Gödel, Escher, Bach

This is a hard-to-review book. In How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading, Adler argues that a book should be judged on how well it accomplishes its goal or purpose. In the forewords to the edition I finished, Hofstadter mentions that many people have had difficulty in grasping what the point or purpose of GEB is. In the foreword and through the books, there are several passages on the central theme: that strange loops or tangled hierarchies are a key part of intelligence.

But why then, write an 800 page book, alternating between dense chapters and (sometimes equally dense) dialogue? Why not just spell it out and get over with it?

Apart from the sheer enjoyment (which I think is a plus in its own right), the playful dialogue gave a nice break and a light teaser for what would follow. GEB would have been shorter without the dialogues; but it would also have been incredibly dense and quite devoid of character. GEB is definitely about the journey as much as it is about the destination.

It is a strange book, but also marvelous, fun and surprising. My only wish is that the tortoise would be less mean to Achilles.