James Joyce

[NOIRTRASH]

I read the first DUBLINER story and its no story at all. Its inane chatter that goes no where.

 

[SamScribble]

I read the first DUBLINER story and its no story at all. Its inane chatter that goes no where.

Yep. That's literary fiction for you, James. Good, isn't it.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Very very average writer, I'm afraid, going on what I recall of him as a short-story writer. And problematic, is the most charitable word I can find to describe what the rest of his works are.

Joyce is another of these politically-'handled' literary figures. And I shall leave it at that.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Joyce had talent for description and stringing scenes together tho there;s no story or point to the effort.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Yes, James, you're partially right, but Joyce is more complex than that. You might consider the possibility that the destination is irrelevant; for all of us, death is the destination. It's the trip that matters, and Joyce takes us on some very interesting trips.

But first, a note from our sponsor, Irish Mythology: The Christians drove from Ireland all the snakes, those sinuous beings, those all-tailfull antitheses of these tailless bipeds we love so self-indulgently, who strung the tales together of a warp and woof, and with them the myths that strung together a people. The fragments were reassembled in the 12th Century, but now were disparate and disjoint bits and pieces, episodic and non-lineal. And so the sense they make is itself not lineal, but far more a gestalt. This is the tradition in which Joyce wrote, and which he explored and developed. (As a more modern aside, consider Tarrantino's Pulp Fiction: episodes out of time, but beautifully organized around a gestalt of redemption).

Read the short stories of Dubliners, not as pieces with a beginning and destination, but as a concatenation of images, of episodes that leave you adrift in the sea of the sense of what Dublin is/was.

And Ulysses the same. A day in Dublin writ as a parallel to a classic that spanned twenty years and offering a microcosm of Ireland as a state of being.

Finnegans Wake? The history of the world in one abstract expressionist night-dream. "Away alone aloved along the...rivverrun past Eve and Adam's." The circular theory of history (by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs..." Vico gave us the circular theory of history; the Via Vicus forms part of the ring road around Dublin that passes Howth Castle on the north bank of the Liffey - the water of life or uisce beatha that resurrects Finnegan Finn Again - Fionn McCuahail reborn as a hodsman who falls from a wall, echoing the fall of Eve and Adam as well as Humpty Dumpty and the Roman Empire; yes, Here Comes Everybody along with Humphrey Chipden Earwicker) forms the basis of life death and resurrection, and everything goes in this carousel of time. Even the twins: "Shem is as short for Seamus as Jem is joky for Jacob," and the Bible and the Iliad as well as a myriad of other tales of twin siblings find themselves part of the same tale. And "Shem hisself, the doctator" "was a sham and a low sham at that. His lowness crept out first via foodstuffs, and oftimes he repeated in his botulism that no jungle-grown pineapple ever tasted like the whoppers you shook out of Ananias' can..." And Shem was Joyce himself - the liar, writer of fiction, an Ananais of his day. And aside from the delightful image of "repeating in his botulism," pineapple is ananas in French, harkening to and fro to Anna Livia Plurabelle, the River Liffey, giver of life. Finnegans Wake? a real funferall!

I could go on, James (Seamus you are, and a Shem for sure), but I have a feeling you won't sign up for the trip.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Yes, James, you're partially right, but Joyce is more complex than that. You might consider the possibility that the destination is irrelevant; for all of us, death is the destination. It's the trip that matters, and Joyce takes us on some very interesting trips.

But first, a note from our sponsor, Irish Mythology: The Christians drove from Ireland all the snakes, those sinuous beings, those all-tailfull antitheses of these tailless bipeds we love so self-indulgently, who strung the tales together of a warp and woof, and with them the myths that strung together a people. The fragments were reassembled in the 12th Century, but now were disparate and disjoint bits and pieces, episodic and non-lineal. And so the sense they make is itself not lineal, but far more a gestalt. This is the tradition in which Joyce wrote, and which he explored and developed. (As a more modern aside, consider Tarrantino's Pulp Fiction: episodes out of time, but beautifully organized around a gestalt of redemption).

Read the short stories of Dubliners, not as pieces with a beginning and destination, but as a concatenation of images, of episodes that leave you adrift in the sea of the sense of what Dublin is/was.

And Ulysses the same. A day in Dublin writ as a parallel to a classic that spanned twenty years and offering a microcosm of Ireland as a state of being.

