But they never maintain any one shape for very long. They are always bleeding into new configurations. The novel is a flux of words, meeting a flux of bodies. Rice's gorgeous prose stutters and sings by turns. Words cascade in syncopated rhythms.
Pronouns shift in gender, person, and number.
Sentences break into fragments. Phrases proliferate in kaleidoscopic patterns. Language is intensely carnal. This gets in the way of meaning. Scattering frozen syllables, lost, on the floor, words were arrested, made to suffer on her tongue.