After hearing much praise for Light Years among my fellow literary dilettantes, I went into this novel with high expectations. For what it's worth, I think that the prose has several startlingly beautiful moments. Ex:

What is the real meaning of these stories, he wonders, of creatures that no longer exist even in the imagination: princes, woodcutters, honest fisherman who live in hovels. He wants his children to have an old life and a new life, a life that is indivisible from all lives past, that grows from them, exceeds them, and another that is original, pure, free, that is beyond the prejudice which protects us, the habit which gives us shape. He wants them to know degradation and sainthood, the one without humiliation, the other without ignorance. He is preparing them for this voyage. It is as if there is only a single hour, and in that hour all the provender must be gathered, all the advice offered. He longs for the one line to give them that they will always remember, that will embrace everything, that will point the way, but he cannot find the line, cannot recognize it.

But unfortunately I tend to agree with those who think Salter is a bit too up his own ass in this one. And that isn't to say that I always dislike self-indulgent prose, but I found the writing style a bit forced and that it did not elevate the subject matter, which felt a bit stale to me (upper-middle class artisans proceeding about their layabout lifestyle, having affairs, being sanctimonious about high arts, etc.) I didn't find the interiority of Viri or Nedra enough to connect with them as characters, either. On the whole, best appreciated for its (frequent) flashes of gorgeous prose.