[HN Gopher] James Joyce was a complicated man
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James Joyce was a complicated man
Author : apollinaire
Score : 57 points
Date : 2024-06-28 05:51 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thefitzwilliam.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thefitzwilliam.com)
| AlbertCory wrote:
| This is actually one of the best summaries of _Ulysses_ I 've
| ever seen, and I took an extension course at Stanford on the
| book. We also had an approved commentary book.
|
| I don't remember most of these themes being raised. I remember
| the teacher saying with awe, "He can do whatever he wants with
| the English language!" and me thinking, "Who cares?"
|
| He also went on and on about Joyce's stream-of-consciousness
| writing, and how that was a real reflection of how we think.
| Again, I thought, "So what? It's old hat now."
|
| As for the fragmentary style: sorry, this didn't impress me
| either, at the time.
|
| Good article.
| kridsdale3 wrote:
| I did similar, in university 20 years ago. Your post brought up
| hidden memory of the same excitement by the prof, and my
| reaction, as I was already pretty exposed to postmodernism.
| Maybe its a Big Deal because it was an early break-out from
| Modernism (as this essay goes in to detail on its membership
| within) and into Post-.
| bbor wrote:
| A) Great article, thanks for posting! I would say the headline is
| a little bit of clickbait (the "complication" implied there is
| that he had complicated feelings about Ireland, plus maybe some
| sexual kink stuff), but in 2024 I can't complain. After all, as
| an ex-Adsense employee, it's more my fault than theirs!
|
| B) "From then on, Joyce lived in Europe." Isn't Ireland in
| Europe...?
|
| C) "Just as ancient Egypt is dead," he wrote, "so
| is ancient Ireland." His aim was not to become bound to a
| romanticised notion of the Irish past, but to show modern Ireland
| to itself and to make an Irish literature that was truly
| European."
|
| A beautiful notion... Will definitely be rattling around in my
| head as I think about modern nationalism and the extent to which
| its ever okay to talk about "western civilization" or "athenian
| legacy" and such with a straight face. Ditto for the "founding
| fathers" of the USA, really... I'm hopeful we can build a truly
| global American culture, and hopefully with a bit less bloodshed
| than secularism cost Europe.
|
| D) If this essay interested you and you haven't read _The
| Hyperion Cantos_ , I highly highly recommend it! Simmons employs
| Joyce as a central motif throughout the series, which I recall
| being somewhat confounding at the time, but likely eye-opening if
| you're familiar with the man's work!
| sourcepluck wrote:
| B) "From then on, Joyce lived in Europe." Isn't Ireland in
| Europe...?
|
| -- technically yes, of course. In reality? Eh, it's
| complicated. There's probably a few reasons, but if you told an
| Irish person they were European, people would be bemused, at
| least.
| duke_sam wrote:
| Ireland tends to top the list of countries happy to be part
| of the EU. Which would be an odd position if European was a
| touchy identifier. It's also not unheard of for people to
| refer to the mainland as if it were the whole continent.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Regardless of this analysis, the claim you're respond to is
| true. Depends on context.
| Kamq wrote:
| > Which would be an odd position if European was a touchy
| identifier
|
| They said "bemused", not that it was touchy. The comment
| seems to imply that Ireland sees itself as a very non-
| central example of the category "European".
|
| Sort of like ostriches and birds. If you told me that there
| was a bird nearby, and I rounded a corner to find an
| ostrich, you'd be technically correct, but I'd still be
| surprised and probably not trust your warnings nearly as
| much as I had 10 minutes before.
| OliverM wrote:
| Not this Irishman...
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| Nor I.
| calmoo wrote:
| I don't think we would be bemused. We generally consider
| ourselves European
| halfdaft wrote:
| just a thought on B - being an island in Europe, it's common
| for people in Ireland to refer to the rest of Europe as 'the
| continent'. It feels like Irish people see ourselves as
| definitely part of the EU but less so as a geographic part of
| Europe. Or something
| Irishsteve wrote:
| B) "From then on, Joyce lived in Europe." Isn't Ireland in
| Europe...?
|
| - If someone told me they were from Europe, I'd assume they
| meant the continent.
| trilbyglens wrote:
| This is how many people from the British isles think of it.
| kridsdale3 wrote:
| "Continental Breakfast" is exclusionary of the isles.
