fiction files redux discussion
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James Joyce
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Eins within a space and a wearywide space it wast ere wohned a Mookse. The onesomeness wast alltolonely, archunsitslike, broady oval, and a Mookse he would a walking go (My hood! cries Antony Romeo), so one grandsumer evening, after a great morning and his good supper of gammon and spittish, having flabelled his eyes, pilleoled his nostrils, vacticanated his ears and palliumed his throats, he put on his impermeable, seized his impugnable, harped on his crown and stepped out of his immobile De Rure Albo (socolled becauld it was chalkfull of masterplasters and had borgeously letout gardens strown with cascadas, pinta-costecas, horthoducts and currycombs) and set off from Luds— town a spasso to see how badness was badness in the weirdest of all pensible ways.
i did well on that project. funny how joyce was so much easier for me to read when i was 17 -- probably i had more space in my brain then. :)
Martyn wrote: "James Joyce is my favourite writer ever...I'm completely obsessed. Anyway, I found this - Joyce reading from Finnegans Wake. James Joyce is the only writer who's work makes me cry...and I mean li..."Joyce is rubbish.
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i am sure this is an hilarious joke, but nonetheless here is my new mantra: can you please tell me why you think joyce is rubbish? these two and three word posts aren't satisfying to somebody of my garrulous nature. :)
Maureen wrote: "Pavel wrote: Joyce is rubbish"i am sure this is an hilarious joke, but nonetheless here is my new mantra: can you please tell me why you think joyce is rubbish? these two and three word posts are..."
I'm going to piggyback on Maureen's statement here. I think that Joyce is the author who has come the closest to making prose sound like poetry. Please tell us why Joyce is rubbish.
Sorry, I guess I missed the memo saying the goal of posting in this group was to satisfy your garrulous nature. Since we're sharing our "mantras" already, here's one I just made up: from now on I'll ignore posts that treat me like I'm in elementary school.Silliness aside, I think we should think about easing up on moderator bullshit, at least this early in conversations. My comment here was obviously in jest, as it is identical to the one Martyn left some time ago in the Proust thread. I dare say it didn't bring about the Apocalypse the last time around.
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oh jesus pavel. so you can joke around and i can't? didn't you see the darn smiley face? ;P
i'm equal opportunity with my moderator bullshit. let's talk about that for a while. have a look at the futurist thread where *i* said almost the exact same thing after one of martyn's drive-bys. :)
Joyce is kind of rubbishy in his letters when he starts talking about Nora's underwear.
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did joyce keep sleeping with nora all the way through? or just her underwear? i can never remember...
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this is a little sidebar that probably should go in language but i was thinking about that phrase: "i daresay" today -- and i wondered why it seemed so awkward when i said it out loud. is it because i don't have a british accent? i say "i'd venture to say" all the time and think it's because i sound weird when i say "i daresay". do anybody actually say that out loud any more?
Maureen wrote: "i'm equal opportunity with my moderator bullshit. let's talk about that for a while. have a look at the futurist thread where *i* said almost the exact same thing after one of martyn's drive-bys. :)"Well that was actually my point. I wasn't crying about being singled out. That thread, in fact, was what started me thinking about it, especially since you said something that was almost exactly the same then. Granted, it may have been warranted more that time since Jim is a member of the group, but I still feel that a moderator's involvement was unnecessary. I was perfectly fine with Martyn's drive-by, until I read your post. I'm sure you meant well, but stuff like "I have no idea why... etc. etc." and "feel free to expand on" or, you know, "here's my new mantra:..." and "these... posts aren't satisfying..." just makes me uncomfortable. Stuff like that is appropriate for customer service industry, geared towards a sale, towards making sure a customer's feelings aren't hurt with the safe assumption that a common customer is not too bright, but in this group seems to me laborious, transparent, and out of place. I'd rather you told Martyn in plain language to stop being an asshole and explain himself, or rather just stop being an asshole, and let him do the explaining if he was so inclined.
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I'm sure Martyn is going to show you how it's done when he finds us hijacking his thread. ;)
Oh jeysus! Joyce isn't rubbish! Joyce is the greatest writer of the 20th Century! Let's all be friends and enough of all this bickering and arguing about who killed who - this is suppose to be a happy occasion.
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Do any of you have a good recommendation for an audio version of FW? Not that I want to listen to FW on DVD in the car; rather I am aiming towards FW on reel-to-reel for around the den, and then eventually out in the sun room of the old folks home. I'd like to begin comparing renditions if anyone has some suggestions for where to start.
Does Ozzie do a version?
Not that you should avoid having the printed word in front of your face, e.g. "of all pensible ways", what genius.
mm
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I read it in my last year of college with the the help of a fantastic professor. I felt like I got so much more out of the book with that level of guidance. I mean, just a good map of Joyce's Dublin alone, and the idiomatic expressions - and "how" to read it. I read a lot of it out loud.
