A Density of Souls

Finally finished Christopher Rice's first novel, A Density of Souls. It was a chore, partly because of the awkwardness with which he mishandled words. If a word arrests the reader's attention, it detracts from the sentence and the work as a whole. Rice made some strange verb choices. He seemed enamored with "cock" and "splay". Why his editor allowed a character to have "splayed" her napkin is a greater mystery than the one miscarried by the plot.

On the plus side, he captured the tone of gay relationships. He offered a titillating peek into the world of boyish mutual masterbation and an obligatory coming of gayness story. I was disappointed at the lack of New Orleans setting descriptions. If I read one more explanation of how the high water table prevents ground burials there, I think I'll scream. It was utterly irrelevant to this book. Still, it is a first novel that was published, more than I can say for mine, mouldering in the box that first contained the paper on which it is typed.

I like the variant spelling of "mold" as "mould", especially when used as a verb. It seems a more decadent decay. A personal connotation confuses it with "maudlin" (how I feel about the novel) and "maundering" (what I fear about it).

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