Lately, I’ve seen James Joyce’s name come up as one of those must-read authors. The recent documentary video I watched on Ireland declared him THE master of the English language. If that is so, how come I have barely heard his writing mentioned by any of the well-read friends and bloggers I know? Perhaps this introductory passage to Finnegans Wake from critic John Bishop provides some insight:<\/p>\n
There is no agreement as to what Finnegans Wake is about, whether or not it is “about” anything, or even whether it is, in any ordinary sense of the word, “readable.”<\/p>\n
It’s admirers see in it a comprehensive summa of twentieth-centruy culture and letters; its detractors, an arrogant compilation of arcane materials eccentrically patched together for the amusement of a literary elite.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Ah, so it’s either an amazing piece of brilliance or and pile of crap. I decided to hit up the library and investigate. I was stunned to find the better part of an entire shelf, at least 100+ volumes of literary criticism on Finnegans Wake. They had titles like:<\/p>\n
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- Finnegans Wake: A Plot Summary (302 pages)<\/li>\n
- Lexicon of German in Finnegans Wake<\/li>\n
- Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake<\/li>\n
- Decentered Universe of Finnegans Wake<\/li>\n
- Scandinavian Elements of Finnegans Wake<\/li>\n
- Scribbledehobble: The Ur-workbook for Finnegans Wake<\/li>\n
- The Riddles of Finnegans Wake<\/li>\n
- Alchemy and Finnegans Wake<\/li>\n
- On the void of to be: Incoherence and trope in Finnegans Wake<\/li>\n
- Mummeries of Resurrection: The Cycle of Osiris in Finnegans Wake<\/li>\n
- Writing [Music] through Finnegans Wake (by John Cage!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Ye gads. It appears this book is a deep well for English grad students looking for a thesis topic.<\/p>\n
I’m reading a biography\/history right now on the Inklings (C.S. Lewis, Tokien, and Charles Williams primarily). I decided to hit the index to see if my literary heros had anything to say about Joyce:<\/p>\n
Lewis read much more widely than Tolkien among modern writers and disliked much of what he saw…Predictably, he disliked D.H. Lawrence’s novels for their attitude to sex; he dismissed such writers as James Joyce as “steam of consciousness’, and categorised Virginia Woolf as one of ‘the clevers’. E.M. Forster was almost the only serious novelist of the period whose work he admired.<\/p>\n
Humphry Carpenter, The Inklings, p.158<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Note that’s “steam” not “stream” in the quote above.<\/p>\n
Well, I’m still quite curious. I’m sure I’ll get around to Joyce eventually, but the fact that Lewis didn’t think him worth the time has effectively moved him farther down the list…<\/p>\n
The poem that Charles Hodgin’s (of Podictionary fame) quoted the other day is appropriate.<\/p>\n
Take Heart, Illiterates<\/strong>
\nby Justin Richardson<\/p>\nFor years a secret shame destroyed my peace,
\nI\u2019d not read Eliot, Auden or MacNeice.
\nBut then I had a thought that brought me hope,
\nNeither had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lately, I’ve seen James Joyce’s name come up as one of those must-read authors. The recent documentary video I watched on Ireland declared him THE master of the English language. If that is so, how come I have barely heard his writing mentioned by any of the well-read friends and bloggers I know? Perhaps this … <\/p>\n