How We Are Meant to Read a Novel

So I have mentioned that I am reading Azar Nafisi's book Reading Lolita in Tehran and in it she says this (pg 111):

This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience.

I absolutely loved this description. Upon reading that sentence, I immediately wanted to get up and work on my novel. I should really print out that one line and post it on my computer, because this is how I need to approach my book.

I've been struggling with it for awhile now, feeling it isn't fresh, that it's too contrived. I need to write more organically I think, just let it come. The places it is easiest for me to do this is when I am writing about the photographs--those sections I think are the best. And that's because I am not really describing them, but expressing (trying to anyway) the essence of them. To give the reader the feeling of standing in front of them, visualizing them.

I think I've discovered the solution to my problem with the rest of the novel. Why I am stuck. I am only writing this way for the photographs, but I think I need to do it in the rest of the novel.