Like many first-time writers, she invents her own idiom, at once mangling and stretching language as she seeks to speak and see with the immediacy of the child she once was.
If one wants to find transcendent examples of pushing reasoning to its limit and stretching language to the end of its tether, one could do worse than to read the books of my colleagues Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris.
It is particularly infuriating that the last American author to receive the Nobel prize in literature was Morrison, whose work enlarges all the possible definitions of literature and who stretches language and narrative to breaking points.
"Over the centuries people in all cultures discovered that by pushing their reasoning powers to the limit, stretching language to the end of its tether, and living as selflessly and compassionately as possible, they experienced a transcendence that enabled them to affirm their suffering with serenity and courage," Ms. Armstrong writes.
And speaking of the happiness of a plant would be stretching language too far.
Harvill Secker; £18.99In this sprawling farce, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, translating himself from his original Gikuyu having stretched his language as no one else has done, portrays a wizard who brings about the demise of a dictator and gives hope to his country, the mythical Free Republic of Aburiria.
Yet there's a stretching of language toward abstraction in the work of these poets that makes it difficult to present in another language.
For example, she claims a more professional office-based role will not only stretch your language skills, it will boost your CV and career.
Marcus made his name writing brilliantly elliptical pieces for Rolling Stone in the 70s, when slavery to the mode seemed to be compulsory, whole rafts of writers outdoing each other as they strove to stretch the language and our imaginations.
Consequently, the dialogue uses many specially coined or unfamiliar words (such as psychophagic) while the play's acid-fuelled 60s conviction that there are other, non-verbal ways of communication, such as ESP and synchronicity, also stretches the language to its limits.
