easy at it runs the race

 He has a fondness for lyrical description, particularly of the natural world (“the flowers from afar looked like a pure white froth … a bright sky-blue blanket of forget-me-nots was ruched in the dappled light…”). These passages effectively stir up an aura of misty poignancy, but they are deployed with such frequency and at such cloying length that at times it seems like his goal is merely to conjure an exquisite atmosphere, rather than to understand these characters or to imbue their story with any emotional weight.