Joyce: A Guide for the Perplexed

Guides for the Perplexed

by Peter Mahon

In clear and simple prose, Mahon explains how to connect this little black box to the Joycean engine. Just pull some gears, it falls into place and works. -Jean-Michel Rabat?, Vartan Gregorian Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania James Joyce's work has been regarded as some of the most obscure, challenging, and difficult writing ever committed to paper; it is also shamelessly funny and endlessly entertaining. "Joyce: A Guide for the Perplexed "celebrates the daring, humor and playfulness of Joyce's complex work while engaging with and elucidating the most demanding aspects of his writing. The book explores in detail the motifs and radical innovations of style and technique that characterize his major works-"Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, "and "Finnegans Wake." By highlighting how Joyce's texts have been read by recent innovations in literary and cultural theory, "Joyce: A Guide for the Perplexed "offers the reader a Joyce that is contemporary, fresh, and relevant.

216 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Bruna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful guide with two final chapters about Queer Theory in Joyce (what?) and Post-colonialism.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is helpful, but shouldn't be the first book someone picks up about Joyce. He focuses largely on colonial and Freudian looks at Joyce's writing, much of which is spot-on, but at times feels way over the top.

[Graham Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very useful. I often question the inclusion or exclusion of some things, but overall a solid guide. One qualm - why explain what chapter in the Odyssey each chapter of Ulysses corresponds with but only sometimes pose hypotheses on the connection between to the two?