“The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - that you’d thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you’ve never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it’s as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.”
― Alan Bennett, The History Boys
My friend and I have been talking recently about the connection between reader and author, between artist and viewer, calling attention to something already known or felt. Or, perhaps misapplying a Kafka: "the wound fits perfectly the arrow." The author fires the arrow, maybe an author long dead, and it fits the reader's wound.
(PS. I went to Goodreads to find the Kafka quote, and its version was: “all that matters is that the wound fit the arrow.”) Really quite a different meaning. Now I'll have to search out the original.
(PPS. Mark Slouka's article in 2003 Harper's gave me the Kafka quote.)
(PPPS. I'm getting close to finishing chapter four, November, in my rewrite.)
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