A FIRE IN THE BRAIN.(Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake)(Book Review)

Judith Thurman on Antonio Vignali's "La Cazzaria"

William Butler Yeats, when he was riding the bus, would occasionally go into a compositional trance. He would stare straight ahead and utter a low hum and beat time with his hands. People would come up to him and ask him if he was all right. Once, his young daughter, Anne, boarded a bus and found him in that condition among the passengers. She knew better than to disturb him. But when the bus stopped at their gate, she got off with him. He turned to her vaguely and said, "Oh, who is it you wish to see?"

When I think of what it means to be an artist's child, I remember that story. There are worse fates. ...