The Candy-Red Licorice Ladder Up To The Azure Blue Sky

If you're like me, you like to read from different genres and a multitude of authors. Like movies, music and almost any other form of consumed art, we tend to like variety. But, in the end we probably lean in one direction more than another. I'm curious about what direction people lean and the kinds of stories people tend to prefer so I offer this comparison.

What reads better to you? Thick, rich, vibrant descriptions like this one from Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels:

From the other bank, I watched darkness turn to purple-orange light above the town; the color of flesh transforming to spirit. They flew up. The dead passed above me, weird haloes and arcs smothering the stars. The trees bent under their weight. I'd never been alone in the night forest, the wild bare branches were frozen snakes. The ground tilted and I didn't hold on. I strained to join them, to rise with them, to peel from the ground like paper ungluing at its edges. I know why we bury our dead and mark the place with stone, with the heaviest, most permanent thing we can think of: because the dead are everywhere but the ground. I stayed where I was. Clammy with cold, stuck to the ground. I begged: If I can't rise, then let me sink, sink into the forest floor like a seal into wax.

Or, simple, straightforward narrative, short sentences where every single word has a very clear meaning, less open to the fanciful interpretation of poetry, like The Road by Cormac McCarthy:

They passed through the city at noon of the day following. He kept the pistol to hand on the folded tarp on top of the cart. He kept the boy close to his side. The city was mostly burned. No sign of life. Cars in the street caked with ash, everything covered with ash and dust. Fossil tracks in the dried sludge. A corpse in a doorway dried to leather. Grimacing at the day. He pulled the boy closer. Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.

You forget some things, dont you?

Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.

Which is a better read for you? Does one or the other reveal the story better or worse? Does a simple narrative let the reader introduce her own bias and experience of the world?

Or, perhaps it totally depends on your mood.