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Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake
“Whatever spark or gift I possess has been transmitted to Lucia and it has kindled a fire in her brain.” —James Joyce, 1934
Most accounts of James Joyce’s family portray Lucia Joyce as the mad daughter of a man of genius, a difficult burden. But in this important new book, Carol Loeb Shloss reveals a different, more dramatic her father loved Lucia, and they shared a deep creative bond.
Lucia was born in a pauper’s hospital and educated haphazardly across Europe as her penniless father pursued his art. She wanted to strike out on her own and in her twenties emerged, to Joyce’s amazement, as a harbinger of expressive modern dance in Paris. He described her then as a wild, beautiful, “fantastic being” whose mind was “as clear and as unsparing as the lightning.” The family’s only reader of Joyce, she was a child of the imaginative realms her father created, and even after emotional turmoil wrought havoc with her and she was hospitalized in the 1930s, he saw in her a life lived in tandem with his own.
Though most of the documents about Lucia have been destroyed, Shloss painstakingly reconstructs the poignant complexities of her life—and with them a vital episode in the early history of psychiatry, for in Joyce’s efforts to help her he sought the help of Europe’s most advanced doctors, including Jung. In Lucia’s world Shloss has also uncovered important material that deepens our understanding of Finnegans Wake , the book that redefined modern literature.
Most accounts of James Joyce’s family portray Lucia Joyce as the mad daughter of a man of genius, a difficult burden. But in this important new book, Carol Loeb Shloss reveals a different, more dramatic her father loved Lucia, and they shared a deep creative bond.
Lucia was born in a pauper’s hospital and educated haphazardly across Europe as her penniless father pursued his art. She wanted to strike out on her own and in her twenties emerged, to Joyce’s amazement, as a harbinger of expressive modern dance in Paris. He described her then as a wild, beautiful, “fantastic being” whose mind was “as clear and as unsparing as the lightning.” The family’s only reader of Joyce, she was a child of the imaginative realms her father created, and even after emotional turmoil wrought havoc with her and she was hospitalized in the 1930s, he saw in her a life lived in tandem with his own.
Though most of the documents about Lucia have been destroyed, Shloss painstakingly reconstructs the poignant complexities of her life—and with them a vital episode in the early history of psychiatry, for in Joyce’s efforts to help her he sought the help of Europe’s most advanced doctors, including Jung. In Lucia’s world Shloss has also uncovered important material that deepens our understanding of Finnegans Wake , the book that redefined modern literature.
576 pages, Hardcover
First published December 10, 2003
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July 17, 2017
Великолепная и жуткая книга — едва ли не самая полезная из того био-библиографического, что я читал в последние годы (если честно, то не с чем даже сравнить). Ну, это, в общем, несколько феминистская и неофилософская реконструкция того, что случилось с Лючией Джойс, основанная на текстологическом анализе «Финнеганов» и на тех немногих огрызках документов, что остались у нас вопреки упырям-наследникам. Что же там было на самом деле, мы, вероятно, не узнаем никогда, даже если дождемся смерти внука Джойса.
Основной инструмент у Кэрол Шлосс, в силу обстоятельств такой информационной пустыни, — аналогия и троп. В научную силу таких методов мы можем не верить, конечно, но кто сказал, что «Финнеганы» — обычный объект для исследования? Как нам показывает автор, эту книгу как не понимали толком никогда, так не понимают до сих пор — а если учитывать плотность смыслов, в ней заложенных и так взаимодействующих друг с другом, что внутри текста уже давно изобрели не только колесо, но и свою письменность, так она представляется поистине неисчерпаемой. Мистикой в ней проникнуто буквально все.
О книге же Шлосс, боюсь, получится, только невнятно булькать, поскольку — не пересказывать же ее целиком, а без этого донести ее кайф до людей, которые ее не читали, не выйдет. Степень моего читательского охуения перед той поистине детективной мета-литературоведческой работой, которую проделала автор, была так велика, что я даже забывал пометки делать или что-то подчеркивать. Поэтому несколько разрозненных огрызков впечатлений.
