I gave up on this epic brick which was supposed to be a great love story, in addition to a great outlook on society in general. The writing? Ok. Not brilliant but enough to keep me trying. The whole thing just sucked the life out of itself by excess ambition, moralizing and lecturing about various (interesting?) subjects whenever it seemed proper (too often). The conventional plot and predictable characters were surrounded by trifles and irrelevant details. It soon became clear that I would never care about the thoughts or actions of any of the people introduced. Therefore I threw this back to my bookshelf since I knew I couldn't bring myself to finish the long-winding journey.