"Quiet" Writers

[Sand]

When I was younger, I liked nothing better than a highly vivid style and subject matter in a book - with, eg, tentacles and cloven hooves to the fore. Now I also like to read what, for want of a better term, I'll call "quiet" writers, who achieve their effects more softly and subtly. Note, I don't say these are "better" or my reading has "progressed": they're just different (and I still like to indulge in the swashbucklers of literature too).

I am enjoying the sort of story where, as my wife put it, "something may or may not have happened". Examples of authors who succeed in this are de la Mare and Kawabata. The term 'quiet' doesn't imply "cosy" - very often these may be as insidiously unsettling as more rattling work. But the stories smoulder rather than leap up in bright flames.

Does anyone else like this sort of story and have other writers to recommend?

And are there any films in this form? I've only seen two - Into Great Silence, and After Life.