Reading the Chunksters discussion

Happy New Year!

I suppose the abacuses must be for codebreaking. But weren't those caves supposed to explode or something when anybody went down there?

In the ARETHUSA chapter (which is the next one after SLAVES, featuring Randy in jail) I noticed there is a General Wing mentioned, who is Chinese. And one of the people who escaped the caves with Goto Dengo was a Chinese prisoner called Wing ... what's the betting it's the same guy?

I don't know if it's General Wing framing him, as Randy thinks, or somebody else. Yes it would be fun if it was Cantrell or the other guy! I hope it's not Avi ...

I haven't finished this section yet, only those two chapters.

Lorna wrote: "Enoch sleeps with other people's girls so he has no friends. "

Wait, what? I totally missed that, LOL
Who did he sleep with? *hungry for the gossip*

Enoch slept with Julieta. The conversation where Bobby confronts him about it is in the ROCKET chapter. And then they proceed to discuss which one of them should “take care of her” by marrying her, which leads to the hilarious discussion over Enoch first pretending to be celibate so he can be a priest, but after marrying Julieta he will have to pretend to consummate the marriage so that she can get a passport, but won’t really consummate the marriage so he can remain a priest.

How could I forget? It's weird, I remember a lot of that chapter, especially the part with the Germans in the hut and Root on his "deathbed", but I forgot the part with Bobby confronting him. Anyway, I had fun rereading it today :)

I've now read some more chapters of this week's section. In AKIHABARA Randy is out of jail, but the bad news is he's been deported from the Philippines so he may have trouble spending time with Amy. (I sense an author looking for ways to prevent resolution of the love story until the final chapters ...) He and Avi meet up in Japan, and our old friend the very aged Goto Dengo is about to meet with them.

And PROJECT X where Lawrence and Alan Turing have a semi-encrypted phone conversation about codes.

I think the last chapter this week will be RIP? And then all of the rest next week, is that right?

Rosemary wrote: "I noticed there is a General Wing mentioned, who is Chinese. And one of the people who escaped the caves with Goto Dengo was a Chinese prisoner called Wing ... what's the betting it's the same guy?"

I assumed it was the same guy as well. I guess I figured, how many "Wings" would Stephenson put in the book in the first place? :D

Rosemary wrote: "Anyway, I had fun rereading it today :)"

Yeah, I had fun rereading it after I found the passages. I was laughing all over again. :)

I like at the end of PROJECT X where it says "Time's up. Bell Labs, and the might of the Allied governments, did not install the Project X network so that mathematicians could indulge in endless chitchat about obscure functions."

Yes, RIP is the last chapter for this week, then the rest of the book after that.

But I don't think the gold did belong in Japan, that's the thing. Or not all of it, because Avi said something about it containing his grandparents' teeth, i.e. it includes gold stolen from Jews who were killed in the holocaust. Avi wants it for his organisation that aims to prevent another holocaust - although I think Root is saying gold can't prevent wars and is more likely to cause them.

But then, I assume Root's church is the Catholic church, since he was supposed to be celibate, and the Catholic church has had a lot of gold and possessions for centuries and hasn't managed to bring about world peace yet, so giving it to the church might not be any better.

I wonder what is going to happen to this gold. Maybe it will turn out that nobody gets it...