Breaking Up with James Joyce(sydneyreviewofbooks.com)
sydneyreviewofbooks.com
Breaking Up with James Joyce
https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/breaking-james-joyce/
56 comments
If you like podcasts, I would suggest listening Frank Delaney's Re-Joyce [0], where he goes through Ulysses sentence by sentence and tries to explain what's going on. Sadly this great podcast was interrupted by Frank's sudden death.
[0] -- http://blog.frankdelaney.com/re-joyce/
[0] -- http://blog.frankdelaney.com/re-joyce/
> interrupted by Frank's sudden death
That would seem to me to be the inevitable result of such an endeavor given the relative scales of Ulysses and a typical human life span. Even just trying to read Ulysses carries a certain non-negligible risk in this regard. I myself narrowly escaped a brush with catastrophe when assigned to read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man when I was myself a young man (in high school). I thank God daily that I lived to warn others.
;-)
That would seem to me to be the inevitable result of such an endeavor given the relative scales of Ulysses and a typical human life span. Even just trying to read Ulysses carries a certain non-negligible risk in this regard. I myself narrowly escaped a brush with catastrophe when assigned to read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man when I was myself a young man (in high school). I thank God daily that I lived to warn others.
;-)
The podcast had slowly and then significantly ramped up its length, and certain sections of the novel are amenable to more rapid treatment than others. There was no reason to think he couldn’t have finished in another 10-15 years.
He was halfway through “Wandering Rocks” a “mere” 6.75 years in, and I had been estimating he’d be at my favorite “Cyclops” by around now. :(
He was halfway through “Wandering Rocks” a “mere” 6.75 years in, and I had been estimating he’d be at my favorite “Cyclops” by around now. :(
I second this - a fascinating and well-researched deconstruction of Ulysses. And fun to listen to! Frank's death was very sad - I felt like he was a friend of mine. I had donated to his Paypal account several times to thank him for the podcast, and he always replied with a nice personal response.
I highly recommend Dubliners by Joyce. It's the most beautiful collection of short stories ever written. Ulysses has its roots in Dubliners, and if Ulysses is a daydream, then Finnegans Wake is a nightmare. Leave the nightmares to the hobgoblins.
I agree. Dubliners is also (compared to Ulysses) very readable. I'm almost afraid to admit how much several of the stories resonated with me...
I found Dubliners frustrating. They are not so much short stories as vignettes and I was often left scratching my head after each one, confused as to what the point of it all was.
I think "vignettes" is a good way to look at them. They aren't really plot-driven, rather each one builds to a psychological or spiritual moment, what Joyce called "epiphanies"
Joyce scholarship in some sense seems like mathematics --- the construct is an invention, axioms can be whatever they are decided to be, and the only question is in how productive and beautiful the construction is.
That being said, from this point of view the whole enterprise seems empty and vain. Even if you finally find what the book "means", the whole project seems like a dead end and does not lead to anything else --- you have gained nothing that generalizes beyond a narrow scope, and Joyce is long dead. This means that the work is not beautiful.
That being said, from this point of view the whole enterprise seems empty and vain. Even if you finally find what the book "means", the whole project seems like a dead end and does not lead to anything else --- you have gained nothing that generalizes beyond a narrow scope, and Joyce is long dead. This means that the work is not beautiful.
_Solar Bones_ by Mike McCormack just won the International Dublin Literary Prize and might appeal to Joyce fans. It's based on the West coast of Ireland and is a one-sentence novel. Looking forward to reading it next month. Not without trepidation though...
It's excellent. One of the best books I've read.
When you listen to jazz, you don't complain that you don't know all the chords.
Further reading: The NYT had just last week a longform piece on Jason Kidd, who was once celebrated as the greates JJ scholar alive: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/12/magazine/the-strange-case...
John* Kidd :)
Thank you. I was about to be amazed about the other life of a hall of fame point guard and mediocre coach.
I like this essay - took 2 Joyce seminars back in college days and got a lot out of it. Never made it all the way through FW. I am not familiar with this writer but she nicely shifts from a serious to a joking tone. I feel like her breaking up with Joyce may take a long time and the results will be interesting to read.
After several years of on again off again trying to read Ulysses, I'm 20 pages from done, and now this.
Steven Brust, Will Shetterly and others formed the (at least) half-joking "Pre-Joycean Fellowship", emphasizing storytelling over extravagant literary flourishes.
Sounds good to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Joycean_Fellowship
Sounds good to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Joycean_Fellowship
What people often forget about classical books: They were written to be enjoyed. That's true even for Finnegan's Wake although it requires a special kind of person to enjoy it.