Там прекрасный обзор контркультурной сцены 20-х годов ХХ века — то, о чем мы почти совсем ничего не знаем. Дада, прото-сюрреалисты, «викторианские хиппи» — все вот это вот, в чем активно по молодости вращалась Лючия (помимо той тусовки, которая магнетически притягивалась к папе). Становится окончательно понятно, что ни битники, ни, тем паче, хиппи конца 60-х ничего радикально нового в духовный квест человечества не внесли — скорее продолжили, вульгаризировали и упростили то, что совершили в конце XIX — начале ХХ веков те, кто отрывались от зарегулированного викторианства, порождая тем самым мощную протестную волну. Только вместо джаза и рок-н-ролла у них был танец как универсальное средство отрыва. И Лючия тут была, что называется, на переднем крае. Главное и для литературы, и для прочих видов человеческого искусства было — после ужасов Великой войны, понятно, поскольку мы уже знаем, что без великих войн великой литературы, увы, не получается, — прорыв к новым (или даже несуществующим) средствам выражения невыразимого, подсознательного, подавляемого общественной моралью. И в этом «Финнеганы», само собой, близки к тому, что сейчас у нас зовется танцем-модерн. Ну и еще становится понятно, что из этой сцены (парижского, в частности) авангарда страна Россия оказалась эффективно выключена благодаря известно чему. Тусовка Дягилева была даже не самой передовой в этом смысле — гораздо передовее были балеты не русские, а шведские, хотя роль русских в судьбе самой Лючии трудно переоценить. Если бы не Понизовский, который в трудах русских «джойсоведов» (даже Хоружего) удостаивается хорошо если полутора строк, — многого в ее трагической и нелепой жизни попросту бы не случилось или случилось не так кошмарно. А без Лючии бы не было «Финнеганов», приходится признать (и автор нам это вполне убедительно доказывает).
Переосмысление же «Финнеганов» согласно новым полученным вводным, видимо, займет у меня еще какое-то время, поэтому в заключение скажу только, что ни одна семья в мировой истории и культуре не вызывает (у меня, ок), столько интереса, как эта. Можно долго спекулировать, почему так, но Нора и Джорджо в ней после всего сейчас узнанного уже никогда не будут прежними. Понять их, конечно, можно, а вот простить — вряд ли.
Постскриптум. Да, стоит заметить, если кому-то интересно, что переводить ее на русский не имеет смысла - в русскоязычном дискурсе не существует не только самих "Финнеганов" (если не считать отдельных попыток бастардизации отдельных кусков текста в диапазоне от нелепо-героических до отвратительно-возмутительных), но и адекватных переводов Бекетта (а его тексты тоже важны). Ну и Эллмановой биографии самого Джойса (даже в ее санированном виде) нет, если не считать известной ее кражи и оглупления одним мерзавцем-фантастом, как не существует Ноулзоновой биографии Бекетта. Из всего полезного для лучшего чтения книги Шлосс есть только "История безумия" Фуко. Такой вот замечательный случай, когда в саду расходящихся тропок они вдруг сходятся.
Основной инструмент у Кэрол Шлосс, в силу обстоятельств такой информационной пустыни, — аналогия и троп. В научную силу таких методов мы можем не верить, конечно, но кто сказал, что «Финнеганы» — обычный объект для исследования? Как нам показывает автор, эту книгу как не понимали толком никогда, так не понимают до сих пор — а если учитывать плотность смыслов, в ней заложенных и так взаимодействующих друг с другом, что внутри текста уже давно изобрели не только колесо, но и свою письменность, так она представляется поистине неисчерпаемой. Мистикой в ней проникнуто буквально все.