Finnegans Wake? The history of the world in one abstract expressionist night-dream. "Away alone aloved along the...rivverrun past Eve and Adam's." The circular theory of history (by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs..." Vico gave us the circular theory of history; the Via Vicus forms part of the ring road around Dublin that passes Howth Castle on the north bank of the Liffey - the water of life or uisce beatha that resurrects Finnegan Finn Again - Fionn McCuahail reborn as a hodsman who falls from a wall, echoing the fall of Eve and Adam as well as Humpty Dumpty and the Roman Empire; yes, Here Comes Everybody along with Humphrey Chipden Earwicker) forms the basis of life death and resurrection, and everything goes in this carousel of time. Even the twins: "Shem is as short for Seamus as Jem is joky for Jacob," and the Bible and the Iliad as well as a myriad of other tales of twin siblings find themselves part of the same tale. And "Shem hisself, the doctator" "was a sham and a low sham at that. His lowness crept out first via foodstuffs, and oftimes he repeated in his botulism that no jungle-grown pineapple ever tasted like the whoppers you shook out of Ananias' can..." And Shem was Joyce himself - the liar, writer of fiction, an Ananais of his day. And aside from the delightful image of "repeating in his botulism," pineapple is ananas in French, harkening to and fro to Anna Livia Plurabelle, the River Liffey, giver of life. Finnegans Wake? a real funferall!

I could go on, James (Seamus you are, and a Shem for sure), but I have a feeling you won't sign up for the trip.

If you wanna create Rubiks Cubes work for Milton Bradley.

John O'Haras publisher told John, STOP WRITING SHIT THAT MAKES NO SENSE.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

If you wanna create Rubiks Cubes work for Milton Bradley.

John O'Haras publisher told John, STOP WRITING SHIT THAT MAKES NO SENSE.

Sorry, Seamus; Rubik Cubes are far too simple. I'm in for some real fun. And, funny as it may seem, I've never read anything by John O'Hara's publisher. Don't even know who he is.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O'Hara#Screenplays

[Personal attacks and trolling prohibited per our Forum Rules] - FINAL WARNING. The next unprovoked personal attack I see will result in a request for a one week ban. Once again, this will be the last temporary ban I request.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O'Hara#Screenplays

I've read O'Hara, James. A good writer. It's his publisher I've never read.
I presume what he meant to say was "John, stop writing that shit that makes no sense to me." He was probably someone who thought Little Red Riding Hood was about a mischievous girl and a talking wolf.

I don't think Joyce was writing for John O'Hara's publisher, anyway. And it seems myself and many others do understand Joyce, and find his work quite enjoyable. I don't begrudge you your reading pleasures, James; I don't think you need begrudge me mine.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I've read O'Hara, James. A good writer. It's his publisher I've never read.
I presume what he meant to say was "John, stop writing that shit that makes no sense to me." He was probably someone who thought Little Red Riding Hood was about a mischievous girl and a talking wolf.

I don't think Joyce was writing for John O'Hara's publisher, anyway. And it seems myself and many others do understand Joyce, and find his work quite enjoyable. I don't begrudge you your reading pleasures, James; I don't think you need begrudge me mine.

O'Hara wrote for THE NEW YORKER

 

[Tio_Narratore]

O'Hara wrote for THE NEW YORKER

Yes, dear, and I have read the New Yorker since back when I was one. You don't seem to be reading my posts, though, James.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Yes, dear, and I have read the New Yorker since back when I was one. You don't seem to be reading my posts, though, James.

I'm blind. I apologize.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

A CNN reporter made fun of Mitch McConnell going up stairs. Turns out McConnell has polio.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainmen...with-stairs-not-realizing-survived-polio.html

Fake polio

 

[ishtat]

James has a legitimate point to make about Joyce. Whether he has made it or not is debatable. The basic point is that Tio can grasp what Joyce is doing, but it would be reasonable to conclude that 99.5 % of readers have no clue.

So, what is the point of a writer, any writer who fails to communicate with the vast majority of his/her readers?

There are a substantial number of classical authors who consistently fail to hold their readers interest whilst literary critics attain levels of orgasmic delight over their product.

Examples include:- Theodore Dreiser - unreadable. Dostoyevsky - unfinishable (So depressing). Much of Dickens - interminable. Orwell's 1984 - constant repetition af the same theme and depressing.

Getting back to Ireland I am pretty sure that far more people have read JP Donleavy than James Joyce, but Donleavy has never achieved the level of critical gravitas/acclaim heaped on Joyce.

 

[SamScribble]

... what is the point of a writer, any writer who fails to communicate with the vast majority of his/her readers?

