> Pale Fire is one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. It is so great it is terrifying to write about. This is not something I would normally confess, but in this case it seems better to just come out and say it, lest the reader feel the awful stammering of suppressed terror quavering through my words without knowing what they are feeling. It is terrifying!
The sentence fragment then means, "I wouldn't have mentioned that it's terrifying to write about, except I worry that the reader could tell that something was wrong by the way I wrote, but not know what."
> Pale Fire is one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. It is so great it is terrifying to write about. This is not something I would normally confess, but in this case it seems better to just come out and say it, lest the reader feel the awful stammering of suppressed terror quavering through my words without knowing what they are feeling. It is terrifying!
The sentence fragment then means, "I wouldn't have mentioned that it's terrifying to write about, except I worry that the reader could tell that something was wrong by the way I wrote, but not know what."