I love this book so hard, at the sentence level. It contains sentences that you have to read 2-3 times before they sink into your head, and that's a level of impenetrability I can really appreciate. Crunchy sentences, shot through with nautical terms like peppercorns (I mean the terms resemble peppercorns, not that "peppercorns" is a nautical term, although it probably also is). 
 Favourite sentence in the whole book: 
 "The sun rose: the sun rose." 
 My god what a sentence that is. I am really and truly not being sarcastic. It sends shivers down my spine, the relentlessness of it, the balance and yet forcefulness of that colon. Wowsies. 
 On other levels -- characterization, plot, setting, etc. -- yes there was a bunch of that stuff. Probably. It was a little hard to see over the tops of the sentences, sometimes. But what glorious sentences they were!