As you allude to in your discussion, we are always bringing our reference and point of view and emotional state and etc. etc. to anything we engage in. This all points to the inanity of so many discussions arguing over aesthetics or anything else, especially to the larger questions of how we orientate our life, our ideology, our values, and so on. Let us engage and share and reflect, but cease from our obsession of imposing tyrannies onto each other.
A year ago I listened to the audiobook of The Gift, and enjoyed it for the literary/literacy challenge of the book, as well as the pseudo bio reminisces of Nabokov's Russia.
