James Joyce/Bloomsday centennial

[Chrome]

I seem to recall some Joyce fans around here ... some of this stuff reminds me of the thread about people who "get" late era Coltrane. The concern over whether some people are just pretending to like it, etc.

I can say I didn't quite get "Ulysses" ... it seems more important for the technical stream-of-consciousness style than for the content itself.

(FYI: The Roddy Doyle novel mentioned below, "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha," was fantastic, but I would exactly call it a comedy.)

Joyce's 'Ulysses' Under Fire in Centenary Year

Wed Feb 11, 9:37 AM ET

By Gideon Long

DUBLIN (Reuters) - James Joyce's "Ulysses," regarded by many as the greatest novel of the 20th century and by some as the finest work ever written in English, is under attack.

As Ireland gears up to celebrate the centenary of Bloomsday -- the day in June 1904 on which the novel is set -- some disgruntled writers and columnists say they are sick to death of the impenetrable book and its cult following.

By elevating him to the status of literary God, Joyce's fans are doing other Irish writers a disservice and creating a "Joyce industry" which has more to do with tourism and money-making than literature, they say.

Roddy Doyle, author of comic best-seller "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha" and the screenplay for the hit film "The Commitments," opened the literary Pandora's Box last week with a scathing attack on Ulysses and its devoted followers.

"Ulysses could have done with a good editor," Doyle told a literary gathering in New York. "People are always putting Ulysses in the top 10 books ever written, but I doubt that any of those people were really moved by it."

Continuing his attack in an Irish newspaper interview at the weekend, Doyle said Joyce's legacy cast a long and pernicious shadow over Irish literary life.

"If you're a writer in Dublin and you write a snatch of dialogue, everyone thinks you lifted it from Joyce," he said. "It's as if you're encroaching on his area...it gets on my nerves."

Doyle's comments struck a chord with populists.

Writing in the Irish Times Wednesday, columnist Kevin Myers described Ulysses as "one of the most unproductive cul-de-sacs in literary history."

"It is about 400,000 words long, which is probably about 250,000 words too many," he complained.

A NOVEL WITHOUT A PLOT?

Journalist Sean Moncrieff, writing in the Irish Examiner, said Ulysses would never see the light of day if written now.

"What happens in Ulysses?" he asked.

"Well, not much. Bloom has breakfast. Goes to a funeral. Wanders around Dublin a bit. Stephen Dedalus does the same. Gets pissed (drunk) and makes a fool of himself. They both go home."

"Send that plot outline to any modern publisher and see how far you get."

But Joyce's fans hit back.

"It's unfair to say that no one is moved by Ulysses," said Helen Monaghan, director of the James Joyce Center, a museum in Dublin dedicated to the writer and his works. "Many people enjoy Joyce's work and are moved by it."

"Our aim has always been to create an awareness and understanding of Joyce's work," she told Reuters, saying everyone, not just intellectuals, could find pleasure in Joyce's daunting prose.

Ulysses is widely regarded as one of the most inaccessible works in English literature.

Stuffed full of meandering, unpunctuated sentences, classical references, snatches of song and even the occasional diagram, it tells the story of advertising salesman Leopold Bloom's wander around Dublin on June 16, 1904.

Toward the end of the book, Bloom meets Stephen Dedalus, an aspiring young writer modeled partly on Joyce himself.

The novel's plot is minimal and the beauty of the book, for its fans, lies in Joyce's ostentatious use of language.

Thousands of people flock to Dublin on June 16 each year to retrace Bloom's footsteps, and this year the celebrations will be bigger than ever.

Some 10,000 people are expected to savor a Bloomsday breakfast on Dublin's O'Connell Street and there will be dozens of readings, Joyce-inspired art exhibitions and other Ulysses-related events in the city over the coming months.

[ghost of miles]

I'm one of those fans, Chrome, and I really wish I could make it over there this year for the Centennial. I'm sure it will be a blast... I have yet to make the pilgrimage to the Martello Tower.

[Dr. Rat]

I studied English, and had to read a fair deal of Joyce. (Disclosure: I'm also of Irish extraction). I've been up and down on him.

I refuse to beleive anyone really thinks its a good use of their time to try to puzzle out Finnegans Wake. Don't worry, there's nothing you can do to change my mind.

His short stories, I thought, were quite good.

Ulysses I've read in such bits and pieces, I can't make a good judgement (grad school forces this on you).

So, I have a Bloomsday Resolution: I'm going to do my damnedest to read the whole thing before the great day comes.

--eric

[Simon Weil]

I think Joyce/Ulysses is hell to get into. I ended up buying a book on tape and listening to it while I did the dishes (you may well ask why I felt compelled to get into it in the first place, but anyway...Basically I felt I had to have some grasp of it to have a grasp on modern literature...). And that kind of worked. I ended up with an idea of the story, plus the sound of it is so important. I mean, it's really a book that exists to be spoken. In that way, it's like late Coltrane - in which sound is also vital.

This is a brilliant and rich book, I can see that now, even if I don't personally feel able to put the effort into it to decode it right now. There's a bit of criticism somewhere where the guy says Joyce sent Ulysses out in the world basically to eat it.

That's what it's like. You could just get lost in that book, I think.

Simon Weil

Edited February 14, 2004 by Simon Weil

[Dr. Rat]

well, i like to bounce around 'finnegans wake' myself... excellent point about the speaking, however, bc tho' i get a decent # of the puns, homonym games, i'm sure there's plenty i miss on my own. finnegans may be 'too much' but i'm very glad it exists... likewise:

"bouvard et pecuchet," pound, proust, beckett, musil, bernhard, perec, harry mathews +++

by which i mean i love them all.

clem

As to the sound point: You definitely miss a lot without the sound of the words and the sound of the voice. Joyce wouldn't be much of an Irish writer if this weren't true (by which I mean the Irish wouldn't have embraced him otherwise, as they have now he's safely dead).

