I loved the first quarter or so--it was unputdownable. But then it started to drag. Took me a couple months to get through the last 3/4. I loved his other work so much, but this was ultimately a let down. I didn't really care about any of the characters, and found their dilemmas trite and incomprehensible. There were some good passages and quotes, but they were too few and far between. E.g., there was a passage about Anna Karenina--about plowing through the agrarian reform until you get to the good part, which makes you almost grateful for the previous dull stretch. That's a great idea, but it fell flat in execution. I didn't get to the "good part" of this book. It just remained dull for hundreds of pages. The last chapter or two were good, but not worth it.