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It's hard not to feel disappointed about the direction -- or lack of one -- this prolific author's talent has taken; he's writing the same kind of books he did nearly 20 years ago, to ever-diminishing laughter.
But that's a testament to the author's talent: there may not be much plot in the uncle's story, but he tells it supremely well.
So too does the author's talent.
Yet what comes across, even in a second language, is the author's talent for atmosphere.
Last year in these pages, Madison Smartt Bell admired the author's "talent, grace and confidence".
In her review Michiko Kakutani, the Times's chief book critic, noted a disconnect between the novel's "splashy, Hollywoodlike premise" and the author's "talent for smaller-scale portraits".
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The only sections that are unworthy of the author's talents are the brief ventures into intellectual history, and the proverbial British prudishness about abstract ideas may have something to do with this.
The spaciousness of the author's talents, his gifts of eye, passion and reflective intelligence cast a fierce tropical light over the scrub, the droughts, the isolated horsemen and cattlemen and the "crude gnostic" Conselheiro, the religious leader.
This, however, seems a poor excuse for paying such perfunctory attention to the main plot Liam's romance with Eunice because the complete implausibility of that story line makes for a flimsy and unsatisfying novel, a novel quite unworthy of this gifted author's talents.
In the end "A Carnivore's Inquiry" is little but a horror story garnished with some finely written historical asides and lots of pretensions, a novel that fails to do justice to the author's talents, which were on display so hauntingly in her last book.
In the case of Jean Rhys's "Wide Sargasso Sea," which takes up the story of the first Mrs. Rochester from "Jane Eyre,") the author's talents meshed so neatly with her material that she was able to create a parallel universe persuasive enough to make readers reconsider an iconic figure.
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Since I tried Ludwig back in 2017, I have been constantly using it in both editing and translation. Ever since, I suggest it to my translators at ProSciEditing.

Justyna Jupowicz-Kozak
CEO of Professional Science Editing for Scientists @ prosciediting.com