"Life that is"

Hello guys

I'm in trouble with a sentence in Washington Post's article "A Passage to Harvard".

The sentence is :
"Life that is, in this case, more engaging, more nuanced and ultimately more disturbing than art."
How should I interpret this "life that is"?  Is the "that" a relative? Or should I interpret the phrase is made by fronting "life" in "that is life"? I would to like hear your opinions.

paco

Marius Hancu wrote:

Life which is more engaging, more nuanced, etc

Hi, Marius

Thanks for the quick reply. Do you mean this sentence is made up of only a single noun modified by a clause?

paco

MrPedantic wrote:

I would read "Life" as a restatement of the preceding "life", and "that" as a defining relative pronoun: "...weeping inconsolably and trying to look at life ahead – life that is more engaging, more nuanced and ultimately more disturbing than art, in this case."

Hello　MrP

Thank you for the opinion. So I feel the writing style here is of abnormally elaborate rhetoric. Am I right?

paco

MrPedantic wrote:

Well, it does seem to be a fairly common trick, in some kinds of journalism: putting your relative pronoun in one paragraph, and its referent in another. MrP

Thank you, again!  I see.

paco