This was masterful on a technical, cerebral level (he does some brilliant things with syntax, repetition, and layering/nesting tenses inside one another), but I just didn't connect with it, and it didn't seem to care about making that connection with me or anyone else. It wanted me to look at it and admire it but not welcome me into conversation with it. My experience went like this:

6%: This is a new-to-me author, but apparently he's a big deal. Right from the jump, the opening chapter is just killer. Damn.

27%: Okay, this guy is very good at Thinking and at Writing Very Long Sentences, but it's starting to give Narcissistic Monologue, and I worry that's not just the character being annoying...

30% onward: This has turned into a slog. The writer is very talented words-wise, but the point of the book seems to be showing that off rather than inviting readers to sit down and share in a story.

Ultimately, this felt like a book for (and by) a certain type of man who likes to talk in circles about human things but in a way that seems removed from actual humanity and real human experiences. There were a lot of great lines and well-put slivers of philosophy, but overall it felt...icky? Because everything about the writing felt calculated rather than natural? And the casual misogyny sure didn't help. No one breasted boobily, but there was a lot of "Women don't understand X" and "Women are always doing Y because they don't know better," and he (the narrator, but also, I think, the author) certainly regarded women as insignificant pawns in a game that was being played only for and by men. Women don't have thoughts and feelings and motivations and storylines of their own, they just do and say things that sometimes happen to nudge into the storylines of men, and only the men's experiences are of any consequence. No thanks. (The opening chapter is amazing, though!)