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, once an excellent author, has evidently tried to expand his style by almost imitating authors of the past such as Pynchon and Burroughs, but has succeeded only in clouding his paper, and confusing the reader with sentances that flow on without style or punctuation, and scenes which ser ....