О книге же Шлосс, боюсь, получится, только невнятно булькать, поскольку — не пересказывать же ее целиком, а без этого донести ее кайф до людей, которые ее не читали, не выйдет. Степень моего читательского охуения перед той поистине детективной мета-литературоведческой работой, которую проделала автор, была так велика, что я даже забывал пометки делать или что-то подчеркивать. Поэтому несколько разрозненных огрызков впечатлений.
Там прекрасный обзор контркультурной сцены 20-х годов ХХ века — то, о чем мы почти совсем ничего не знаем. Дада, прото-сюрреалисты, «викторианские хиппи» — все вот это вот, в чем активно по молодости вращалась Лючия (помимо той тусовки, которая магнетически притягивалась к папе). Становится окончательно понятно, что ни битники, ни, тем паче, хиппи конца 60-х ничего радикально нового в духовный квест человечества не внесли — скорее продолжили, вульгаризировали и упростили то, что совершили в конце XIX — начале ХХ веков те, кто отрывались от зарегулированного викторианства, порождая тем самым мощную протестную волну. Только вместо джаза и рок-н-ролла у них был танец как универсальное средство отрыва. И Лючия тут была, что называется, на переднем крае. Главное и для литературы, и для прочих видов человеческого искусства было — после ужасов Великой войны, понятно, поскольку мы уже знаем, что без великих войн великой литературы, увы, не получается, — прорыв к новым (или даже несуществующим) средствам выражения невыразимого, подсознательного, подавляемого общественной моралью. И в этом «Финнеганы», само собой, близки к тому, что сейчас у нас зовется танцем-модерн. Ну и еще становится понятно, что из этой сцены (парижского, в частности) авангарда страна Россия оказалась эффективно выключена благодаря известно чему. Тусовка Дягилева была даже не самой передовой в этом смысле — гораздо передовее были балеты не русские, а шведские, хотя роль русских в судьбе самой Лючии трудно переоценить. Если бы не Понизовский, который в трудах русских «джойсоведов» (даже Хоружего) удостаивается хорошо если полутора строк, — многого в ее трагической и нелепой жизни попросту бы не случилось или случилось не так кошмарно. А без Лючии бы не было «Финнеганов», приходится признать (и автор нам это вполне убедительно доказывает).
Переосмысление же «Финнеганов» согласно новым полученным вводным, видимо, займет у меня еще какое-то время, поэтому в заключение скажу только, что ни одна семья в мировой истории и культуре не вызывает (у меня, ок), столько интереса, как эта. Можно долго спекулировать, почему так, но Нора и Джорджо в ней после всего сейчас узнанного уже никогда не будут прежними. Понять их, конечно, можно, а вот простить — вряд ли.
Постскриптум. Да, стоит заметить, если кому-то интересно, что переводить ее на русский не имеет смысла - в русскоязычном дискурсе не существует не только самих "Финнеганов" (если не считать отдельных попыток бастардизации отдельных кусков текста в диапазоне от нелепо-героических до отвратительно-возмутительных), но и адекватных переводов Бекетта (а его тексты тоже важны). Ну и Эллмановой биографии самого Джойса (даже в ее санированном виде) нет, если не считать известной ее кражи и оглупления одним мерзавцем-фантастом, как не существует Ноулзоновой биографии Бекетта. Из всего полезного для лучшего чтения книги Шлосс есть только "История безумия" Фуко. Такой вот замечательный случай, когда в саду расходящихся тропок они вдруг сходятся.
July 1, 2009
I was very disappointed with this book: Lucia Joyce, James Joyce's famously disturbed only daughter led a fascinating life. Loeb Schloss, however, disturbs the story with irrelevant hypotheticals and speculation, imagines scenarios that didn't actually happen in attempts at thought experiments, and generally butchers a story interesting enough on its own.
It is a particular shame because this book has become the poster child for the battle against the James Joyce estate, who keeps a very tight lid on Joyce's material, limiting its use by academics- very frustrating for anyone trying to publish scholarly work.
