I agree that the intro is exhilarating; in general, I like the same books that Moore seems to like (and, having grown up on Gaddis, have absorbed a lot of Moore’s critical sensibility along the way), and the problem is partially that he’s preaching to the choir with me. That said, I think there’s the distinct problem that his approach is going to turn off a lot of potential readers. I think that now if people are told “no, you’re wrong,” they generally find something else to read, as there’s of course no shortage of that; maybe this wouldn’t have quite been the case fifteen years ago, but the Internet changes people’s approaches to reading, and something about this feels pre-Internet. 

But the broader problem is that he’s creating a strawman (the repressive idea of the novel arising after 1600) but not really explaining what his criteria are, besides that it’s long-form prose. It seems entirely possible that the Iliad and the Odyssey could be defined as a novel under his definitions (he would be quick to point out that there are plenty of novels in verse); I wish he were more rigorous. What he’s proposing is an interesting argument, but he never really makes it an argument. There are rather good reasons for starting the idea of the novel post-Gutenberg; however, these aren’t addressed, just demonized as being limiting. 

But: I do intend to finish this book & write more about it then. And I think the sequels of this could potentially be even more interesting.