Somehow this book, which I found really compelling ten years ago, seemed dead and uninspired on rereading it now. I found the philosophy tiresome and pointless, and honestly had a hard time forcing myself to slog my way through it. I think it had to do with the fact that the essential conflict of the book -- that between classic and romantic ways of thought (or science and art, rationality and emotion, function and form) -- is a non-issue to me, these days. Phaedrus drove himself insane seeking a synthesis between these two modes of thought, but it's a synthesis I achieved myself many years ago.

His over-simplification of the world, in which science is unable to recognize "quality" and art is unable to recognize function, just completely rubs me the wrong way. It's almost insulting, in fact, to someone who happens to be both a poet and an engineer; he seems to state that I must be able to do only one well. It has always been obvious to me that it is not a duality, but a continuum. Of course, I was never classically trained in philosophy, so I could be missing some subtleties to his arguments.

With such an intensely personal (in fact, autobiographical) book, it may be that you either relate to the narrator, in which case the story becomes very meaningful to you, or you don't. The ending was very abrupt; after so long spent building up to the climax, he just left the reader to attempt to figure out what the resolution was.

Overall, it seemed to me like a book written more for the author than for his readers. Partially, it seemed like he just wanted to exorcise his own demons. Also, he wanted to give a lecture on philosophy, wrapped up in the thin framework of a novel. It was neither entertaining nor enlightening.