It is a particular shame because this book has become the poster child for the battle against the James Joyce estate, who keeps a very tight lid on Joyce's material, limiting its use by academics- very frustrating for anyone trying to publish scholarly work.
February 21, 2015
Informative on the subject of Lucia's life and the mutual influences (Joyce & Lucia). Given so little written "evidence" about Lucia's thoughts/ experiences exists, as her letters and other writings have been destroyed/suppressed, I think Ms Loeb-Shloss does a very creditable job. As a Joycean, I certainly feel a lot better informed about Lucia than I was prior to reading this. Nora/Brenda Maddox "fans" have attacked the book,making strong complints about "Anti-Nora" bias/"unfair" attribution of responsibility for L's problems onto her mother, but I would tend to disagree. I'd love to read more about this interesting individual & her family.
January 24, 2018
I was very disappointed in this book. I had looked forward to reading it for quite awhile but couldn't even finish it. I felt like the author, who faced challenges, admittedly, finding reference information about L. Joyce, instead made vast generalizations or wandered into convoluted assumptions to support her arguments. I started skimming through it about a third of the way through and finally gave up. It should have been a fascinating subject - instead, it just felt like a long trudge with no reward at the end.
February 2, 2008
Lucia Joyce is one of the most fascinating people that ever existed. This book contains rare photographs and exciting insights into her mysterious, strange life.
Read
March 17, 2012ULYSSES, Joyce once boasted, is so replete with puzzles and enigmas that "it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality." Surely the most heartbreaking—and the most unintentional—enigma Joyce left behind was his own notoriously troubled daughter, Lucia, the subject of Schloss's biography. Was Lucia schizophrenic, Schloss asks, or was her behavior the result of living by—and living out—the fractured puzzle of language that Joyce used to represent the border between conscious and subconscious states of being, the famous "stream of consciousness" that hums through our heads, mostly unheard, during our waking hours? Schloss, like Joyce, rejects the diagnosis of schizophrenia most doctors applied to Lucia; at worst, Schloss agrees with Jung, the young woman's most famous medical advisor, that if language was a river, her father swam or allowed himself to fall through the water, while Lucia eventually drowned.
(originally published in the NASHVILLE SCENE / Village Voice Media)
(originally published in the NASHVILLE SCENE / Village Voice Media)
February 12, 2013
I was astounded, intrigued, and saddened by the accounts of mistreatment she received, not only by her doctors but by her own family. I have questions that may never be answered, assumptions that may never be verified, and a curiosity that will probably never be extinguished. I am now on a quest to read everything I can get my hands on in order to quench this thirst.
Read
January 23, 2022Worse than the "Joyce Girl".
In order to do girly needy, witch with her own portion, sickly voyeuristic recuperative scholarship on women in literary history, in JJQ, the writer famously flip-flopped on her flip-flop, quoting "I am well aware of [BAD MOTHERS: The Politics of Blame]". As to "rescue"/produce her own narrative of a jealousy mother oppressing gifted daughter, Carol Schloss blamed/demonised Nora to create a "perfect victim" who was willing to conduct incest with her "Genius, great man" father. Again, by telling readers that father can do no wrong, the author committed a betray, a crime against what she intended: de-censor oppressed woman in history. Schloss apparently was not a good Joycean literature scholar at the first place and she certainly did not want to be a bona fide literature professor! Purely tasteless and disgusting, Schloss pulled everything out of context and even out of common sense. The claim of Lucia to be a aporia in the holistic narrative is laughable because she certainly created her own "holistic narrative" full of inevitable aporia owing to her gaudy historiography!
Nonetheless, the harm has done. Non-Joycean mass readers and writers now have this sick idea of a "romanticised, so-called textual incest (her dangling with the word incest was misanthropic if not only misogynistic, purposely alluding it to readers yet eluding the repercussion by using vague wording)", which is not only baseless but also a mental rape to everyone who really love Finnegan's Wake. It stirred a series of pulpy books, fiction/non-fiction, to create a bigger mess: competition between "genderless old hag and the sexed young female". Schloss used meandering words yet the trick was old.
