slightly too dense to be a good fairytale, and slightly too blithe to feel really emotionally satisfying in the end, but passes through some good stuff on the way. there’s some gorgeous descriptions of housing and trains and instantly imaginable characters. and i was completely blown away by the Governor Pyncheon chapter. its use of second person, its commitment to it, and the appearances of the ghosts, are so effective in what they do, and so aesthetically and vividly distinct that i thought of films: i was  reminded of the sudden, memorable distinctions which a changed in visual language can create (the black and white parts of Dune Part 2, the reality/expectation segment of 500 Days of Summer, the brief court sequence in Dial M For Murder); i can’t think of another book section so striking that it caused me to recourse to visuals like this did (for instance, the story within a story here, which does have a distinct style to it, did not inspire anything like that). so that was great.