I'll admit I was a bit confused after the first section in which they interview Flec. I read that section again, and then everything made sense. It may have helped that I have read (numerous times) Wolfe's The Shadow of the Torturer, of which the initial chapters of "mathic" life in Anathem are a sort of pastiche.

Stephenson gets plenty less approachable. I have tried multiple times to read at least two of the three books in The Baroque Cycle, and every time I have failed to progress.