Every year on Bloomsday in DC they have a reading of the book at an Irish pub that starts at the same time the book did and runs until 2 am or so. I used to go to it every year. Mileage varied, in terms of the readers.
I also stopped writing after I read it. It took a while for me to stop completely, but in the face of such overwhelming beauty and perfection the words I came up with and strung together on my own just seemed so... pathetic.
I have not picked up Finnegan's Wake. It sits, first chapter read, on my bookshelf as it has for the last ... 15 years.
For those of you who have read it, how did you do it? I understand it is his most difficult work. I felt like I needed the help I got with Ulysses. How should I approach it if I work up the nerve to read it (and hope it doesn't make me stop writing again, because that would be a problem).
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One thing I really liked about the PoAaaYM is that scary trick Joyce played on the readers, scaring the readers NOT with a description of Hell, something he left to Dante I suspect, but how close a person or a sinner can come to avoiding it in comparing how a single tear of regret at the right time in life will save all rather than oceans after oceans of tears that filled every room in Hell. If the church uses his passages as a sermon, I bet you there will be plenty of converts.
I also read The Dead in his The Dubliners book, and I think his plain and homely language made it beautiful to read, and I don't mean homely as in dull or ugly, but like warm and ordinary, like a childhood spent in a family house during Thanksgiving. And the ending with the snow falling on the dead and the living alike really was one of the best ending I ever read.
I agree with Martyn that FW have one of the best beginings of literature...
I don't know any Joyce. I must have studied some of his stuff in high scholl but damned if I can recall any of it. I might like to do a group read next winter of something in the way of a starter Joyce.
thanks. I'll start pondering this subject.
And always follow Martyn's proper example: Joyce didn't put an apostrophe in the title of Finnegans Wake.
:P
:P
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I can tell you that the last page of The Dead is the most amazing thing I have read. I can't even imagine trying to compete with that.
Yes, Dan...it's quite something isn't it? What I love about Joyce's endings is the daring optimism in the face of many changes and problems...Ulysses ends with the repetition of the word 'yes'...as Molly Bloom emphasises that despite all of their travails, she and Leopold will always be together...the last few words of Ulysses are mind-blowing to me: 'Yes I said Yes I will Yes'. It's just so intimate and affirming. It always sets me off! Finnegans Wake is even more daring than anything dreamed up in Ulysses. People shouldn't be afraid of Finnegans Wake...it's a beautiful book...the best written perhaps. There's so much going on it...I would suggest that the more languages you know, the more you'll get out of it...it's full of puns in all kinds of fucking languages! But it's not a book for elitists! That would be a great error to think that.
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No. Start with Araby.
I started with Chamber of Music poems, then Ulysses, then Dubliners, then Giacome Joyce, then FW, then I discovered a copy of Work in Progress, when that was still the neame in spanish, but I didnt bought it, then I read Beckett...
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No. Start with Araby."
My lit teacher loves Araby. Must've read it four times in one class last year to analyze different literary techniques within one story.
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Joyce was the master of beautiful endings...are we all agreed then? :)
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I am only about 10 pages into the first chapter and have previously read through the first chapter. I aim to get further this time. I am probably going to relay allusions and plot points that Campbell talks about here which may help those who come along and decide to read this.
I am going to try to keep track of the foreign languages thrown in. I will post the original and the translations (some of which I hope will be my own).
The foreign languages begin just a few lines into the book.
Latin:
introibo ad altare Dei: I will go to the altar of god (Joseph Campbell translates as I will go unto the altar of God, fancier than me!)
The above is the first words of a latin mass. Buck Mulligan mocks mass through this chapter. I think this aspect is mostly lost in today's world but is very interesting and funny when you realize it is happening.
Next up Ancient Greek:
epi oinopa ponton: in the wine-dark sea (literally) but probably wine-dark sea is good enough
Thalatta! Thalatta!: Basically just yelling: the sea! the sea! It is another ancient greek word for see and it is using two Taus instead of two sigmas (thalassa! thalassa!) it's an attic greek thing.
I know there is french coming up and I don't know any french so that will not be my translation. The greek and latin stuff is exciting for me to see if i still remember any of it.
Great stuff, Dan...did you pick up on the Hamlet allusions too?
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Hamlet is also alluded to in the beginning of Infinite Jest but I missed that as well.
Feel free to point out these allusions for me Martyn.
There is another sizable chunk of Latin on page ten that I am going to post. I am at work right now so i will try to do that later today, if I remember.
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At page 10 more Latin is encountered(and this phrase is repeated on page 23):
Liliata rutilantium te confessorum turma circumdet: iubilantium te virginum chorus excipiat.
This one is a bit above my latin skill level so here is the translation from difficultbooks.com:
"May the crowd of joyful confessors encompass thee; may the choir of blessed virgins go before thee."
It is said by a roman catholic priest over a dying person.
