I have to confess that I haven't read the whole book, being too busy or tired to give it the attention it deserves, but it is unique and a masterpiece of a sort. One of the blurbs inside calls it "An eccentric, madly ambitious scheme to display life all at once...the product of a hectically ingenious intelligence, like James Joyce's." Another mentions Proust, and the bio. sketch tells us that it took 9 years to write and appeared in 1978 and was acclaimed a masterpiece to put beside Joyce's "Ulysses". However, it is not obscure in the way that "Ulysses" is.

This is not a book for people who only read quick and easy reading best-sellers by Crichton, for example--mind you, I read those, too--but would be rewarding for anyone with the time and will to keep at reading it. My problem was that my work, volunteer activities, illness, and other disruptions have kept forcing me to keep putting it aside, and then I lose the continuity and have to go back to the beginning. (Not that the book's charm depends on a plot, per se, though.) I have finally decided to let it go free so someone else can enjoy it.