Interesting that what Nobilis criticizes is precisely what I enjoyed about this one. I like thoughts; I think they are sometimes worthy of narrative all by themselves. I like intelligent thoughts that stand there, whiskey in hand, managing to impress me with their intelligence despite their whiskey-breath and history of cutesy-merely-cleverness.
I've never really been able to embrace "the rules" of narrative as a necessity; I don't look for structural similarity / conformity, nor demand adherence to some arbitrary form, in order to declare a given work "good" or "not". It's always confused me that so many people seem to hinge their appreciation of a given piece of art on whether or not it agrees with an assumed rule of conventional aesthetic or method of construction.
It's not a detraction from a storyteller's quality if the story has a coherent beginning/middle/end with crisis/climax/resolution and one of six hallowed plots emanating from the Platonic dimension of manifestations. It's also not any sort of accomplishment, unto itself.
The world would have no sippy-cups for coffee if we'd all just meekly accepted that "mugs look this way and no other; only infants are allowed to drink from sippy-cups". That would be hellish. Hellish! Mervyn Peake would have had to make Gormenghast a ten page short-short, were he to have necessarily acquiesced to Nobilis' strict vision. Hellish, I say!