John McCourt and Genevieve Sartor both wrote jstor accessible review and articles on this "drama", highly recommended!
In order to do girly needy, witch with her own portion, sickly voyeuristic recuperative scholarship on women in literary history, in JJQ, the writer famously flip-flopped on her flip-flop, quoting "I am well aware of [BAD MOTHERS: The Politics of Blame]". As to "rescue"/produce her own narrative of a jealousy mother oppressing gifted daughter, Carol Schloss blamed/demonised Nora to create a "perfect victim" who was willing to conduct incest with her "Genius, great man" father. Again, by telling readers that father can do no wrong, the author committed a betray, a crime against what she intended: de-censor oppressed woman in history. Schloss apparently was not a good Joycean literature scholar at the first place and she certainly did not want to be a bona fide literature professor! Purely tasteless and disgusting, Schloss pulled everything out of context and even out of common sense. The claim of Lucia to be a aporia in the holistic narrative is laughable because she certainly created her own "holistic narrative" full of inevitable aporia owing to her gaudy historiography!
Nonetheless, the harm has done. Non-Joycean mass readers and writers now have this sick idea of a "romanticised, so-called textual incest (her dangling with the word incest was misanthropic if not only misogynistic, purposely alluding it to readers yet eluding the repercussion by using vague wording)", which is not only baseless but also a mental rape to everyone who really love Finnegan's Wake. It stirred a series of pulpy books, fiction/non-fiction, to create a bigger mess: competition between "genderless old hag and the sexed young female". Schloss used meandering words yet the trick was old.
John McCourt and Genevieve Sartor both wrote jstor accessible review and articles on this "drama", highly recommended!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 3, 2017
I was interested in this book because of Lucia s dance. I am not a James joyce expert. Far from it. Although as a professional dancer, I was part of the choreography and performance of F. Wake.
I feel the book is overly burdened with too many minor people that came in contact with the Joyce world. For me it made for labor intensive reading trying to keep all these people in check.
I certainly don't feel Lucia was crazy. I feel she was a woman way before her time. And dance world lost an extremely creative and adventurous woman, when she quit her passion. Anyone who feels the need to move, would go nuts being in a straitjacket or restricted to a bed and told to rest? That is why Lucia (showed) improvement when she participated in sports. Movement is what made her feel alive. Unfortunately at a time when women had so little freedom even Lucia. Although her upbringing would say differently. She could have had the legacy of a Martha Graham if she had just a bit of encouragement. And if I were ever restricted for moving whether it be dance or sports, I would go ducking nuts too.
I feel the book is overly burdened with too many minor people that came in contact with the Joyce world. For me it made for labor intensive reading trying to keep all these people in check.
I certainly don't feel Lucia was crazy. I feel she was a woman way before her time. And dance world lost an extremely creative and adventurous woman, when she quit her passion. Anyone who feels the need to move, would go nuts being in a straitjacket or restricted to a bed and told to rest? That is why Lucia (showed) improvement when she participated in sports. Movement is what made her feel alive. Unfortunately at a time when women had so little freedom even Lucia. Although her upbringing would say differently. She could have had the legacy of a Martha Graham if she had just a bit of encouragement. And if I were ever restricted for moving whether it be dance or sports, I would go ducking nuts too.
January 6, 2021
Apparently Lucia Joyce had no life after her father's death in 1941, as this book supplies nary a word on that portion of her life (though it does contain an interesting analysis in seeing James Joyce's work through the lens of the intense father-daughter relationship the two had). This is odd when you consider the message of the book is supposed to be something about how horrible it was that this promising young woman's life was ruined by her unfortunate life circumstances, which were first, being the daughter of a writer genius, second, undergoing the horrors that were early 20th century psychological sciences, and third, her own identity as an artist and dancer. All of these set Lucia on the path of a lifetime....
