I tried Godel Escher Bach but after a few pages of his pq system I couldn't take it any more and walked away. Is this something I need to endure or am I not "getting it"?
That's great news. The chapters before that were great. I'm ignorant of anything above HS math and figured I would be lost in the rest of the book if I was having trouble in the first few pages.
I think it covers diverse explanation of the same theme i.e. can consciousness be generated out of unconscious (something like that). But I found the pq system quite interesting. BTW if you are having problem with that you can skip it, Hofstadter takes his sweet time explaining what formal systems is.