In a message dated 4/4/98 7:29:31 PM EST, evmoore@hotmail.com writes: << Unexpected Salinger parallel today, courtesy of Norton Anthology of English Lit, 6th edition--apparently, James Joyce's wife, to whom he was devoted wholeheartedly, was an "uneducated Galway girl with no interest in literature" who charmed him with her "native vivacity and peasant wit." Seymour, the Artist as a Young Man? Interesting for me because Portrait is one of my all-time favorites. btw, can anyone advise as to if the looming and difficult reputations of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake are justified? Or do they reach, as Norton suggests, a "point of diminishing returns" in that "the effort of both the author and reader is disproportionate?" (Personally found that assertion a little cocky and out of line...) -emily >> I like your parallels between Norah and Muriel, they seem interesting and justified. I don't know that James was so much devoted to his wife as dependent on her. You read Ellmann's bio of James' life, and Maddox's bio of Norah's life (the original spelling of her name had the "h" at the end, which she later dropped because it was too obviously Irish "hick"), and, well, I at least was left with the impression that James made Nora's life a living Hell. She even tried leaving him once. I almost felt like she was relieved when he died. Almost. Anyways, Joyce's literature moves to greater and greater levels of difficulty and complexity. _Dubliners_ is straightforward short story writing. _Portrait_ is novel with stream of consciousness elements in it. Look for the...eh....Uncle Charles Principle guiding the narrative voice. I think that's a phrase coined by Hugh Kenner to describe how the narrative voice is bent around the character that is the focus of the narrative action, much in the same way an aquarium bends light. _Ulysses_ goes in for Full Blown psychological realism, with the added complexity of being built around the framework of The Odyssey. You are quite literally in the heads of the characters. For example, Stephen Dedalus of _Portrait_ is reading a note or something in one chapter of Ulysses...a rather odd looking note, until you realize that you're only seeing the parts of the note Stephen actually bothers to read. He skips words and lines, etc. Then FW, well, the Law of Diminishing Returns is certainly in effect if you want to read it with the type of comprehension you'd want reading any of Salinger's stories. I believe the Norton adds the qualification that it is still worth reading for the sheer effect. In my experience, the great benefit of reading all the works is that the ones that seemed difficult at first become easy. Working thru Ulysses makes Portrait easy. Working thru FW makes U easy. But Joyce said of FW that scholars would spend 300 years figuring this one out. :) Nothing makes that one easy :) I think a lot of time Dear Old James was laughing in his sleeve at us. I'm tempted to think sometimes that Ulysses is an 800 page dirty joke on us :) Jim