This kind of worked for me-- the story of a man's life, Jonas, told at the end of it, as he reflects and philosophizes and tries to stay alive on a series of equinoxes and solstices in the 1630s. There's a lot of excess in here, from bad science to weird philosophy to potted history and the narrator is kind of annoying. But you read and you read and eventually you're pretty committed to his story and I'll admit that I felt some things when some things happened to old Jonas.... Still not my favorite thing, and I think a lot of the historical events that were interpolated into the book sailed over my head. But it had its moments.