On Sat, 16 Jan 2010, Michael Smith wrote:
> I see your point. And of course it _is_ literary. He's not in fact
> trying to reproduce the cadences or diction of informal speech. For one
> thing the characters with whom he's dealing at this point are not
> characters who would have spoken in a demotic register. But also, and
> more interesting to me anyway, is how he _suggests_ an actual human
> voice through the medium of highly literary language.
I quite accept that that can be done, and in a sense it always done with every literary voice because writing is different from talking. For me the problem is that he doesn't achieve this. He takes phrases from competing imaginaires that don't go together, and the results jangle against each other unpleasantly and fakily. And since the sequence of words doesn't emerge from a successful imitation of the flow of speech, they fail to carry me along. For me, reading him is like walking up endless dull stairwell.
But I didn't know sea-reach or offing were technical terms, so perhaps I am always missing a chiming that they would have if I knew more. Perhaps he sounds more natural to British ears.
Michael