Beginning of Essay
In his criticism, Mark Harris describes a regret; a sorrow, almost, for this once-great author who has written a book he feels is almost pitiful in it's lack of clarity and style. He says the book “is a failed work of a serious man.” In his view, Doctorow, o ....

Middle of Essay
.... and hard to understand. Harris claims that Doctorow's complete abandonment of punctuation and the formal sentance in this book are reminiscent of Thomas Pynchon, but it seems as if he is trying desperately, (and badly) to search for his own style, a way to test his own limits as an author. While the language and flow of the book is hard to grasp in the beginning, it soon becomes somewhat more clear to the reader and seems to move the pace of the book along faster than it did before. But although the book seems to move much faster, it still is not clear enough to read well. One never knows if the poet Warren Penfield is in the scene, or if it is ....