What woman did she become in the 40 years between her father's death in 1941 and her own passing in 1982? You won't find many answers to that question in this work, though you will still get an excellent portrait of the Joyce family, especially the bond between two artists-- a writer and a dancer, father and daughter.
What woman did she become in the 40 years between her father's death in 1941 and her own passing in 1982? You won't find many answers to that question in this work, though you will still get an excellent portrait of the Joyce family, especially the bond between two artists-- a writer and a dancer, father and daughter.
October 16, 2022
A huge disappointment. Schloss's "biography" is more speculation than research. And given how Richard Ellmann was so pitch-perfect in showing airtight examples of how Joyce's work reflected his life (and I would make a similar case for Brenda Mannox's wonderful biography of Nora), it's wildly annoying to see Schloss suggest that "Nausicaa" somehow confirming Joyce as a pedophile who wanted to bed his own daughter. It's further annoying to see Schloss get basic details right. (She refers to James and Nora as husband and wife at a period in which they were not yet married.) On the other hand, I have some sympathy for Schloss trying to paint some kind of portrait, given the tyranny of Stephen Joyce. So I'm honestly torn here. The scholarship vacillates between sloppy as hell and interesting. I guess, we're going to have to wait for someone more equipped to handle Lucia Joyce's life. For she was quite interesting!
May 23, 2023
After reading Richard Ellmann's Joyce Biography which was epic, I wanted to learn more about Lucia as she seems to have been tragically mistreated by her mother, her brother and every doctor that was making money by confirming she was mentally ill.
This book is just amazing. I took my time with it because it was so enjoyable although obviously sad too.
I am left thinking Lucia was as sane as most people I know but a lot more creative.
The bibliography lists many more interesting books that I intend to follow up on.
Brilliant book.
This book is just amazing. I took my time with it because it was so enjoyable although obviously sad too.
I am left thinking Lucia was as sane as most people I know but a lot more creative.
The bibliography lists many more interesting books that I intend to follow up on.
Brilliant book.
March 6, 2024
Engaging and obviously well-researched. I had no idea James Joyce even had a daughter! Lucia was so talented and yet seemingly cursed with depression. Today she might have been labeled a bi-polar sufferer.
Well worth the read
Well worth the read
July 15, 2019
Lucia again gets lost in the shadow of her father. Disappointing in terms of real information about Lucia. It is aspeculated reconstructed life of Lucia in relation to the writing Finnegans Wake.
August 15, 2022
Remarkable achievement.
Sorry to take so long to read this, but totally worth it. Also inspiring me to go back to reread Finnegans Wake, too.
Sorry to take so long to read this, but totally worth it. Also inspiring me to go back to reread Finnegans Wake, too.
June 19, 2023
As the text progresses, the person of Lucia becomes more obscure, lost in the gazes of those who surround her and use her as a mirror for their beliefs. What happens when a dancer ceases to dance?
March 8, 2014
Unfortunately I do not have a strong background where James Joyce is concerned and this was a handicap since there were many words spent in this book on Finnegan's Wake for which Lucia Joyce, his daughter, served both as muse and subject. While I appreciate the intensive research required for this book, it was tough going. I was interested in Lucia's life as a dancer, and it was painful to learn that this vital stream to her life was dead ended and that other opportunities for her creative expression were few when she was in her mid-twenties. This would be less likely to happen in our current world. Her behaviour was labelled as crazy and her father tried to provide her with the best psychiatric care available in Europe at the time, but unfortunately her experiences as a patient/inmate of institutions did not provide the kind of healing she needed (noting the male dominated medical profession that focused on the treatment of "insane," mostly women). Her father struggled to figure out what was best for her, especially after the invasion of France by the Nazis, as he knew about the cleansing of mental institutions being undertaken by the Nazis. There was a lot of interpretation in this book - of motives, behaviour that bogged it down for me. The book did open up the world of the Joyces, the social milieu that they were part of and that surrounded them, the psychiatric thinking of the day, the role of women and Joyce's brilliance and suffering. So, I am glad that I persisted.
