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I've heard it mentioned a few times, and I'm looking for a good summer book. This one seems long, and I don't want to start it if it's outdated or just plain bad. But it won a Pulitzer, so it can't be all that bad.
Anyone here read it? Did you like it?
Posts: 1711 | Registered: Jun 2004
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The book is amazing. But like you say, it's long, and it's not an easy read at all. But a seriously fantastic read. I know a few others have read it as well, DB and Tatiana come to mind.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I've read it. You can skip the Achilles-Tortoise sections, but otherwise it is an excellent introduction to a large number of powerful ideas.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I've read it. I wouldn't say it was the best book I've read, but I think I would say it was the most influential on me. It touches on so many subjects, that you might even be confused about what the book is about. If you don't at least have a slight interest in Godel's Incompleteness Theorems, you will find long stretches of the book fatiguing and boring.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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Some people find them entertaining, yes, but for entertainment you can find better short stories on the web. For the ideas, read the meat of the book.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Read most of it. I see it as the kind of book you read a few chapters, re-read them, then ruminate.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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My brother read it and seemed to like it quite a bit. I seemed to recall he borrowed it from a library several times and them just bought the thing because it took so long to get through.
Posts: 369 | Registered: Apr 2007
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The first half of the book (GEB) is, I think, pretty timeless. The second half, (EGB), which delves more specifically into genetics and artificial intelligence is definitely dated in places but still very relevant. Its actually surprising how little progress has been made in the past 30 years on many of the key questions raised in the book.
As others have mentioned, this is not a book that should be read quickly. It requires a lot of rumination. It's also not a book where you need to read every section.
If you read this book, I highly recommend you read Mary Midgley's "Science and Poetry".
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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Yeah, just to jump back in and leave more feedback, this book took me the better part of a year and a half to read.
I disagree with King of Men about the Achilles-Tortoise sections. I thought they were not only entertaining, but intellectually satisfying as well. One sticks out in particular, because it was included in Hofstadter and Dennett's amazing The Mind's I. It was a chapter in which Achilles an the Tortoise are discussing an important concept in the book through dialogue, and eventually you realize that not only is their conversation about the concept but the actual structure of the conversation, the structure of the sentences you are reading is analogous to the concept being talked about as well.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Strider yes. To the point that some of those dialogues are complete palindromes. He illustrates the concepts with the structure of the language in those sections. It makes the whole book multidimensional.
It isn't however, a "beach" book. It's more like reading a calculus manual written as poetry.
Most amazing book I have ever read, however, yes, sometimes one page took me a week to read and comprehend enough to move on to the next page.
Posts: 39 | Registered: Dec 2001
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