It was boring. The main character was presented as some soulful intelligent man who was too good for his professorship position, but in fact he was a self-important twit. Also, none of the women were given nearly as much agency and character as the men. We learn about his sons-in-law's jobs, hopes, values, discontents in life; we learn about his daughters' appearances. Possibly these relationships and value systems might have gotten challenged by the events in the later portions of the books, but I didn't care enough to find out.