Page 12 has a obvious latin sentence:
In nomine Patris et Filii et spiritus sancti In the name of the father son and holy spirit.
The Greek word omphalos is mentioned a number of times which means navel or in my preference bellybutton.
Page 20 is another easy latin phrase: et unam sanctum catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam and one holy catholic and apostolic church (its from the Nicean creed).
Page 22 gives us a little bit of french: zut! Nom de Dieu I didn't realize it as french since the Nom de Dieu looks close enough to latin to figure out it means "i the name of god!" I guess the Zut! means something along the lines of "Wow!"
Page 22-23 has some Nietzsche references: uebermensch(superman, literally:overman) though I haven't seen it spelled this way before.
Then goes on to say: He who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the lord. Thus Spake Zarathustra
The first part is apparently Mulligan's version of Proverbs 19:17 and the second part is the title of Nietzsche's book which centers around the ubermensch idea.
I am not really sure if anyone cares about any of this but it has proven a good way for me to slow down, attempt to translate, and pay attention to the foreign languages. I usually blow through them not giving them much thought.
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I also missed an earlier reference to Nietzsche (and it would have been impossible for me to catch) but on page 5 Mulligan says to Stephen: I'm hyperborean as much as you.
Hyperborean in Greek legend is a mythical people who live above or without sorrow or old age. Nietzsche uses this word to refer to describe the ubermensch.
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The colloquialisms are almost as important a language as the actual Latin, Greek and French are. As 21st century Americans they are hard to catch sometimes.
Equally as difficult is knowing "where" you are physically, and this is important, because there are so many connections to Homer; where Ulysses went is way important because he was exploring the known world, and the unknown one, and as readers we need to pay attention to the difference... wait, if you can translate ancient Greek I am just telling you a bunch of stuff you already know.
Didn't Nabokov do a map of Joyce's Dublin? I forget. I used to have a copy.
Also, has anyone ever listened to an audio version of the book? A friend of mine was wondering if that might not be a good way to experience Finnegan's Wake - I bet it would be good for Ulysses.
In college, I used to go every year on Bloomsday to hear it read aloud at a bar in DC. I never went for the whole day... usually from 6 pm to 3 am with my fellow amateur writers. When we finished with Molly there was a round of Guinness on the house for anyone who made it to the end.
When I read it in college - a one-semester class on Ulysses only - our professor encouraged us to read it aloud, particularly if we were having trouble understanding what was going on. It really is so beautifully lyrical.
Shel wrote: "Oh, you are bringing back memories, Dan... I do so love this book.The colloquialisms are almost as important a language as the actual Latin, Greek and French are. As 21st century Americans they a..."
I was really comfortable with all of the colloquialisms...I guess being English, my ear is just naturally tuned to it, being of Irish ancestry and familiar with Irish history too...that's what I wanted to say, Dan...do a bit of research on Irish history...Parnell in particular...Ulysses was written during a revival of nationalism in the Irish arts that kind of mind-set...Joyce didn't really like...the Cyclops chapter discusses all of this...the myth of Cuchulainn and that sort of thing.
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I thought that Joyce was of the school that wanted to create a particularly Irish literature, a literature independent of England, which of necessity means using Irish colloquialisms, for a start - but you're saying that's not correct, Martyn? I can't remember, really.
From a bird's eye perspective it could be asserted that it's a post-colonial urge among artists the world over, throughout time. To go back to the foundations of a culture, or to move beyond the influences of the colonist's oeuvre. But maybe the use of Homer is a distinct departure from going back to ancient Irish culture?
Joyce was not a nationalist. It's more complicated than rosy dreams of some national ident and literature. I think he was sympathetic to that kind of thing, as he was sympathetic to Sinn Fein. You only have to read his reactions to the Easter Rising to see what he felt.There is much antagonism towards the British colonial authority in Ulysses...especially in the hilarious scene where Dedalus has a run-in with two British soldiers...'they provoked my intelligence' being the stand-out line.
As he writes in Ulysses:
It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked lookingglass of a servant.
And I reminded also of what Joyce said Ulysses would give Ireland...and it's a paraphrase as I don't have any of my books with me at present, but it goes along the lines of 'giving Ireland a look at itself through my shiny looking glass'.
Words to that effect.
ok, It is a fable the existence of english literature apart from british literature. Not even a single irish writer was out of the british vein. Oscar Wilde was a nationalist irish dude. Or at least he started such as one, because his mother was one. Not being irish and being british, very irishy.
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http://www.ramble.org"
That would be awesome to see. Too bad it's a 6+ hour drive for me...
Joyce
I do think that FW's ending is one of the best ever written...where the inevitability and certainity of death is so exquistely expressed...it is a brave ending...one that captures the serenity of the acceptance of death in a very unique way! Even then 'a way a lone a last a long' is a coded message to his wife. Joyce was an utter genius!