I have not, I confess here and now, made it from first page to last of the tome – set of tomes actually – that Andrew Leonard refers to as Mt Stephenson in his review of Neal Stephenson’s latest novel. In fact, although I was knocked out by Cryptonomicon, I was frozen, motionless, by about page 100 of Quicksilver, unable to proceed and not sure how interested I was in the attempt. I think, to a point, I was like a rabbit stuck in the middle of the road, transfixed by the sheer mass of paper headed my way. Given the way my time is, I know I’ll now never read the three books, but I was interested to compare Leonard’s Salon piece with John Clute’s views on the monumental blockhead obdurate wrongness of the book. I don’t know who’s right, but the difference of opinion is interesting, and Clute is pretty clever guy.