The brilliant opaque surface which he exhibited in his behavior remains though a problem for the reader in his work. It is not only that one tries vainly much of the time to penetrate the center of MacNeice’s own sensibility, one also finds oneself trying vainly to get at the center of people and experiences he describes. In the autobiography he tends to see people as bundles of qualities of which they are made, as mirror-like and brittle as his own brilliance. He excels at describing stretches of behavior of friends, acquaintances, landscapes, cities. But everything seems as though painted on a moving band. He observes people through those unflickering half-closed eyes which never blink, but he never seems to ask what it is that makes them tick.
One of the high-points of my life was meeting and chatting briefly with Stephen Spender.
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