| patrickscoleman wrote:
| I am currently reading Ulysses, so this was a nice surprise on
| hn. Great historical context. Thank you! After many years of
| false starts, I stopped trying to understand everything and just
| let the prose wash over me. And now I'm enjoying it.
|
| " I feel I need not worry so much about "misreading" Joyce. Every
| reading of Ulysses is a misreading, a faulty but revealing
| translation, a way of drawing the novel into new and perhaps
| unintended relationships. All that matters to me is finding a way
| to read the book that is interesting: that opens out instead of
| closing down." [1]
|
| [1] https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2022/12/07/misreading-
| ul...
| te_chris wrote:
| Yes this is the way! I finished it a few years back in the same
| way and am both smug and glad that I did. Exceptional writing.
| crims0n wrote:
| I am reading it now as well! I always felt like I wasn't
| _ready_ , but last week I just decided to go for it. It's been
| on my list ever since finishing "A Portrait of the Artist as a
| Young Man". The only other prep I did was reading Hamlet...
| which so far seems to have not been necessary (but am only up
| to Lestrygonians).
|
| I actually have to credit Joseph Heller for the nudge to start,
| I had recently remembered a quote in Catch-22 that stuck with
| me:
|
| "He knew everything there was to know about literature, except
| how to enjoy it."
| sourcepluck wrote:
| Excellent essay! Really loved it.
|
| For Finnegan's Wake - I find it's best to open it up at random
| and shout it out as you pace around. Maybe peer at yourself now
| and again in a mirror. If you can work it up to a roar, then
| you'll really be flying, but it'd depend on what you had for
| breakfast.
| robwwilliams wrote:
| Loved the essay and this practical and funny approach to the
| Finnegian dreamscape.
|
| For me it will be back to Dubliners--should not have skipped
| it.
| mordechai9000 wrote:
| The Wake didn't really click with me until I heard the
| recording of Joyce reading the episode with the two
| washerwomen. I realized the references, puns, and in-jokes are
| basically just bonus material for me. It's the dream images and
| the sound of the words that engage me and make me want to learn
| about the rest of it.
|
| I wish we had a recording of him reading it cover to cover.
| Loughla wrote:
| All joking aside, there is a lot of literature that really
| needs to be spoken to be grasped.
|
| I learned this in college taking a middle English literature
| course. The Canterbury tales really need to be read out loud.
| They have a cadence that needs to be spoken.
|
| I would actually argue that Joyce is in the same category. His
| work isn't meant to be internal. It's storytelling in a group
| and meant to be spoken. It helps understand the DENSE writing.
| dataphyte wrote:
| So many (snooty) people treat audiobooks like a cheap
| substitute for reading, when in reality, reading is the cheap
| substitute for oral storytelling. Sure, you've got Infinite
| Jest where page structure and end notes are part of the
| aesthetic design, but I think more people would consume more
| literature if audiobooks were more normalized.
| cute_boi wrote:
| Mistakes are the portals of discovery. --James Joyce
| dagw wrote:
| For anyone who want get into James Joyce, but finds reading him
| intimidating, I highly recommend the RTE (Irish national radio)
| recording of Ulysses:
| https://www.rte.ie/radio/podcasts/series/32198-ulysses/
|
| Not only do they have a fantastic full cast reading of the book,
| but for each chapter they have a companion episode where they
| talk to a Joyce scholar about the chapter. I went through it by
| alternating listening to a chapter then listing to the episode
| about the chapter, and I finally really got Joyce and understood
| why he is considered great.
| axiomdata316 wrote:
| This is an awesome recommendation. I've tried reading him
| several times but I can never get into it. Definitely going to
| try this out.
| mark_mc wrote:
| Thank you so much for this recommendation! I tried an audiobook
| version once before but felt like I was missing a lot of
| context. This looks very promising (and is on spotify)!
| thwarted wrote:
| _Ezra Pound worried his high art had become "arsthitic"._
|
| Is this a misspelling? I can not find a definition of
| "arsthitic".
| becquerel wrote:
| Probably a Poundism for arse and aesthetic?
| returningfory2 wrote:
| Gabriel Garcia Marquez is another example of a writer who lived
| outside their country of birth but whose writing was still set
| there (born and raised in Colombia but lived in Mexico City for
| most of their adult life). Others?
| jrflowers wrote:
| The entertainment value of James Joyce's letters to Nora cannot
| be overstated.
|
| https://allthatsinteresting.com/james-joyce-love-letters-nor...
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