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Life & Times
James Joyce
James Joyce (1882-1941) was one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. As a young man, he rejected his country and its religion, but went on to carefully recreate the Dublin of his youth in his fiction. Ulysses was banned in Britain and the United States, but has since been recognized as a masterpiece that revolutionized the modern novel. Despite his failing eyesight and domestic worries, Joyce’s last book, Finnegans Wake, is a celebration of the great human comedy in which each of us has a part.
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
176 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 28, 2012
James Joyce.
He died of perforated duodenal ulcer (diagnosed too late) in 1941, not yet 60. Had he lived much longer, he would probably have gone completely blind. He had a son, Giorgio, and a daughter, Lucia whom he dearly loved. At around 25, the psychologist Carl Jung told him that there were certain schizoid characteristics in her (Lucia's) letters. He didn't believe Jung and insisted that they anticipated a new kind of literature, like his own experiments with language. Subsequently, however, Lucia was declared a full-on schizophrenic. He blamed himself. He said: "Whatever spark of gift I possess has been transmitted to Lucia, and has kindled a fire in her brain." Lucia would outlive him and his wife for many years, dying after a lifetime of confinement in a hospital in 1982.
When he passed away and Lucia, then in a nursing home, was told about it she refused to believe it. Said she: "What is he doing under the ground, that idiot? When will he decide to come out? He's watching us all the time."
Many years before, he had lost his faith. At 14 he started visiting brothels. When his devoutly religious mother who dearly loved him, May, was dying of cancer (diagnosed too late) she pleaded with him from her deathbed to make his Easter Duties, to confess his sins, do penance and receive Holy Communion. He refused. He wouldn't do them even for show, for his dying mother (echoes of this theme may be found in two of his novels). May died on 13 August 1903, aged 44. He couldn't be persuaded even to kneel at her bedside in her last hours.
When he himself was buried on 15 January 1941 with very few people in attendance his widow Nora (who survived him for 10 years) declined the offer of a Catholic burial, respecting his non-belief to the end, saying "I couldn't do that to him."
He was the eldest of a large brood of 10 (3 brothers and 6 sisters). He hated his country (Ireland), his countrymen and their religion but had Dublin (Ireland's capital city) as the locale of his most famous works. He was not of a humble demeanor, convinced as he was, even at an early age, of a great destiny awaiting him. Many, however, simply found him arrogant.
This excellent biography by Ian Pindar had one chapter devoted to the plot of "Ulysses" but since it might be a spoiler to those who still dream here of reading this novel and understanding it, I wouldn't discuss this chapter here. Suffice it to say that this monstrous book deals with the events of a single day in Dublin, Thursday 16 June 1904--the day James Joyce first went out with Nora, who later became his wife.
What did he himself say about "Ulysses"? Up to the last minute before its initial publication he was still making a lot of changes and revisions in it. "Ithaca" was the last section to be completed yet by then he still sent another scheme of the entire novel "in order to confuse the audience a little more" (his own words). When a French translator had asked him for some kind of summary of the book, he refused and explained:
"If I gave it all up immediately, I'd lose my immortality. I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles 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."
Later, he wrote "Finnegan's Wake" with a self proclaimed purpose: "to keep the critics busy for three hundred years." He described this book as "pure music" written more for the ear than the eye. He said that "If anyone doesn't understand a passage, all he need to do is to read it aloud." Sound taking precedence over meaning (Pindar). I have never seen a copy of "Finnegan's Wake" in my entire life. Maybe no one publishes it anymore because no one looks for it to buy and to read. From the way it has been described here, however, I suspect it may look to me just like one long novel written in today's language of the SMS/text messaging using cellphones. The poet William Carlos Williams, who had never known the joy of text messaging, said:
"Joyce maims words. Why? Because meanings have been dulled, then lost, then perverted by their connotations (which have grown over them) until their effect on the mind is no longer what it was when they were fresh."
Now, this review is not meant to discourage anyone from trying to read James Joyce ("The demand that I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole life to reading my works.") AND to understand what he's saying (French philosopher Jacques Derrida: "It is ludricrous to say 'I have read Joyce' because we are always on the EDGE of reading him."). All I want to say is that when people extol the greatness of Joyce's works, my puny mind couldn't grasp the meaning even of the explanation for the praises. Like:
"In the late 1960s a new movement, post-structuralism, signalled a fresh self-consciousness about language and meaning, with 'Finnegan's Wake' as its anti-Bible. It has even been suggested that without Joyce post-structuralism might never have happened. Post-structuralists celebrated the irreducible excesses of language as a multiple play of meaning and in their view Joyce's punning distortions fractured the unity of the word as a stable sign. His slippery 'Finneganese' undermines all attempts to grasp its meaning once and for all and this subversive free play of infinite plurality appealed to post-structuralists." (Pindar, p.138).
In contrast, when others criticize Joyce's works I find what they're saying easy to understand. Like when Evelyn Waugh said:
"Experiment? God forbid! Look at the results of experiment in the case of a writer like Joyce. He started off writing very well, then you can watch his going mad with vanity. He ends up a lunatic."
Or J.G. Ballard who calls semen in a car dashboard a semen in a car dashboard (Crash):
"Joyce's incomprehensible novel, which has provided a living for generations of English Literature professors, represents a lamentable tendency in twentieth-century fiction: the quest for total obscurity. 'Finnegan's Wake' is the best example of modernism disappearing up its own fundament."
But see here, even J.G. Ballard shows some influence by Joyce. It should have been ASS, not fundament!
Obscurity!