The article seems to me to claim otherwise:
> his life was driven by his one-eyed obsession to fulfil his destiny > The method did not please Joyce very much because he considered it not imaginative enough, but it was the only way he could work.
What if Joyce wrote not to be enjoyed but to gain a literary reputation? (You could claim that the literary establishment favours books its members enjoy, but I think that's only true if you define "enjoy" in a way that removes all meaning)
> his life was driven by his one-eyed obsession to fulfil his destiny > The method did not please Joyce very much because he considered it not imaginative enough, but it was the only way he could work.
What if Joyce wrote not to be enjoyed but to gain a literary reputation? (You could claim that the literary establishment favours books its members enjoy, but I think that's only true if you define "enjoy" in a way that removes all meaning)
I think even the most ardent critic of the Wake would acknowledge that it’s full of delightful linguistic somersaults. Joyce had a talent for producing prose that can be enjoyable to read without being fully comprehended—the question is whether the level of effort Joyce required to achieve even limited comprehension is adequately rewarded.
Joyce's books are, in a real sense, "unreadable", and thats to some degree what the attraction is.
Unreadable, but very very listenable. These books are amazing on audio tape and fantastic to listen to when going on hikes or runs or whatever. I find there is a very pleasant atmospheric lyricism to Joyce's work that paints a very particular picture of Dublin that is quite fascinating and enjoyable.
Art sometimes is best absorbed rather than understood. Great art can reveal when pressed, but I usually only do that randomly to ensure that there is substance there, and there usually is.
Art sometimes is best absorbed rather than understood. Great art can reveal when pressed, but I usually only do that randomly to ensure that there is substance there, and there usually is.
Yes. I only read Finnegans Wake by reading it aloud to myself. I can hear a lot more of the puns and word enjambnents auditorally than I can see them visually.
Having said that, I am still reading the book only a few pages at a time every other week or so. I’m 25 years in and not even close to being done. I’m ok with that.
Having said that, I am still reading the book only a few pages at a time every other week or so. I’m 25 years in and not even close to being done. I’m ok with that.
I think (for me at least) it's best approached as a kind of wild, surreal poetry with mythological themes and scope.
I've never read it end to end, and I probably never will, but there are passages I have memorized just from rereading them so many times.
I've never read it end to end, and I probably never will, but there are passages I have memorized just from rereading them so many times.
huh? In a very real sense I read Dubliners last month.
I love Dubliners and reread it all the time. Shows what Joyce could have produced if he stayed in that style, but then again he may not have become Joyce.
> it requires a special kind of person to enjoy it.
I have never been able to get through even a few paragraphs of Joyce without feeling the need to throw the book down and scream WTBF? I guess I'm not a special kind of person.
I have never been able to get through even a few paragraphs of Joyce without feeling the need to throw the book down and scream WTBF? I guess I'm not a special kind of person.
I wonder how you enjoy 200 pages of no punctuation or coherence (Ulysses)?
It takes a special kind of person to enjoy this sort of thing... or some hipsters who want to show off.
> I wonder how you enjoy 200 pages of no punctuation or coherence (Ulysses)?
If you are referring to Molly Bloom’s monologue (the only part of Ulysses with no punctuation), there is plenty of coherence. Most of what she muses over are things that the reader knows well about, because it was already introduced earlier in the book. That whole chapter is a capstone to the plot that surveys one of the main conflicts of the book (the Blooms’ shaky marriage, Boylan’s adultery) and then neatly leads it to a conclusion.
And I find it strange that someone points to this chapter of Ulysses as an example of impenetrability, since it is much clearer and requires much less erudition than, say, the Oxen of the Sun chapter that requires a firm grounding in the entire English literary tradition. Molly Bloom’s monologue has in fact often been staged as a standalone thing precisely because it is so straightforward a text.
If you are referring to Molly Bloom’s monologue (the only part of Ulysses with no punctuation), there is plenty of coherence. Most of what she muses over are things that the reader knows well about, because it was already introduced earlier in the book. That whole chapter is a capstone to the plot that surveys one of the main conflicts of the book (the Blooms’ shaky marriage, Boylan’s adultery) and then neatly leads it to a conclusion.
And I find it strange that someone points to this chapter of Ulysses as an example of impenetrability, since it is much clearer and requires much less erudition than, say, the Oxen of the Sun chapter that requires a firm grounding in the entire English literary tradition. Molly Bloom’s monologue has in fact often been staged as a standalone thing precisely because it is so straightforward a text.
