Read this translated in Romanian and extremely quickly, in about one hour, as part of a World Book Day event I took part in, so I very likely missed a fair number of details. But I can quite certainly say that the book lacks many details as well, being so awfully short, pretty much rushing through the part between the word starting to get out and the real trouble, and ending with a rather confusing scene in which not much is explained. At first I thought the confusion was my fault, as I read those final pages in even more of a rush, while pacing behind other people and after hitting my head hard on a low ceiling, but I looked for the book again the next day, read that part again more carefully, and while I did notice a couple of things I had missed the first time, the overall impression was the same.
Still, the only thing that actually bothered me was how "lucky" the much older man was, even more so since the author is an old man, so I'm not saying it's bad otherwise, but just that there's not much there. It's very light fantasy, has just one location, pretty much covers just one event over a brief period of time, and doesn't linger that much over anything. In terms of atmosphere, it does deliver to a fair extent, and I guess it will appeal more to those looking for something like a modern fairy tale. Did expect to see actual poetry though, seeing as the main character writes, yet that wasn't included even when it was supposedly recited.