"Snow Crash" Concluded

Throughout the book, there is mention of religious matters. Stephenson spends several chapters to explain the history of early religion of Asherah, speaking in tongues, and how the origin of language ties into it. All this time ... I wondered what the “Raft” has to do with religion. Stephenson mentions the Raft as a place in reality but doesn’t provide details.

The Raft is a group of ships that are tied together. Each neighborhood has a guard to protect the community from being cut loose from the Raft and left to starve out in the middle of the Pacific. Hiro passes from country to country - the Nipponese, the Vietnamese, the Malaysians, the Soviets, etc.

In Chapter 53, Hiro goes aboard the Raft. He finds a guide named Transubstanciacion, “Tranny” for short, a refugee that Bruce Lee recruited. This name bring to my mind a doctrine taught by Roman Catholic Church, “transubstantiation”. The definition of transubstantiation is “changing of one substance into another”. There is an added meaning, “the conversion in the Eucharist of the whole substance of the bread into the body and wine becoming the blood of Christ, only the appearances (and other ‘accident’) of bread and wine remaining: according to the doctrine of the Roman Church.” (Oxford English Dictionary Online). What does the choice of this name have to do with the storyline or plot?

Hiro encounters the first of the antenna heads. A man Hiro has just shot and killed is still babbling away in tongues. When he checks the man, he finds a whip antenna about a foot long that is permanently attached to the skull by screws. Hiro figures this is how L. Bob Rife controls the people aboard the Raft.

Over time, Hiro pieces together what has been happening and with the help of others is able to bring the twisted situation with L. Bob Rife under control.