from a pretty fantastic book I just finished reading. Published in 1995 and written by a male, Robert Hellenga -- The Sixteen Pleasures. A book about a book of 16th century Italian erotica.
It always surprises me when a male can write a book filled with emotional changes and spiritual growth from a female perspective. But this is probably sexism on my part. anyway, the long quote,
Have you ever read a great novel or listened to a great symphony, or stood in front of a great work of art, and felt--absolutely nothing? You try to open yourself to the text, the music, the painting, but you have no power to respond. Nothing moves you. You are turned to stone. You feel guilty. You blame yourself, but you also wonderr if maybe there is nothing there, and that people only pretend toenjoy Dante's Paradisio or Beethovens Eroica or Botticelli's Primavera because they get good marks in Culture 101 for doing so. And then, when you least expect it, when you've closed the book, walked out of the concert hall or the museum, it hits you. SOMETHING hits you, comes at you from an odd angle.
A book worth reading for us boomers.