He died of perforated duodenal ulcer (diagnosed too late) in 1941, not yet 60. Had he lived much longer, he would probably have gone completely blind. He had a son, Giorgio, and a daughter, Lucia whom he dearly loved. At around 25, the psychologist Carl Jung told him that there were certain schizoid characteristics in her (Lucia's) letters. He didn't believe Jung and insisted that they anticipated a new kind of literature, like his own experiments with language. Subsequently, however, Lucia was declared a full-on schizophrenic. He blamed himself. He said: "Whatever spark of gift I possess has been transmitted to Lucia, and has kindled a fire in her brain." Lucia would outlive him and his wife for many years, dying after a lifetime of confinement in a hospital in 1982.
When he passed away and Lucia, then in a nursing home, was told about it she refused to believe it. Said she: "What is he doing under the ground, that idiot? When will he decide to come out? He's watching us all the time."
Many years before, he had lost his faith. At 14 he started visiting brothels. When his devoutly religious mother who dearly loved him, May, was dying of cancer (diagnosed too late) she pleaded with him from her deathbed to make his Easter Duties, to confess his sins, do penance and receive Holy Communion. He refused. He wouldn't do them even for show, for his dying mother (echoes of this theme may be found in two of his novels). May died on 13 August 1903, aged 44. He couldn't be persuaded even to kneel at her bedside in her last hours.
When he himself was buried on 15 January 1941 with very few people in attendance his widow Nora (who survived him for 10 years) declined the offer of a Catholic burial, respecting his non-belief to the end, saying "I couldn't do that to him."
He was the eldest of a large brood of 10 (3 brothers and 6 sisters). He hated his country (Ireland), his countrymen and their religion but had Dublin (Ireland's capital city) as the locale of his most famous works. He was not of a humble demeanor, convinced as he was, even at an early age, of a great destiny awaiting him. Many, however, simply found him arrogant.
This excellent biography by Ian Pindar had one chapter devoted to the plot of "Ulysses" but since it might be a spoiler to those who still dream here of reading this novel and understanding it, I wouldn't discuss this chapter here. Suffice it to say that this monstrous book deals with the events of a single day in Dublin, Thursday 16 June 1904--the day James Joyce first went out with Nora, who later became his wife.
What did he himself say about "Ulysses"? Up to the last minute before its initial publication he was still making a lot of changes and revisions in it. "Ithaca" was the last section to be completed yet by then he still sent another scheme of the entire novel "in order to confuse the audience a little more" (his own words). When a French translator had asked him for some kind of summary of the book, he refused and explained:
"If I gave it all up immediately, I'd lose my immortality. I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles 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."
Later, he wrote "Finnegan's Wake" with a self proclaimed purpose: "to keep the critics busy for three hundred years." He described this book as "pure music" written more for the ear than the eye. He said that "If anyone doesn't understand a passage, all he need to do is to read it aloud." Sound taking precedence over meaning (Pindar). I have never seen a copy of "Finnegan's Wake" in my entire life. Maybe no one publishes it anymore because no one looks for it to buy and to read. From the way it has been described here, however, I suspect it may look to me just like one long novel written in today's language of the SMS/text messaging using cellphones. The poet William Carlos Williams, who had never known the joy of text messaging, said:
"Joyce maims words. Why? Because meanings have been dulled, then lost, then perverted by their connotations (which have grown over them) until their effect on the mind is no longer what it was when they were fresh."
Now, this review is not meant to discourage anyone from trying to read James Joyce ("The demand that I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole life to reading my works.") AND to understand what he's saying (French philosopher Jacques Derrida: "It is ludricrous to say 'I have read Joyce' because we are always on the EDGE of reading him."). All I want to say is that when people extol the greatness of Joyce's works, my puny mind couldn't grasp the meaning even of the explanation for the praises. Like:
"In the late 1960s a new movement, post-structuralism, signalled a fresh self-consciousness about language and meaning, with 'Finnegan's Wake' as its anti-Bible. It has even been suggested that without Joyce post-structuralism might never have happened. Post-structuralists celebrated the irreducible excesses of language as a multiple play of meaning and in their view Joyce's punning distortions fractured the unity of the word as a stable sign. His slippery 'Finneganese' undermines all attempts to grasp its meaning once and for all and this subversive free play of infinite plurality appealed to post-structuralists." (Pindar, p.138).
In contrast, when others criticize Joyce's works I find what they're saying easy to understand. Like when Evelyn Waugh said:
"Experiment? God forbid! Look at the results of experiment in the case of a writer like Joyce. He started off writing very well, then you can watch his going mad with vanity. He ends up a lunatic."
Or J.G. Ballard who calls semen in a car dashboard a semen in a car dashboard (Crash):
"Joyce's incomprehensible novel, which has provided a living for generations of English Literature professors, represents a lamentable tendency in twentieth-century fiction: the quest for total obscurity. 'Finnegan's Wake' is the best example of modernism disappearing up its own fundament."
But see here, even J.G. Ballard shows some influence by Joyce. It should have been ASS, not fundament!
Obscurity!
December 10, 2024
Com algumas inovações em termos de edição mas muitas carências enquanto biografia. Além disso, o biógrafo está sempre a tentar "nacionalizar" Joyce como se ele fosse a personificação da história da Irlanda. O que além de irritante é também uma visão muito redutora de Joyce que não o merece embora seja sem dúvida um personagem muito pouco simpático (e quanto mais o conhecemos, menos simpático o achamos...)
November 26, 2025
This brief but thorough and readable biography in the Life & Time series published by Haus Publishing is admirable. The photos, the informative blocks offering a closer look at movements, politics, literature during the years of Joyce's life (1882-1941) give the reader a full picture of Joyce's life and works. The book has encouraged me to read more of Joyce's work, including Finnegan's Wake.
February 15, 2018
A great biography! Now on to Richard Ellman!
Read
October 27, 2024A library sale acquisition that I read on or about Bloomsday. Good pithy account of Joyce’s life and the creation of his works.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews