Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

I just finished GEB last night, but I gotta say, I have mixed feelings about the book. On the one hand, it was at times a delightful read, particularly due to the wordplay and the structure of the book. However, at other times it became fairly dense, and to be honest, I’m not sure how much I got out of reading it.

I’d like to compare it to another book, namely Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. The Critique was dense the whole way through, and although it didn’t have the little delights that peppered GEB, one thing that I enjoyed most was the sense of closure that one obtains when one finishes it. GEB in contrast didn’t really give many answers, not that I don’t appreciate the authors candor.

GEB seems more about getting one in a frame of mind, teaching one to think about things in a new way. And for that, the book is pretty amazing, and it made it an interesting read. But there isn’t much to refute, I almost feel as though the entire work was merely a Zen koan, but perhaps that is all that it aimed to be.