That’s fair - and I’ll grant that he has moments of sheer style that I find myself quoting decades later. That said, I don’t think saying his writing is awful

That’s fair - and I’ll grant that he has moments of sheer style that I find myself quoting decades later. That said, I don’t think saying his writing is awful is necessarily derogatory - if anything, he just didn’t let good prose get in the way of a good story or a good idea - and frankly, his style actually enhances his literature - it’s almost part of the narrative. He’s my favourite author by a country mile, and my several excursions into writing (a novel, two novellas, dozens of short stories, all unpublished as I don’t think they’re even worth pulp) may have inherited his approach ever so slightly, by which I mean they quite definitely have. The Exegesis is pretty much my Bible.