Surely notes are dependent on the poem?
David Jones' In Paranthesis is chock full of notes, and it is impossible
to read it, at least in the first going-through of a double read, without
constant referral to the notes. If you don't refer, you won't get what
he's talking about. Yet, cumbersome though this might be, I don't find it
intrusive, since the realities he is invoking are so particular, and the
language he uses for his invocations so breathtaking, it seems worth the
time. Moreover, if you then start reading it again as soon as you've
finished it, you can read right through without referring to the notes,
because you now have that stuff in your head. You have to learn his
language to understand him (I have the same experience with Genet) but the
rewards once initiated are enormous.
Best
Alison
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