This was as beautifully fantastical as all the things Richard is longing for - a world not quite free from nightmarish imagery, but with such astounding moments of separate beauty that are out of place and yet somehow right.

This: He looks for beauty within what he can see and touch and taste. He caresses every stone, loving it for the fact that it belong to his once-realm, that the great blocks were hewn out of the earth with sweat and wrenching effort.
really came close to summing it up for me, that striving after the intangible by means of the tangible.

Wonderful stuff!