The thing with MTW is that it's so big that it's quite hard to really mull over it (for me at least).
it's a book that I can imagine reading a lot in a very quiet world (i.e. basically a dorm or library before phones or computers) but it's very hard to actually get my teeth into it without that.
Yeah, unless you're taking a class like ph236 covering the material it's just absurd.
I hadn't realized it, but it looks like this new book is for ph136 the junior level (1st year grad) general rel prep class.
https://www.amazon.com/Gravitation-Charles-W-Misner/dp/06911...
Maybe tome size a Kip thing?