I haven't spent much time with Joyce past Dubliners, but I've spent a great deal of time with Kerouac, and particularly "On the Road".
I don't think it takes a special person to enjoy, but it does require a particular mindset that any given person may or may not have at the time. It's sort of how "Catcher in the Rye" is brilliant when you're a teenager, and how very, very different it is when you're an adult.
On the Road is not the sort of book that I'd spend much time with now, but I've grown towards, and to appreciate the brevity of Hemingway or Elmore Leonard more now, but if you're not inclined towards Joyce, wait a while. If it never happens, so be it.
I don't think it takes a special person to enjoy, but it does require a particular mindset that any given person may or may not have at the time. It's sort of how "Catcher in the Rye" is brilliant when you're a teenager, and how very, very different it is when you're an adult.
On the Road is not the sort of book that I'd spend much time with now, but I've grown towards, and to appreciate the brevity of Hemingway or Elmore Leonard more now, but if you're not inclined towards Joyce, wait a while. If it never happens, so be it.
Kerouac's "On the Road" and "Big Sur" nicely book-end the ebullience of youth and the disillusion/dissolution of middle-age.
It requires a person that loves to solve riddles. Think of a crossword aficionado escalated to the next level.
But maybe there's no riddle after all... just Joyce being a dick. This is my preferred theory. The guy was a dick or just mocking the academics - nothing more, nothing less.
Edit / To clarify: I know about art and people's preferences. I am not English/Irish, am no expert in Shakespeares' works or "speak" fluent Latin, so there will be things I won't understand without some (sometimes substantial) effort on my part (reading Ulysses) - I know that. I am also capable to enjoy unconventional styles and writing (like Naked Lunch, for example - no comparison, just an example).
With Joyce, however, I just can't shake the feeling the guy was just showing-off and making fun of the people who later try to convince others and/or themselves that they "got it".
But to each their own.
Edit / To clarify: I know about art and people's preferences. I am not English/Irish, am no expert in Shakespeares' works or "speak" fluent Latin, so there will be things I won't understand without some (sometimes substantial) effort on my part (reading Ulysses) - I know that. I am also capable to enjoy unconventional styles and writing (like Naked Lunch, for example - no comparison, just an example).
With Joyce, however, I just can't shake the feeling the guy was just showing-off and making fun of the people who later try to convince others and/or themselves that they "got it".
But to each their own.
I can't tell about Finnegan's Wake. I am not a native English speaker and that kind of prevents me reading it.
I've enjoyed Ulysses though. Even on the most simple level, you can, for example, read the book with a clock and a map of Dublin and follow what's happening in real time (the reading time seems to match the time described in the book).
Anyway, my point was that art is, essentially, to be enjoyed. I've enjoyed it. Great. You didn't. Good as well. What's weird though is the academics analyzing books nine-to-five, to put food on the table.
I've enjoyed Ulysses though. Even on the most simple level, you can, for example, read the book with a clock and a map of Dublin and follow what's happening in real time (the reading time seems to match the time described in the book).
Anyway, my point was that art is, essentially, to be enjoyed. I've enjoyed it. Great. You didn't. Good as well. What's weird though is the academics analyzing books nine-to-five, to put food on the table.
(To be sure, I am a native english speaker, and feel that not being Joyce prevents me from reading Finnegans Wake.)
> But maybe there's no riddle after all... just Joyce being a dick. This is my preferred theory. The guy was a dick or just mocking the academics - nothing more, nothing less.
Aka the "everybody else is an idiot for not getting it except me" theory...
How about it's just that literature or specifically 20th century literature isn't your thing?
Aka the "everybody else is an idiot for not getting it except me" theory...
How about it's just that literature or specifically 20th century literature isn't your thing?
Not weighing in on Joyce here, but I'd be careful applying that razor.
If it made people feel clever to continue to "get" something that is in fact fundamentally not gettable, you could certainly see a century-long ruse with wide support and nuanced debates on gettedness.
Again, nothing to do with Joyce, just people.
If it made people feel clever to continue to "get" something that is in fact fundamentally not gettable, you could certainly see a century-long ruse with wide support and nuanced debates on gettedness.
Again, nothing to do with Joyce, just people.
Except the article we’re replying to makes essentially this same argument, while asserting that many Joyce scholars have come to the same conclusion.
But the argument in the article and by various other scholars is specifically about Finnegans Wake. Joyce wrote several distinctly different books that should never be lumped together as “impenetrable modernism”. Dubliners is so straightforward that its stories are commonly assigned to school pupils. Portrait is a bit more experimental, but again it is often read by young people.
