Couldn't really make it through GEB. I like literary or maximalist fiction like Pynchon despite not being smart enough to understand most of it, so it wasn't the style, and I like out there scientific speculation like The Bicameral Mind so it wasn't that either.
Most of GEB just has this weird vibe of Hofstadter trying to come off as smart and trying way too hard. It's not that the ideas in the book are bad but they're also not really that interesting or deep or at least weird enough to justify all the flourish around it. It's very similar to Infinite Jest which to me also felt like the "young, overeducated man namedrops everything he knows without saying much" kind of thing.
Most of GEB just has this weird vibe of Hofstadter trying to come off as smart and trying way too hard. It's not that the ideas in the book are bad but they're also not really that interesting or deep or at least weird enough to justify all the flourish around it. It's very similar to Infinite Jest which to me also felt like the "young, overeducated man namedrops everything he knows without saying much" kind of thing.