How much clarity is useful if it doesn't lead anywhere? In his comic novel "Down Time," Andrew Martin writes about people who can describe their lives in detail and still leave them largely unchanged. In "Encounters in Wild America,'' John McPhee works from the opposite end, piling up detail until a pattern begins to emerge whether anyone names it or not. One novel, one omnibus of nonfiction. Both concerned with what happens when observation runs ahead of action.

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