first to Hiro and then again from Hiro to Uncle Enzo. In It's Entirety.

External References

  1. 'Snow Crash' Is a Cyberpunk Classic. Wired. Retrieved 2022-03-19.
  2. Madole, Rob. The Billionaire's Bard. The Baffler. Retrieved 2022-03-19.
  3. Grassian, Daniel. Discovering the Machine in You: The Literary, social and Religious Implications of Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash". Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. Retrieved 2022-03-19.
  4. Swanstrom, Kisa. Capsules and Nodes and Ruptures and Flows: Circulating Subjectivity in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. Science Fiction Studies. Retrieved 2022-03-19.

Linked References