Reading

I'm slowly getting through The Private Patient. I'm not sure if this is the first 'English novel' (I don't know a better description) I've read, but if not, it's certainly one of the few. I get a little irritated at the long, langourous paragraphs -- instead of 'It was raining as he walked in the garden', it'll have "The sound of the rain, splashing and puddling beneath his feet as he slowly walked in the overgrown garden, still showing the last blooms of spring amid the thicker, more lush growths of hollygrass and lavender, and the occasional sprig of thistledown, brought to his mind memories of his childhood at Chiltenham, though this garden was nothing like that one, and indeed could be considered almost exactly its opposite." Cut to the chase! I think. And yet -- there's something comforting in the flow of words, so I keep reading, letting them roll over me.