Re: seymour's wake

AntiUtopia (AntiUtopia@aol.com)
Sun, 05 Apr 1998 23:55:15 -0400 (EDT) 

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