That is actually a very recent quote from an opinion piece in the NYTimes by Olivia Judson. I like the way she writes, although recently I have been reading books and articles with styles I do not care for. It seems that like John Cage music there are some disconnected writing modes that really ring some reader's cerebral chimes. I am discovering that reading the discordant makes it oh so much easier to analyze the style if not the attraction. Right now I am plowing through Neil Stephenson's Cryptonomicon with it's over 1100 pages. Back when I was working in the cyber-reality, I enjoyed the darkness of his virtual world in Snow Crash, but his herky-jerky story line in this work is distracting. Yet, I persevere because I am trying to master the craft of reading a work I truly admire without getting lost in the author's world.
I want to see beneath the fiction and discover the structure that allows a reader to fall so deeply into the created world. I have read the Mars Trilogy at least three times trying to follow the seamless character transitions. I strive to some day be able to read Blake and understand how his hallucinations can become mine. Until then I will scribble away at my several nascent books and articles, hoping they will someday emerge into the light of public scrutiny and paint worlds yet unseen for my readers.