Ulysses definitely requires a good grounding in artes liberales at the university level (or simply being a very bookish person regardless of formal education or not), but if you have that, then you can certainly read right through the book. Some allusions or references might escape you, but you can always refer to a commentary, because it is pretty well agreed what everything in that book means.
The Wake is a whole other story. Joyce’s oneiric storytelling and sheer amount of puns makes it difficult to pin down even some of the basic plot. But don’t let that book or scholars’ fatigue and ultimately dismissive view of it turn you off from everything else that Joyce wrote.
Ulysses definitely requires a good grounding in artes liberales at the university level (or simply being a very bookish person regardless of formal education or not), but if you have that, then you can certainly read right through the book. Some allusions or references might escape you, but you can always refer to a commentary, because it is pretty well agreed what everything in that book means.
The Wake is a whole other story. Joyce’s oneiric storytelling and sheer amount of puns makes it difficult to pin down even some of the basic plot. But don’t let that book or scholars’ fatigue and ultimately dismissive view of it turn you off from everything else that Joyce wrote.
I didn’t read the article that way at all; I read it as implying that Wake was intentionally written in a way to be unapproachable so as to frustrate literary critics (whom Joyce was undoubtedly aware of and influenced by). Almost like an inside joke that nobody else was in on. The author even mentioned the approachability and seductiveness of his other works, so I took her comments as being restricted to the one book.
I’m no Joyce scholar by any means so I don’t know if that’s true, but that was my reading of the article anyhow.
I’m no Joyce scholar by any means so I don’t know if that’s true, but that was my reading of the article anyhow.
Well, the article is a middlebrow filler piece, filled with autobiographical cuteness, and little substance.
There is tons of great Joyce scholarship without those lightweight complaints.
And yet, there doesn't need to be, to be frank. Books are to be read and perhaps re-read by readers, not to be over-analysed for decades by obsessives.
For literary works, as a reader you either get it or you don't, and if do it's primarily on a visceral level that beyond the plot and the craft includes the emotions, the flow of words, the mental imagery etc. It's not meant to be some great riddle to be solved, as if it's the Voynich manuscript.
There is tons of great Joyce scholarship without those lightweight complaints.
And yet, there doesn't need to be, to be frank. Books are to be read and perhaps re-read by readers, not to be over-analysed for decades by obsessives.
For literary works, as a reader you either get it or you don't, and if do it's primarily on a visceral level that beyond the plot and the craft includes the emotions, the flow of words, the mental imagery etc. It's not meant to be some great riddle to be solved, as if it's the Voynich manuscript.
> Books are to be read and perhaps re-read by readers, not to be over-analysed for decades by obsessives.
I submit that Finnegans Wake is the exception proving that some books are specifically written "to be over-analysed for decades by obsessives."
I submit that Finnegans Wake is the exception proving that some books are specifically written "to be over-analysed for decades by obsessives."
He's a dick all right, but he marvellously teeters on the edge of genius and sometimes dipping into full blown ga-ga, and the riddle is deciphering which side is which.
It's a meme/drug. It evokes a mental buzz - in some people. Some people are drawn in by the gigantic accomplishment, the magnitude of the writing, some by the strangeness of the content itself, some by other means. (Maybe trying to understand what others see in it.) Some then get sober soon, some take decades.
It's a meme/drug. It evokes a mental buzz - in some people. Some people are drawn in by the gigantic accomplishment, the magnitude of the writing, some by the strangeness of the content itself, some by other means. (Maybe trying to understand what others see in it.) Some then get sober soon, some take decades.
It's more like "playing it hard to get". That can be considered "being a dick" depending on the point of view. But it's the same idea as "why aren't all paintings painted as realistically as they can"
Or why slang evolves in some contexts even when not need (though not the only reason).
So it's linguistic jazz playing an underlying story and decorating it on top. But it's definitely not for everybody.
Or why slang evolves in some contexts even when not need (though not the only reason).
So it's linguistic jazz playing an underlying story and decorating it on top. But it's definitely not for everybody.
According to Joyce "The only demand I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole life to reading my works". No one else, just Joyce! If seriously intended, I'd love to read someone's literary justification for this example of messianic arrogance.
> I wonder how you enjoy 200 pages of no punctuation or coherence (Ulysses)?
You're not pseud enough to know, my mate.
You're not pseud enough to know, my mate.
Gabrielle co-wrote puberty blues, a book about 13 year old girls becoming groupies for a "surfie" gang in 1970s australia. A rather autobiographical account. How much of it she lived, and how much of it was Katy, I'm not sure. No doubt the beginning of some of her choices she talks about in this piece.