The distinction I make between sound and voice is this: Joyce obviously reveled in the sensuousness of sound so it's important to "hear," either literally or mentally the words he writes. In addition, though, there are deep complexities to the relationships between the narrative and the characters and events in the books, and often the inflection and cadence of how one reads him can be very critical in what one takes away from him (this more so with Joyce than is true of most writers, I'd argue).

Now the fact that there is something in Finnegan's Wake is beyond dispute. Of course there are all kinds of jokes and wordplay and allusions. I should imagine it is increadibly rich in these--never having spent much time trying to figure it all out myself.

So it does represent an accomplishment of a sort. Of the same sort as a cryptic crossword, I'd argue.

[ghost of miles]

Happy Bloomsday!  Celebration is online this year because of Covid-19.  Photo below is me in Dublin with a statue of the great man himself, just a day or two before Bloomsday 2016.

Edited June 16, 2020 by ghost of miles

[Brad]

11 minutes ago, ghost of miles said:

Happy Bloomsday!  Celebration is online this year because of Covid-19.  Photo below is me in Dublin with a statue of the great man himself, just a day or two before Bloomsday 2016.

Did you ever read any Joyce. I’ve heard his books are hard. 

[ghost of miles]

15 minutes ago, Brad said:

Did you ever read any Joyce. I’ve heard his books are hard. 

Dubliners and Portrait Of The Artist, which are definitely the more accessible titles in the Joycean oeuvre.  I've started Ulysses a couple of times, but so far have gotten through only the first four chapters, embarrassed to say.  My grandfather was obsessed with Finnegans Wake and had a considerable library of books *about* it... not sure he ever completed a reading of it, though!  There's a definite musicality to Finnegans Wake if you read any of the passages aloud to yourself, though, or so I've found when I've tried it.

Edited June 16, 2020 by ghost of miles

[Brad]

Thanks. Portrait of an Artist is the one I have thought about. 

[ejp626]

Was just thinking about this today.  I read Ulysses once in university and once for fun.  May read it again at some time in the future. Dubliners is probably Joyce's most accessible and, dare I say, finest work.  I doubt I'll ever actually read Finnegan's Wake, but I have acquired an audiobook version of it (really) and that is likely the way to go.

I did make it to Dublin once and saw a small Joyce exhibit (I think it was at the main library) but we didn't try to follow in Bloom's (or Stephen's) footsteps.

[medjuck]

 Laurie and I at  the Martello Tower where the first scene in Ulysses takes place. I think I've read everything by Joyce except Finnegan's Wake. Like it all but love Ulysses. 

Edited June 17, 2020 by medjuck

[ghost of miles]

1 hour ago, medjuck said:

 Laurie and I at  the Martello Tower where the first scene in Ulysses takes place. I think I've read everything by Joyce except Finnegan's Wake. Like it all but love Ulysses. 

Me at the same tower popping out of the stairwell from which "stately, plump Buck Mulligan" emerges in the opening chapter of Ulysses, "bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed."  June 2016, a couple of days before Bloomsday... we really wanted to stick around, but had to head off to the UK for a Stone Roses concert.  It was a magical trip!

 

[Brad]

In 2009 I had a week long meeting outside of Dublin; our company had some major manufacturing in Newbridge and Grange Castle. I had the weekend to himself and went into Dublin and wandered all over the great city. Here is one of the photos I took.  Probably one of the best I’ve ever taken.

 

[mjazzg]

8 hours ago, Brad said:

Thanks. Portrait of an Artist is the one I have thought about. 

That's the one I really enjoyed (it may have helped coming from an Irish Catholic heritage). Like others my copy of Ulysses is untouched from about page 80. One day...

[jazzbo]

I've gone all the way through Ullyses. A masterwork. I've attempted Finnegan's Wake. I've never gotten too far.

[Brad]

5 hours ago, mjazzg said:

That's the one I really enjoyed (it may have helped coming from an Irish Catholic heritage). Like others my copy of Ulysses is untouched from about page 80. One day...

I will give that one a try.  I did go to a Christian Brothers school when I lived in Uruguay between the ages of 7 and 10. 

[Dave Garrett]

Ulysses - listen to the epic RTÉ dramatisation

[medjuck]

1 hour ago, Dave Garrett said:

Ulysses - listen to the epic RTÉ dramatisation

This looks great.  What does RTE stand for? 

[Brad]

7 minutes ago, medjuck said:

This looks great.  What does RTE stand for? 

It’s the public broadcaster in Ireland. Raidió Teilifís Éireann or Radio Television of Ireland. 

[ghost of miles]

On 6/17/2020 at 11:01 PM, Brad said:

In 2009 I had a week long meeting outside of Dublin; our company had some major manufacturing in Newbridge and Grange Castle. I had the weekend to himself and went into Dublin and wandered all over the great city. Here is one of the photos I took.  Probably one of the best I’ve ever taken.

 

That’s beautiful, Brad. My girlfriend and I spent a couple of days wandering around Dublin and loved it. We were there in June 2016, so Easter Rebellion centennial fever was in full swing... saw a remarkable exhibition about it at the GPU, site of the rebels’ headquarters.

[Brad]

22 hours ago, ghost of miles said:

That’s beautiful, Brad. My girlfriend and I spent a couple of days wandering around Dublin and loved it. We were there in June 2016, so Easter Rebellion centennial fever was in full swing... saw a remarkable exhibition about it at the GPU, site of the rebels’ headquarters.

That would have been a great time to be there. I’ve always found the Easter Rebellion and the drive for independence a fascinating topic.