In a message dated 4/8/10 8:58:46 PM, [email protected] writes:
> If you want to know how I felt when I saw X, I will tell you to stand in > front > of X and look at it. But even then, that will be a faint approximation of > how > I felt because you do not have the same store of experiences, memories, > images, ideas, etc., that I do. William has often made such an > observation. > Agreed. We all receive the same raw sensations, but the notion that arises in our minds is very much a function of memory-inventory, from which our brain retrieves previous experience associated with the raw sensation. As I've said before, for me the most valuable "literary critic" was Malcolm Cowley who so often said simply "Read this!", often pointing to something I'd raced past before. Read the first page and a half of GATSBY. The phrasing voice! The details he chose! He may, as some crude psychologist has suggested, have had an IQ of only 120, but I'm happy to give him the honorific of "Genius!"
