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Yeah, same here ;)

Clarity is sadly underrated. I don’t like her writing at all, but I’m less diplomatic than you, Lark. I tend to think she doesn’t actually know what she’s talking about a good deal of the time, or what she actually wants to say, or whether she’s even interested in communicating with her reader. One of the above.

The writing is imprecise and feels lazy. The watery metaphor is, I think, a good one. Any meaning slips between the fingers. There’s nothing to grasp. There’s something deeply off about the prose. I have trouble understanding how she’s managed to be published.

Jolanta (knygupe) wrote: "Yeah, same here ;)"

i was at first thinking a liquid-y metaphor would be more apt for this particular story, but my problem with it honestly felt more like knots, hard little bumps in the prose, and so I went with it :-)

Canadian Reader wrote: "Clarity is sadly underrated."

I agree, Canadian Reader, and yet I'm just now in a GR group trying to explain why I loved Frontier by Can Xue, which is anything but direct and simple to understand, so now you have me thinking about 'clarity' and what it means.

"Clarity" is a sense of intentionality and direction, maybe, plus a dash of coherence, and maybe it even means attention to language to the point where I as a reader can in turn visualize a scene. I can see things happening. I couldn't get any of those things from what I read of Thrust.

lark wrote: "Canadian Reader wrote: "Clarity is sadly underrated."

I agree, Canadian Reader, and yet I'm just now in a GR group trying to explain why I loved Frontier by Can Xue, which is anyth..."
I agree with all you say about clarity. Yes, there’s intentionality (a sense of what one wants to do as a writer), sensitivity to words and their nuance, and even careful use of punctuation while still allowing room for readers to interpret and bring their own experiences and background knowledge to bear on a text. To some degree, the writer needs to feel readers there, to anticipate how the words, the sentences, the scenes and what-have-you might be received/apprehended by readers. I feel a lot of this may not go on with Yuknavich.

Canadian Reader wrote: "To some degree, the writer needs to feel readers there, to anticipate how the words, the sentences, the scenes and what-have-you might be received/apprehended by readers. ..."

I like this idea a lot.

You are describing glory to me lol only, mostly because I couldn’t actually picture wtf was happening in that book.

Fraser wrote: "You are describing glory to me lol only, mostly because I couldn’t actually picture wtf was happening in that book."

I actually had a tough time with Glory, too.

I usually wouldn't come out so strongly with an "I need to see it in my head" statement about what I think is important in fiction, but I seem to think if the writer decides to get rid of both plot and syntactical logic, the way this book does, then making sure your reader is able to visualize what's going on becomes all the more important (?)

Nicely put!

I really appreciate the discussion about clarity here. Whenever I lament a lack of clarity in a novel, I often feel "square", or like I didn't get it because of some deficit on my part... so it's quite validating to hear others have a similar or related experience. Thank you!

"Clarity" is a sense of intentionality and direction, maybe, plus a dash of coherence, and maybe it even means attention to language to the point where I as a reader can in turn visualize a scene. I can see things happening. I couldn't get any of those things from what I read of Thrust.

YES.

Robin I still feel the need to figure out why some readers find this style of writing intensely relatable, even revelatory, while at the same time it makes me intensely irritable. It's mysterious. It's like cilantro.

Ha! Yes, just like cilantro!

I love cilantro. I did not love this read...I made it to p10 and decided life is too short (esp. for me, maybe 15-20 years left).

I herewith announce that I am, faithless to laws and concepts of honor, stealing the text of this review to describe another book.

Richard wrote: "I herewith announce that I am, faithless to laws and concepts of honor, stealing the text of this review to describe another book. ..."

Borrow away, dear Richard...I was trying to describe a feeling that might be more common than I thought, one that leads other readers to write a succinctly three-letter review aka 'dnf' ... although 'dnf' may also stand in for many other feelings, I suppose.

lark wrote: "Borrow away, dear Richard...I was trying to describe a feeling that might be more common than I thought, one that leads other readers to write a succinctly three-letter review aka 'dnf' ... although 'dnf' may also stand in for many other feelings, I suppose."

...like "AYFKM" and "FAPoS"...

I have installed my review, my deeply, deeply disappointed review, of Thoreau in Love. I wanted to fall in love with this read.

Thank you for your kind permission!

“The words and sentences curled themselves into knotty shapes that did not fit the shape of my brain.�� Exactly!!! It was painful and irritating!

Alyson wrote: "“The words and sentences curled themselves into knotty shapes that did not fit the shape of my brain.�� Exactly!!! It was painful and irritating!"

and yet, perfect for so many readers! that's the mystery of fiction. Some writers speak to some readers. The reviews from people who respond to this novel seem to get it on an intuitive level that I can't access. Like Ron Charles in the Washington Post, who basically writes: 'I have no idea what i just read, but i loved it.'

lark wrote: "The reviews from people who respond to this novel seem to get it on an intuitive level that I can't access."

I wanted to love Frankenstein: The 1818 Text. I read my friend Sven's review, a long and eloquent yodel of joy, and said "I want your brainwaves to get inside my head so I can see this the way you are."

yeah it’s sad how we are stuck with the brainwaves we’re dealt

Most disheartening and also wretchedly unfair.

This