Possibly the most stupid of all the different kinds of stupid macho boasting imaginable is macho boasting about how quickly you can read stuff. I mean, it’s not like I used the considerable mass of the book to squash any irritating buzzing insects, or weightlifted with a stack of copies of it until my abs were really ripped or something. Anyway, people tend to assume you’re reading really carelessly and disrespectfully if you just tear through something in no time at all. It’s like downing a pint of single malt whisky, or something equally inadvisable (takes me back to the mercifully little I remember of my 18th birthday…)

Be that as it may, getting through the 900+ pages of Cryptonomicon took me from Saturday morning to Thursday evening. I did once read a Victorian doorstop of a novel in a couple of days so as not to appear completely clueless at a seminar, but then I hardly had anything else to be doing at the time.

I enjoyed and savoured every minute of Cryptonomicon, and feel rather bereft now I’m done. Just as well there’s Quicksilver to be getting on with! But first I have to obtain it from the library.

Like most readers of the book, towards the end I had a nagging question that was never satisfactorily resolved: What’s Up With Enoch Root?. Having reviewed the site linked from the preceding sentence, I’m now enjoying the mystery even more…