Re: pynchon/salinger letters in nytimes article
Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Tue, 24 Mar 1998 10:55:53 -0500
> The letters I'm concerned
> about didn't seem terribly affectionate to me, just pornographic. Of course,
> if Nora enjoyed them at the time, well, then who am I to complain? :)
Exactly! It's funny, anyway (no big surprise here) how what seems
pornographic to one reader can read so differently to another. I don't
think there's ever been anything in Joyce I've thought of as
*pornographic*. (I haven't read Finnegans Wake, though -- so if I seem to
be spouting off, shout me down.)
> But I also know Stephen Joyce was irked by Richard Ellmann's publication of
> the rest of the letters. I don't blame him. But of course, now that the
> letters have been published, we "have" all read them, haven't we? :)
Ummmm, knowing how litigious a world we live in, I will say only that
Stephen Not-MY-Hero Joyce is known for his eccentricities. There is little
he says or does that I take seriously, except when he puts flame to paper.
It's an intriguing matter to consider; it's Stephen's family, yes, but I
find myself wishing he had been more like Max Brod, who declined Kafka's
request that all manuscripts and journals and letters be burned. I don't
know that James Joyce or his daughter asked to have any letters burned by
Stephen. I rather suspect that he acted of his own accord. And he's done
or said nothing in public to make me want to trust him as custodian of
anything save, perhaps, a child's hand-printed copy of the alphabet.
--tim