James Joyce: A portrait of the artist

by Stan Gebler Davies

Book by Davies, Stan Gebler

Genres: Biography

328 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1975

Reviews

[Yigal Zur · Rating 5 out of 5]

for a start. as a writer i love to read about other writers. but not too much. so the best reading time for this is in the lou. i read a page or two in the case of Joyce i laugh quite a lot. he was quite a guy. drunk, going to hookers. this is quite a Quan of Zen how a great writer was " born" from this life.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you're interested in Joyce, forget this biography. It starts interesting, but after 1925 it became very boring. There's so much better stuff.

[Armin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Falls es das Ziel gewesen sein sollte, James Joyce als die wohl verkrachteste Künstlerexistenz des 20. Jahrhunderts darzustellen, dann verdient Gébler-Davies fünf Sterne. Seine Monographie ist eine Delikatesse für Katastrophentouristen und Autoren mit Minderwertigkeitskomplexen.
Zunächst nahm mich sein respektloser Ansatz eher für GD ein, zumal der Ulysses ein doch sehr ungleichwertiges Werk ist, dessen formale Innovationen ja schnell zur Pflichtleistung für die Autoren der nächsten und übernächsten Generation gerieten, während der Erzählkern eher für eine Kurzgeschichte taugt.
Selbst wenn man dem Autor zugute hält, dass er damit der Sinnhuberei gewisser Joyce-Fanatiker, die jede noch so alltägliche Geste mit einem Wust an Bedeutungen aufladen mussten, eine Art Gegenentwurf entgegen setzen wollte, so bleibt diese Darstellung überaus unbefriedigend.
Denn so lange als irgend möglich hangelt er sich an Stanislaus Joyce „Meines Bruders Hüter“ entlang und zählt chronologisch und ausführlich jedes Darlehen auf, das Stan seinem Bruder gewährt hat, bzw. jede Notlage in der das Genie von seinem kleinen Bruder gerettet werden musste. Später wird dann Mrs. Weaver mit mehreren tausend Pfund diese Rolle übernehmen und dabei in nicht ganz so existenzielle Nöte geraten.
Einige Erfahrungen, die Eingang ins Werk gefunden haben, werden immerhin aufgezählt. Ansonsten entsteht der Eindruck, dass James Joyce ein lebensfremder, versoffener Schürzenjäger und maßlos von sich selbst eingenommener Mensch gewesen ist.
Vermutlich war JJ das alles, wie so manches andere Genie, nur kommt seine Genialität in dieser Darstellung nicht zur Geltung. Gut, das Buch sollte den allzu sehr Vergötterten ein wenig von seinem Sockel herunterholen, doch was Gébler-Davies abliefert ist die Monographie eines halbblinden Wurms, deren Lektüre keinesfalls als erste Wahl oder Einstieg geeignet ist. Wer Joyce schon immer doof fand, wird an diesem Buch vielleicht seine Freude haben, aber trotzdem nicht verstehen, was seinen nachhaltigen Einfluss erklärt.
Alles in allem hatte dieses Buch 25 ungelesene Jahre im Regal redlich verdient. Zusätzliches Interesse an Lebensbeschreibungen von JJ hat die Darstellung von GD nicht wecken können, auch wenn mich beim Lesen immer wieder die Frage geplagt hat, ob mir nicht so gar so eine dünne Rowohlt-Monographie in kürzerer Lesezeit mehr brauchbares Wissen vermittelt hätte. Falls ich noch mal was über Joyce lesen sollte, dann wohl Stuart Gilberts „Das Rätsel Ulysses“.

[An Logchlann de Ghaleaux · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a deeply personal look into the life of Joyce.

Stan Gebler Davies writes marvelously, detailing Joyce's life chronologically. Davies writes in a captivating way that really pulls readers into the story and when I was reading this it felt like I was getting to know Joyce extremely well. Davies is honest about Joyce's character and doesn't focus entirely on Joyce's literary genius and offers us a well-rounded view of the sort of man Joyce was in all fields including how he thought of his country and of other nations, how he adjusted to living in continental Europe, his views on the Great War, his relationship with friends, family, and his romances. It seems there are no details missing, as Davies did an excellent job at writing about this person's life with as much detail as Joyce wrote about Dublin.

TL;DR: I have read this book more than once and I love it for its honesty about Joyce's life and the language isn't flowery. As an Irish writer, I admire Joyce and his work and Davies help me - in a sense - to meet him.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining, often witty, informative short biography of the great master. Using many original sources, including extracts from letters, friend's diaries and conversations, Gébler Davies puts together a concise picture of the artist’s life, covering his works, family, struggles and hardships. A worthy addition to any Joyce library, even if Ellmann already sits on the shelf.

[Michael Joseph]

This is a very readable account of Joyce's life. It is not a sterile scholarly text, but an accurate account of his subject and his work,nonetheless. The author has an insiders knowledge of Dublin, and Ireland and the Irish in general, and puts this knowledge to good use, often in pithy asides.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A 10p./15c. salvage from a local charity-shop clear-out! That the genius that was 'Jim' Joyce should be reduced to such posthumous squalor! This was my good read of the year so far with its concise but exhaustive survey,speckled with vulgarities & broad humour, which brought Joyce's troubled life & career to the blinding light! (that's a terrible pun that Jim might have enjoyed at his own expense - he was a terror for witty abuse!). Stan Gebler Davies loves his subject but pulls no punches;Jim himself was am inveterate brawler & gutter-dweller in the 'kips' - Dublin slang for bawdy-houses! - & his regular bouts of 'clapping' are not glossed-over! Encore! Joyce comes over as that rare figure these days - a writer with a truly epic vision of human existence as personified by his masterwork,'Ulysses' - one of my iconic 'novels' in world literature. He lived an uproarious life that eventually killed him, carrying his beloved Nora Barnacle firmly on his skinny Irish arse, through hell & high-water! Joyce hated 'Father Murphy' & all that he stood for; his contempt, once attracted, never relented,& Joyce lies buried in Switzerland!!!, snubbed by his malignant homeland as comprehensively as Joyce snubbed the land of saints & shits...Bloom's lavatorial musings were one of the many reasons that Joyce drew such venom from the Edwardian Dublin establishment. I am humbled at Joyce's struggle to free the true-born writer from the shackles of censorship & small-mindedness, though paradoxically, in some important ways, Joyce could be both censorious & small-minded himself! And therby hangs a tale...or as Jim might have put it...a tail!...which as every scholar knows is a very important word in Joyce's lexicon...this boyo had all the right ideas...but not necessarily in the right order!

[Capili April · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book draws a human all-too-human picture of Joyce. It's mostly funny, appropriately sad too, and maybe a bit unkind in some places. While reading this, you'd probably internally sigh 'poor Stannie', 'poor Lucia', 'bravo Nora', 'bless you Ms Weaver', and 'thank you Joyce for persevering through it all'. Much shorter than Ellman's biography and should be supplemented by more recent research and scholarship--still a fine read nonetheless.

[Jesse Broussard · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to be missing something: why is this book a classic? It isn't bad, but it just seemed pointless.