Status Updates From James Joyce

'The theme of Ullysses is simple: casual kindness overcomes unconscionable power. In Joyce's work the soul--a word which he never renounced--carries off the victory.'

'Joyce moved rapidly towards a conception of personality new to the novel. Unlike Henry James, who worked by analysis of great trends in moral life, he had begun to evolve a synthetic method, the construction of character by odds and ends, by minutiae. He did not allow his characters the sudden, tense climaxes towards which James ushered the people of his books. His protagonists moved in the world and reacted to it.'