Enoch Root

Enoch Root (Enoch the Red) is a fictional character from Neal Stephenson's novels The Baroque Cycle and Cryptonomicon. He is a religious leader by profession, but can handle himself in a fight, and is also competent in medicine, chemistry, and cryptography. He has ties to a semi-secret society known as the Societas Eruditorum. Randy Waterhouse describes him (in keeping with Randy's penchant for describing people in terms of characters or races from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien) as a Wizard.

Characterization

Root possesses an alchemical means of rejuvenation called by Leibniz, in the Baroque Cycle, the elixir vitae, which allows him to be resurrected after he dies, and be present in novels set in the 17th, 18th, and 20th centuries. He also has an uncanny ability to be at the right place at just the right time to influence other characters, so that they do something of importance.

For example, Root sees Eliza in an observatory in The Hague, and shouts out a cryptic message that gets her to turn the telescope to the horizon, where she spots the sails of a French ship sailing in to abduct William of Orange. Once she figures this out, Eliza rushes to the beach to help rescue the Prince.

Root's elixir vitae resurrects both Daniel Waterhouse and Sir Isaac Newton in The Baroque Cycle; in Cryptonomicon the elixir is used to resurrect Bobby Shaftoe and (implicitly) Root himself, as well as to heal Amy Shaftoe's gangrenous leg

In Cryptonomicon Root is portrayed as having a particular passionate belief that cryptography is important for maintaining freedom. He is the wisest character in the book, despite a disturbing racism. He constructs a war of Good versus evil, allowing the Chinese and fascists become the "enemy".

Name

How Root has what he has and does what he does is a mystery to readers. His last name may be a play on the concept of root user, the superuser, who has godlike powers in Unix style computer operating systems (operating systems being a subject Stephenson has written about at length). It is, however, also Dutch for "red" (in modern spelling, rood); Enoch's father was Dutch, and Enoch is sometimes known as "Enoch the Red" in keeping with the The Lord of the Rings naming convention for wizards.

There is also a figure in the Book of Genesis called Enoch, who, after living a faithful life, "walked with God" instead of dying. Genesis 5:23 also states "and all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years:", and Enoch was the father of Methuselah, so presumably his first name suggests his longevity. The nature of Enoch Root in Stephenson's books may have more to do with legends about that Enoch's place in Jewish mysticism and the mythology of Freemasonry than strictly what is in the Bible.

Enoch (the religious figure), is often associated with alchemic god, Hermes Trismegistus. Hermes Trismegistus was a syncretism of the Greek god Hermes, and the Egyptian god Thoth. Hermes is already related to Neal Stephenson's work, being mentioned in The Diamond Age as a trickster-technologist god, and talked about in Quicksilver as Mercury, specifically about his role as the god of profit and commerce.

Other names

For a number of years in the early 1600s, Enoch lived under the assumed identity of Egon von Hacklheber.

See also

• Philosopher's Stone
• Wandering Jew
• G-Man (Half-Life)

External links

• Enoch Root page at The Metaweb, now at the Wayback Machine.
• What's up with Enoch Root?
• Hackworth presents the Primer to Lord Finkle-McGraw, from The Diamond Age, now at the Wayback Machine.