INTERVIEWER Dreams are also a strong influence, aren't they?
YOUNG Once I dreamed that I was in Iowa City at a party in my house. Henry James was there and he was sitting in a corner, pouring whiskey into his high silk hat. Two weeks later, I came to New York, and on Seventh Avenue I found a book, Memories, by a Publisher's Wife, in which I read, “Henry James was here the other evening, and was so drunk that he sat in a corner, pouring whiskey into his high silk hat.” It was a very obscure little memoir, and I had never read it, or heard of it, or even dreamed that Henry James would take a drink. But I do believe that there are visitations in dreams. He would come to me in my dreams, night after night, during the writing of "Miss MacIntosh," and read what I had done. Sometimes I was typing, and sometimes writing in longhand, beautiful pages (which of course faded from my mind), and he used to say, “That's beautiful . . . go right ahead . . .go right ahead . . . you're the late twentieth century development of what I was doing,” and things like that. Which I don't think I am, of course, but in my dreams I thought so.
I am testing the comments by commenting on my post.
ReplyDeleteINTERVIEWER
ReplyDeleteDreams are also a strong influence, aren't they?
YOUNG
Once I dreamed that I was in Iowa City at a party in my house. Henry James was there and he was sitting in a corner, pouring whiskey into his high silk hat. Two weeks later, I came to New York, and on Seventh Avenue I found a book, Memories, by a Publisher's Wife, in which I read, “Henry James was here the other evening, and was so drunk that he sat in a corner, pouring whiskey into his high silk hat.” It was a very obscure little memoir, and I had never read it, or heard of it, or even dreamed that Henry James would take a drink. But I do believe that there are visitations in dreams. He would come to me in my dreams, night after night, during the writing of "Miss MacIntosh," and read what I had done. Sometimes I was typing, and sometimes writing in longhand, beautiful pages (which of course faded from my mind), and he used to say, “That's beautiful . . . go right ahead . . .go right ahead . . . you're the late twentieth century development of what I was doing,” and things like that. Which I don't think I am, of course, but in my dreams I thought so.
[!!!]