[fmoralesc]

"The challenge that the novel of ideas faces: how does one integrate the exposition and discussion of ideas in the context of a novel (when the origin of those ideas is not the novel itself)?"

"[The techniques used in the novel of ideas] are in conflict with some expectations [enumerated here...] about how a novel works, that in turn were established as novels became more than historical retellings and romances stories".

It is stuffy, but not meaningless.