There are readings—of the same text—that are dutiful, readings that map
and dissect, readings that hear a rustling of unheard sounds, that count
grey little pronouns for pleasure or instruction and for a time do not
hear golden or apples. There are personal readings, which snatch for
personal meanings, I am full of love, or disgust, or fear, I scan for
love, or disgust, or fear. There are—believe it—impersonal
readings—where the mind's eye sees the lines move onwards and the mind's
ear hears them sing and sing.
Now and then there are readings
that make the hairs on the neck, the non-existent pelt, stand on end and
tremble, when every word burns and shines hard and clear and infinite
and exact, like stones of fire, like points of stars in the
dark—readings when the knowledge that we shall know the writing
differently or better or satisfactorily, runs ahead of any capacity to
say what we know, or how. In these readings, a sense that the text has
appeared to be wholly new, never before seen, is followed, almost
immediately, by the sense that it was always there, that we the readers knew it was always there, and have always known it was as it was, though we have now for the first time recognised, become fully cognisant of, our knowledge.
- A.S. Byatt, Possession
descensus Averno facilis est