May 29, 2009
The tenuous lines between in/sanity/genius, art/family/obligation. Lucia Joyce is fascinating not just in relation to her father and their relationship, but also as a dancer whose sanity was questioned and in the end, decided for her by her family. the book is too long for the amount of actual information that exists about lucia-it is written like a thesis with enormous amounts of secondary sources and extraneous information, but the core is incredibly interesting. although the author makes it a point to say that lucia is significant in her own right and that is how she will examine her, the book is ultimately focused on lucia as joyce's daughter and how their relationship formed and deformed her.
December 26, 2016
Its subject alone makes it worth reading: the books tells the story of Lucia, Joyce's daughter, who was considered mentally ill and spent most of her life in institutions. But it relates a narrative that has been kept hidden or ignored by Joyce's biographers: Lucia was an artist in her own right, one whose life was sacrificed for the sake of her father's genius. This pokes holes in the simplistic view that she simply went mad. There are also very controversial suggestions--many of them hard to prove because letters to, by, and about Lucia had been destroyed. The most memorable points made by Carol Loeb Schloss, I believe, are that Lucia and Joyce engaged each other creatively and that the latter loved the former infinitely.
August 14, 2011
A long, interesting look into the Joyce family and the time and places they lived. This book is well researched and detailed and the author tells the reader when there is no or scanty information, as many documents were destroyed.
Was Lucia mad? I don't think she would be locked up today. It did sound like she was pretty neurotic and also very repressed by the society and her family's expectations.
The author speculates quite a bit, it's sort of a psycho-biography, which I enjoyed very much. She doesn't present her opinions as facts, but she makes good sense.
I think Lucia would have had a very different fate had she lived now instead of the earlier part of the 20th century.
Was Lucia mad? I don't think she would be locked up today. It did sound like she was pretty neurotic and also very repressed by the society and her family's expectations.
The author speculates quite a bit, it's sort of a psycho-biography, which I enjoyed very much. She doesn't present her opinions as facts, but she makes good sense.
I think Lucia would have had a very different fate had she lived now instead of the earlier part of the 20th century.
June 9, 2014
A carefully researched and moving biography of Lucia Joyce the disturbed and disturbing daughter of James Joyce. She danced like a silver fish with Paris's lost generation but slowly lost her own way through love affairs and personal disappointment, almost drowning in the wake of her father, abandoned by the rest of her family and unable to fulfil the brilliant ambition of her youth.
February 8, 2016
A fascinating look at Lucia Joyce and her life. Daughter of James Joyce and an accomplished dancer she suffered from madness that would eventually take her life. Joyce felt that her madness was his gift without an outlet. My reading of Finnegans Wake was heavily influenced by this book (I am not sure Joyce would have it any other way). A great read.
July 7, 2011
I was disappointed. This book is not quite academic enough to be a textbook, but at the same time not interesting enough to be an enjoyable read. Which is a shame since the subject matter is so fascinating.
July 31, 2011
I want to take it as the pure truth but I know much of the historical evidence has been destroyed. I still love reading about this brilliant and fascinating young woman. Working on a show about Finnegan's Wake, ALP and Lucia right now!
May 13, 2012
Fascinating look at James Joyce's talented and troubled daughter. What an incredible world she lived in, sadly in a time when dealing with any mental illness or trouble meant locking one up in an institution indefinitely.
October 19, 2007
A life of the genius's daughter.
February 2, 2008
Really interesting bio - the daughter of a great genius hidden in the shadows until now.
Currently reading
March 1, 2013Just watched the mivie Nora with Ewan MacGregor as Joyce. Didn't want to read the Nora biography nor one just about Joyce. Lucia dated Samuel Beckett and was a patient of Jung.
to-read-1
July 14, 2013Supplemental material:
http://www.lucia-the-authors-cut.info
http://www.lucia-the-authors-cut.info
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