I'm still struggling with this, having finished A Discovery of Witches a few days ago. I should say first that it resonated profoundly enough in my head that I had to think for a bit about what would be the right sort of book to read next. (I do that all the time, of course, but usually it's based on what I currently feel like reading and not on having the last book still clanging around in my head.) One thing I've concluded is that the author did a whole cruiseship-load of research for the book. There are unimportant things she got wrong despite clearly having researched them (some small rowing details); things she got a bit wrong because she probably couldn't have researched them (what it's like rowing while trying to ward off a panic attack); lots of things that as far as I can tell she got exactly right (history and details of rare books); and at least one thing that is important to the plot that I'm pretty sure she got wrong (redacted for spoiler).
But that didn't diminish the impact of the book on me, just made me say "hey, wait..." after I emerged from that part of it. So I think even "meaningful" is, as your examples show, something that can cover a lot of ground.
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Date: 2011-08-29 06:46 pm (UTC)But that didn't diminish the impact of the book on me, just made me say "hey, wait..." after I emerged from that part of it. So I think even "meaningful" is, as your examples show, something that can cover a lot of ground.