Lacking Intensity

I've reached the part of Hamnet that deals with the boy's death and funeral, and it doesn't make for easy reading. Except it's so well written that it's distinctly pleasurable to read.

I think it's the intensity of the writer's apprehension of the world that does it. The novel is life-affirming even at its darkest since each detail is so vivid and alive. Even the dead body of the child. 

I felt a bit flat this afternoon, probably the result of dutifully ploughing through some unrewarding marking, and the contrast with the vividness of what I was reading was marked. But in some ways, possibly most ways, I was happy to settle for my shallowness.