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Science FictionThe Diamond Age discussion
I'd be curious if anyone here has read The Diamond Age and what their thoughts were on it. It does have the typical Neal Stephenson quirks (the word pert is used to describe exactly the kind of objects one would expect from a hacky fantasy writer), the cultural commentary on China is muddled and lackluster, and one of the side plots goes in a very confusing and annoying direction. Despite all of that, I found the core of the story to be very compelling. It is a tale of how a young girl from a broken home finds a place in a world that is in some ways wildly different from ours, yet very similar in others. It's also a story about parenting, following a sort of surrogate mother for the girl who interacts with her using a sort of fancy computer. I found the passage about one of the girl's teachers to be particularly compelling, giving an explanation for a very common trope of old, menacing schoolteachers, and the value they actually bring in their positions.
I would be curious to hear what other people think about it.
I found most of my formal schooling boring and frustrating because it was designed to teach the curriculum at a pace that was way too slow for me. When I read this book I was so envious of the personalized instruction that Nell both receives from and actively participates in creating together with the Primer. In my ideal world, every child would have an education individually tailored to them the way Nell's is.
In some ways, it resembles the old world for the aristocracy, where children had tutors.