erinja:I have an undying dislike of "Gerda Malaperis", though. What a slog. I could barely get through it.

I think the trick is to read it while your Esperanto still isn't very good, so you're so thrilled to understand it that you don't realize what a boring story it is.

Actually, I think Gerda was written specifically AS a didactic tool, instead of a literary work per se, so, naturally, if an advanced Esperantist were to read it, it would seem rather pedestrian and "sloggy" .

That said, I love that M. Piron is a schematist. Nothing worse than reading a neologist author who goes overboard and starts using neo's that aren't even in any dictionaries yet. At least with schematist words, you can work out the meaning.

It was specifically meant as a didactic tool, I agree with that. However, that's no excuse for the boring plot. I can easily forgive the part about repetitive use of grammatical forms, which do sound very didactic at times, if only they were advancing an interesting story.