James Joyce: A Critical Introduction

by Harry Levin

BOOKS IN SPANISH

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Literature

207 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1959

About the author

professor of comparative literature

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this when I T.A.'d for Chet Anderson's Joyce course at the U Minn in grad school. And a few years later I sat next to H Levin at a convention lunch--I think Shakespeare Association of America, but possibly a regional MLA. May have learned more at that lunch than any I recall, partly because we discussed my undergrad professor and longtime correspondent (180 letters), the witty & entertaining Theodore Baird of Amherst College, who had studied at Levin's Harvard, but openly disagreed with their approach to composition, as well as to wide reading versus specialization. (Almost every book in the Robert Frost Library, originally Converse, had "TB" recorded as having read. In his 90s he confided in a letter, "I have read too much.")
But reviewing my notes a half-century later, I can see some of my disagreements with the great comparatist, for instance on Joyce's parodies and on his characterization: Levin finds Joyce's characterization "a few stylized gestures & simplified attitudes."*(116); on parodies, Levin questions "irrelevant parodies," which I found irrepressibly energertic, like a tree through cement.
But one central point was a revelation: Joyce's "highly developed auditory imagination"(88). As one who notates Birdtalk, and has composed jazz tunes based on Orioles, Robin and European Blackbird vocalization, I had not noticed Joyce's audition--to call it such. "More and more, as the book moves on, we are thrown back upon J's talent for auditory observation. His ubiquitous ear is everywhere, and his mimicry is everything"(95). Was Joyce too articulate to portray mute suffering.
Many other fine points, like "staccato diction" which Wyndham Lewis observed also in Pickwick Papers (85). Or joyce's psychology, primarily the idee fixe. Or, the Siren episode is so cryptic that it aroused the suspicions of censors during the last war (89). And this: there are 29,899 different words in Ulysses. For interior monologue, Joyce indebted to a short French novel, Dujardins' Les lamiers sont coupé.
Joyce's style, an elusive and eclectic Summa of its age: 1) montage like cinema--flux of undifferentiated experience; 2) impressionism, with exact verbal equivalents, bnot retrospective--as in Portrait of the Artist, contra Proust's retrospective; 3) leitmotif in music; 4) free association of psychology; 5) vitalism in philosophy.
The Siren episode includes a Shandyan digression, sheer linguistic exuberance; Joyce's parodies show himself--not self-effacing like Beerbohm. Some of them: Anglo-Saxon, Sir Thomas Malory, Sir Thomas Browne, and "Joyce's surprisingly convincing impersonation of Dickens." And Carlyle: "By heaven, Theodore Purefoy, thou hast done a doughty deed and no botch!" (96)
Joyce contrasts with Proust in offering "stasis," esprit de geometrie versus esprit de finesse.
JJ has "enormously increased the difficulty of being a novelist," his style like Milton's more easily parodies than imitated. Finally, JJ a "transitional artist like Rabelais or Milton." "The grandeur of generality, for them, had a baroque design, a simplified outline and an elaborated surface"(181).

[Bob R Bogle · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this early attempt to tell the James Joyce story, Harry Levin's insights are keen and precisely stated. Levin's prose is a pleasure to read, although by necessity his perceptions are sometimes dated. He does make a number of claims about Joyce and his works which I haven't encountered elsewhere. Some assertions he makes are factually wrong, but allowances must be made: one must marvel at how penetrative an observer and a ratiocinator he was, laboring long before any of the resources and guides were available which now, decades later, are readily at hand to all of us who follow in the pioneering footsteps that Levin put down in this book.

Levin gives us a record of his personal response to Joyce as much as he gives us keys to understanding Joyce's works. The story he presents is not exactly chronological or sequential. Hints at exposition are sprinkled liberally throughout, but he is not interpreting. Not really. The organization of the book and its chapter titles are scarcely revealing of structural significance.

I tended to be less impressed with anything that Levin actually says than with chains of significance and association which he sometimes set off in my own mind that relied in no small measure to my own independent knowledge of Joyce. By far I find Levin at his most engaging when he's speaking about Finnegans Wake, concerning which text I remain a novice myself. From this part of the book I extracted a number of gems.

[G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro ineludible para abordar la obra de James Joyce. Este trabajo clásico de Harry Levin recorre toda la producción de Joyce, desde Dublineses hasta Finnegans Wake, pasando por el incendiario Ulises. El eje de la crítica de Levin se centra en la transición joyceana del naturalismo al simbolismo. Es un eje interesante, aunque el desarrollo de las argumentaciones deja muy en claro que se trata de un eje que Joyce quiebra, excede, resignifica, recrea y destruye en la complejidad de una obra inagotable, infinita. Opino que lo mejor de este libro de Levin es que abarca casi todo lo que se sabía hasta 1960 aproximadamente sobre Joyce y su obra, que son casi lo mismo. Creo que otra virtud de este ensayo es que está saturado de conexiones con otros trabajos brillantes de crítica, como el de Herbert Gorman de 1939, el casi definitivo de Richard Ellmann de 1983 -anunciado por Levin- y textos breves como los de T. S. Eliot y Edmund Wilson. Si estuviera vivo, seguramente Levin (1912-1994) agregaría el Ulises Claves de Lectura de Carlos Gamerro (2015). Opino que este libro de Harry Levin es muy recomendable como guía de lectura del gran genio satánico de la novela modernista. Un portal de ingreso a una obra que no tiene salida.

[Steven Hernacki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read Dubliners, Portrait, and Ulysses, I feel I need some additional bolstering before tackling Finnegan's Wake. This is the first of several books I am reading to mentally prepare for the ascent.

[La Pasión Inútil · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pesar de que, debido a su año de edición, este texto empieza a padecer el paso del tiempo, sigue siendo una de las más lúcidas y claras introducciones a la obra de Joyce. Harry Levin armoniza perfectamente cuestiones biográficas y hermenéuticas para dar pistas sobre las principales obras de Joyce y, sin duda, estas son un aporte valioso para acercarse al autor irlandés. De especial interés son sus tesis sobre la “künstlerroman”, las disertaciones sobre el concepto de “epifanía” y las nociones de mapa y mito en “Ulises”.

[Tedd Vazquez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Demasiado basado en ideas personales pero a pesar de eso es iluminador.

[Francisco López · Rating 4 out of 5]

Va mi segunda lectura de este libro. La primera la hice para prepararme para mi examen teórico global con el que me titulé de la Licenciatura en Letras Hispánicas.

Me parece una buena manera de aproximarse a la obra de Joyce, especialmente a sus trabajos más extensos: Ulysses y Finnegans Wake, porque no profundiza mucho en Dubliners y solo un poco más en el Retrato. Es un excelente complemento paralelo a las obras, aunque sí creo que está algo desatualizado. Me gusta mucho la manera en la que aborda el Finnegans, creo que ayuda mucho a comprender cómo está articulado y eso puede facilitar su lectura, en el caso de que me anime a leerlo en algún momento porque, como le decía a una amiga, es el único libro que me ha intimidado en mi historia como lector.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Acquired 1992
The Word, Montreal, Quebec