Nabokov thought fine literature should tickle your palate and tingle your nerves (paraphrasing a bit) but the concept is true. Fine literature should seep in through your skin, lodge in your every cell, and do unmentionable things to your limbic system. When I read Ulysses at 15, the scene where Leopold Bloom, the cuckold husband, takes “two letters and a card” up to Molly, his wife, made such an impression on me that I could not stop re-reading the passage.
The next day I joined the other freshmen of my all-boys Catholic purgatory, dressed in grays and blues, ties askew, and lamented, as everyone did, how fecking boring this Joyce dude was, as I could not wait to get back and re-read the passage, thinking there must be something wrong with me. Words should not have this effect.
You see, in my 15-year-old mind I was Molly’s lover and her husband Leopold was carrying my letter to her, and finding her wife sitting—delightful and shapely—as she puts my letter under her pillow. 
AI could get that? Appreciate the immensity of that simple gesture? Imagine the painting of the nymph over Molly’s bed, envision the possibilities, and dream up the rest? Could AI—in another scene—“get” Bloom bending down with his hands on his knees, as he wonders what he looks like to the cat?
I can hear the cat going Meow cookoo cucko…
Featured Art: Mixed Media. Watercolor, pencil, and ink. DP.