Authors of contemporary literary fiction are placed under a great burden by the modern reading community. The pressure to create works with a wholly unique writing style is one that often outweighs the call to construct a powerful story. Authors should not be blamed, then, for this unfortunate fact. There are some writers, however, who—falling prey to the ubiquitous call to form a unique style—sacrifice plot and coherence in the search to build an outstanding voice. In Leave the World Behind, Rumaan Alam reveals himself to be the latter.

        Set in present-day New York, Alam’s novel details the story of Clay and Amanda. Seeking a reprieve from the bustle of city life, they rent a house in the woods on Long Island. Their vacation is interrupted suddenly, however, when the owners of the house—an elderly couple named Ruth and G.H.—arrive on the doorstep one evening unannounced and inform them that there has been a blackout in the city and they need a place to stay (providing the excuse that they couldn’t drive into the city or walk up fourteen flights of stairs to their room). 

        The forced eccentricity of Alam’s writing style becomes present from the first page. A confluence of run-on sentences and platitudes pervade the work. “Well, the sun was shining,” the novel opens. “They felt that boded well—people turn any old thing into an omen. It was all just to say no clouds were to be seen. The sun where the sun always was. The sun persistent and indifferent.” So begins the first chapter.

Alam’s desire to command a “special voice” is seen clearly from the first words of the novel. It, however, does not serve him well—indeed, it hinders the progression of the novel far more than it helps. The flaws in his writing begin to reveal themselves from this very first paragraph and later as the novel continues. 

Alam’s writing holds similarities to a disorderly musical performance. Instead of creating a flowing narrative, Alam inserts platitudes at the beginnings (or ends) of paragraphs, sometimes consecutively, in persistent staccato bursts. “It was hot but the wind was relentless, bringing in a chill from the void of the ocean,” he writes, describing the Long Island weather. “There was something Arctic in it, and who was to say that wasn’t literally the case. The world was vast but also small and governed by logic.” 

        It is a perfectly reasonable technique to insert philosophy through a character’s thoughts—quite another for the author to intercede using their own voice as a mechanism for musings. It would be unkind and inaccurate to state that Alam is alone in inserting his musings into the novel—yet it is accurate to state that few authors are able to execute it properly. One such example is Victor Hugo, who included a passage entitled “A Parenthesis” in Les Miserables (thus bringing his diatribe concerning convents to more than forty pages). Hugo’s Belgian publisher, noting the excessive length of Hugo’s diversion from the narrative, was unable to persuade Hugo to delete the passage from the novel, and so it remained. As a result of Hugo’s stubbornness, many subsequent English editions turned the passage into an appendix placed at the end of the novel. Oddly, Alam seems to think he can succeed where Hugo could not—his efforts, however, are unfortunately in vain. 

        The premise of Alam’s novel is certainly an intriguing one, yet his passion for verbosity intercedes. By introducing the clash of two equally wealthy couples, one white and the other black, Alam has the opportunity to paint an enticing picture of the changing nature of race relations under stressful circumstances. Instead of focusing on unraveling this tale, he instead decides to focus on his own verbiage. Streams of adjectives instead become the star, replacing the characters and plot as the picture of prime importance.

        Verbiage, of course, has great importance in a literary work. It should not, however, be the main focus of an author’s writing—unless, of course, the work is meant (recall Finnegans Wake) to contain a unique form of language. Comparisons to Leave the World Behind with musical compositions work so well simply because the flaws in this novel are often similar to ones that amateur composers make. The equivalent of melody in a novel is to be found in the plot; the characters are the musicians that produce its sound. Verbiage acts as the flourishes—crescendos, fortissimos, prestos, lentos—that enhance the story and make it increasingly powerful. 

        When a novel—a literary symphony—becomes constantly consumed in these flourishes, however, the melody becomes lost and the story incoherent. The reader, as a result, is left not with the message of the story, but clashing adjectives and unnecessary platitudes. Alam’s style veils the novel in puerility, distracting from the plot and leaving the characters’ voices to rest in a haze of immaturity.