* The dialogs are overlong and obtuse
* Some specific metaphors don't click
* The author attacks various things which he feels Hofstadter belittles (avant-garde music, Zen)
He may be right about the dialogs, though as others have said perhaps it's better to read the chapters backwards. Or, even, metaphorically like the Crab Canon: dialog, chapter, and then dialog again.
He's clearly projecting his own perspective without thinking about the perspective of others when it comes to the metaphors. This won a Pulitzer, not everyone has a mathematical background and can straight up understand Godel when directly explained.
But it's the third part that is most troubling. These days it's fashionable to take some earlier cultural artefact, and assassinate it on the basis that every point of view is valid, genuine, and can't be criticised. I smell that same pattern in his counter-attacks on "avant-garde social commentary masquerading as music" and Zen. Hofstadter has an opinion on these. A strong, negative opinion. Attacking Hofstadter the way he does to me more smacks of a post-hoc character assassination than intelligent engagement with the material.
As an aside: I read Hofstadter (somewhere) say that he has spent a lot of his life after GEB trying to hammer home that it was about self-reference, self-reference, and nothing but self-reference. I think he even described "I am a Strange Loop" as being GEB but much more direct (I still need to read that one).
* The dialogs are overlong and obtuse * Some specific metaphors don't click * The author attacks various things which he feels Hofstadter belittles (avant-garde music, Zen)
He may be right about the dialogs, though as others have said perhaps it's better to read the chapters backwards. Or, even, metaphorically like the Crab Canon: dialog, chapter, and then dialog again.
He's clearly projecting his own perspective without thinking about the perspective of others when it comes to the metaphors. This won a Pulitzer, not everyone has a mathematical background and can straight up understand Godel when directly explained.
But it's the third part that is most troubling. These days it's fashionable to take some earlier cultural artefact, and assassinate it on the basis that every point of view is valid, genuine, and can't be criticised. I smell that same pattern in his counter-attacks on "avant-garde social commentary masquerading as music" and Zen. Hofstadter has an opinion on these. A strong, negative opinion. Attacking Hofstadter the way he does to me more smacks of a post-hoc character assassination than intelligent engagement with the material.
As an aside: I read Hofstadter (somewhere) say that he has spent a lot of his life after GEB trying to hammer home that it was about self-reference, self-reference, and nothing but self-reference. I think he even described "I am a Strange Loop" as being GEB but much more direct (I still need to read that one).