I think that James Joyce probably did a pretty good job communicating with his readers. He certainly got through to Tio and to me. If there are a few hundred thousand other souls who abandoned him after just a few pages, I think that may well have been what he expected to happen. He wasn't writing for them.

And, like you, I do sometimes wonder why JP Donleavy was not more 'acclaimed'. Maybe by the time 'The Ginger Man' was published modernism was not quite so shocking.

 

[sr71plt]

I've always abandoned Joyce after a few pages, so he isn't writing for me. I can live with that. There are far more authors out there who are for me than I'll ever get around to reading.

Now, if someone tells me Joyce wrote some good erotica, I'm willing to give him another go. That's the only context in which I can see that a thread on him has any meaning on an erotica writing site like this.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

I've always abandoned Joyce after a few pages, so he isn't writing for me. I can live with that. There are far more authors out there who are for me than I'll ever get around to reading.

Now, if someone tells me Joyce wrote some good erotica, I'm willing to give him another go. That's the only context in which I can see that a thread on him has any meaning on an erotica writing site like this.

Ulysses was banned in the US for obscenity and sexuality.

 

[ishtat]

I've always abandoned Joyce after a few pages, so he isn't writing for me. I can live with that. There are far more authors out there who are for me than I'll ever get around to reading.

Now, if someone tells me Joyce wrote some good erotica, I'm willing to give him another go. That's the only context in which I can see that a thread on him has any meaning on an erotica writing site like this.

I reckon Donleavy's "The Ginger Man" might be more your cup of tea Pilot. Like Ulysses it was banned in both the USA and Ireland for obscenity. The story of its publication is almost as interesting as the book itself. Donleavy thought it was being published by Olympia Press in Paris but they to Donleavy's fury, farmed it out to their Porn subsidiary, "The Travellers Companion." Eventually after many years of legal disputes, Donleavy actually bought the publishing company and regained control of his book.

I think of "The Ginger Man" as a very readable and quirky comedy.

 

[sr71plt]

Maybe, though I don't have a problem about stumbling on authors that I then go on to read everything I can find and fill up my time. In the last couple of years I've discovered and devoured Andreas Camillieri, Donna Leon, Louise Penny, Michael Pearce, and, just recently, Diniele Vare.

Basically, though, this is where I'd come to learn about good erotica writers or generally overlooked kicky specialist writers, not literary fiction icons. Donleavy is someone I might look up from mention here. James Joyce? No, not really. Above all I don't want a book that's talking down to me--I have several advance degrees, so anything that makes me wonder what the hell is being said can just go hang. Science books can talk down to me, though. I have no plans to try to read any of them.

 

[sr71plt]

Ulysses was banned in the US for obscenity and sexuality.

Too bad it's too dense for someone with multiple masters degrees to get far enough into it to know that--or appreciate how he writes it.

 

[SimonDoom]

I don't quite agree with NOIRTRASH's statement that there's no "point" in Joyce's stories, although I think he is quite right that Joyce's strength is in description and in scene-building.

I loved Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I read it in high school many years ago and I still remember the way Joyce rendered scenes in it: the scene at the dinner table with the argument about Parnell, the sermon scene, the scene where Stephen looks at the woman on the beach at the end (a wonderfully erotic scene, in its own way). You don't get a brisk plot with his novels. I've never fully gotten through Ulysses, but it's still on my bucket list. But Portrait of the Artist is one of my favorites.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Too bad it's too dense for someone with multiple masters degrees to get far enough into it to know that--or appreciate how he writes it.

Believe me, Pilot, I'm tempted, but the last time we met over Ulysses it became far too personal and insulting.

Instead of denigrating the writer or his readers, why not accept that different readers are in tune with different writers and that the differences have no bearing on the worth of either reader or writer?

 

[NOIRTRASH]

The "story" I read cou;da been Joyce's descriptive report of a trip to GOLDEN CORRAL where the food and service were good. The goddamned principal character went to see thebody of a dead priest.

I have a theory. The folks who enjoy Joyce are the same people who slow to gawk at someone changing a flat tire.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

The "story" I read cou;da been Joyce's descriptive report of a trip to GOLDEN CORRAL where the food and service were good. The goddamned principal character went to see thebody of a dead priest.

I have a theory. The folks who enjoy Joyce are the same people who slow to gawk at someone changing a flat tire.

That's a hypothesis, James, a theory is a statement that explains more than that on which it is based.

And your point is?