there was a time in my youth when i used to read in the old british museum reading room - i'd fold a few sheets of a4 over to make a little pamphlet notebook with a stitch to hold it together - in these i'd copy phrases make notes of what i was reading - that's how the cantos seemed to me - pound's notes so reading the cantos was interesting but not as interesting as i expected - it seemed rather too casually opaque - they weren't my notes however one thing did emerge out of all this opacity that i really did enjoy - his favourites his repetitions - the phrases that peppered his brain - mud the fifth element springs to mind - but i'd have to dig back into the text to list more examples i got the impression that as he progressed with his great work he became the prisoner of form - in the end he should have gleaned from it his favourite phases and thrown the original away shall we try it