Hmm, I guess Homo is gone. Too bad, he seemed to be the only combatant here who could swing a good low blow except for Maverick. But no matter, let's talk about James Joyce.
My contention is that James Joyce is a joke; a magnificent joke on the English speaking people, and you who argue that James Joyce literary style serves as a portent of things to come are you yourselves a portent of human literary degeneration.
Of course I mean no offence, but excuse me boys, while I slowly stir the campfire with my penis.
Joyce, schmoyce. I just don't have time for someone who wants to make immortal by being "clever".
maybe someday, but not now.
hope you're wearing an asbestos condom, milo.
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My contention is that James Joyce is a joke; a magnificent joke on the English speaking people, and you who argue that James Joyce literary style serves as a portent of things to come are you yourselves a portent of human literary degeneration.
Read this first, then comment.
what kind of music do you like?
Track List
''There Is A Flower That Bloometh' by John McCormack
'A Nation Once Again' by Thomas Davis
'Bloom is on the Rye' by Sir H. R. Bishop
'In Old Madrid' H. Trotère
'La ci darem la mano' Mozart
'Love's Old Sweet Song' J. L. Molloy
'M'àppari' from 'Martha'' by F. Flotow
'Madamina' from 'Don Giovanni' Mozart
'Oh, Oh, Antonio' Sung by Florrie Ford
'Spinning Chorus' R. Wagner
'The Boys of Wexford' Traditional
'The Croppy Boy' Traditional
'The Shade of the Palm' by L. Stuart
The Holy City (Jerusalem) by S. Adams
Tutto è sciolto (All is Lost) from Bellini's ‘La Sonnambula’
Album
Musical Allusions In Ulysses 
huh.
figured you'd be into Xenakis, or Schoenberg, or some such music.
Yes etaion, but you digress instead address...James Joyce.
But I'll sing you a song about James Joyce, Homo Loquens, and I'll sing it when I get back from town.
Later Dude.
Re. music
Bedad he revives, see how he rises, Timothy rising from the bed
Saying "Whittle your whiskey around like blazes, t'underin' Jaysus, do ye think I'm dead?"
Whack fol the dah now dance to yer partner around the flure yer trotters shake
Wasn't it the truth I told you? Lots of fun at Finnegan's Wake
... a right craic is that one.
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huh
Yes, I was just parrying your attempted diversion. But a change of subject is due, and I much prefer threads which are not about contemning Homo Loquens.
Lately I am getting a galvanic skin response from Bach (the Erbarme dich aria from the Matthäuspassion sits at the top of my iTunes playcount). Brian Eno's ambient soundscapes are condusive to lucubration. Steve Reich for his phase music permutations (but not Philip Glass). Johannes Chrysostomos Theophilus or is it Gotlieb somethingorother. The Andantino from his Piano Concerto No. 9 in E Flat Major is beyond praise. The Way I Am by Eminem. The winding fractal gyres of Bach's fugues and cello suites. Leonard Cohen. Radiohead. And since I was a child I have liked that song "Let's Get Physical" by Olivia Newton John.
What about you?
> attempted diversion
sorry, just conversing.
> What about you?
I'll start a new thread.
James Joyce.
Hmm. "Higgledy-piggledy" is pronounced non-sequiturily in the Old High Martian. I s'pose scare-quote unreadable un-scare-quote means many things to many folks. To me, for what it's worth, I find Dean Koontz, Karl Marx, Sir Philip Sydney, and Dan Brown unreadable. Joyce didn't write many books, and of those he did most are what I would call quote-unquote readable. Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are no more difficult to read than Ford Maddox Ford's Good Soldier or J R R Tolkien's The Hobbit. Ulysses is perhaps a bit more of an effort, but it is certainly no more difficult than Shakespeare or the King James version of the Bible. Then, here comes Finnegans Wake: it is this book on which Joyce's famous unreadability rests. As some have said here it is a difficult book, but as others have suggested it is a fun book. I find it a whole lot of fun. More fun than say Stephen King or Lynne Truss. Now, on to musick, or but do I digress? Charles Ives Fourth Symphony; John Oswald Pretender; George Antheil Ballet Mecanique; The Evolution Control Committee Rocked By Rape; Erling Wold The Bed You Sleep In; Spike Jones The Fuehrer's Face; Al Yankovic Another One Rides the Bus; W A Mozart Dies Irae; etc. And let's keep the salamanders out of the ashes ... as duteous to the vices of thy mistress As badness would desire ... in? ...
>>readable<<
Joyce is an effort, at least Ulysees on.
The young Karl Marx is annoyingly, well, young, but the mature Marx is perectly lucid.
lucid
One Mann's Gift ist an autre homme's poisson. Chaque goût a son opposé.
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lucid
One Mann's Gift ist an autre homme's poisson. Chaque goût a son opposé.
Genau á point.
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>>readable<<
but the mature Marx is perectly lucid.
I honestly read this as being about me. Were it not for the presence of an adjective that does not apply to me, I would not have re-read it and learned that my non-rhoticism is apparently spreading.
But you *do somtimes perr
I am certain of nothing, but I imagine he does. Let's ask his wife. ;-)
Oh my!
I leave for a minute and you folks start acting like a group of jive school bopsters shucking and jiving and just having a grand old time while gleefully disrupting this worthwhile discussion about Mister James Joyce.
Geez. You yourselves are personification of the writing style of the latter day Joyce as is exemplified by your disjointed and egocentric behavior.
Hmm. I guess I'd better ask some confining questions as you all seem to be incapable of focusing for more than a nano-minute on James Joyce.
(1) To whom was Joyce writing "Ulysses" and "Finnegans Wake" ?
(2) Why?
(3) What is a novel and what is a puzzle and what form of writing would constitute a convergence of the two?
(4) Does any one man on God's green Earth completely understand "Finnegans Wake"?
(5) If not, why not?
(6) Should Andy Warhol and James Joyce be mentioned in the same breath?
(7) Why does a global cottage industry exist with the sole purpose of interperting meanings in Joyce's books?
(8) Explain any insights into life that you have gotten from reading James Joyce. Hmm?
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Saying "Whittle your whiskey around like blazes,
Whittle your whiskey?
You don't mind well, now do you Faldage.
Listen. Your asides are rude. Stuff your private comments in a private message and stop disrupting the continuity of this thread.
Get it!
here's an aside to you, milum: I think we've pretty well established that not many of us have read FW, or have even tried to read FW, or plan to ever try to read FW. so, I don't think it's surprising that there is even more digression than usual in a thread about FW. would you like us all to leave so that you and HL and jheem can have an in-depth discussion? and who would you have us deliver the message to max?
[JFTR, I've tried to read Ulysses three times, and I never seem to get past the first day. any suggestions?]
You disappoint me, tswum. The point of THIS thread is that FW (as you call it) is a literary farce or it ain't. I don't have any presumptions about the ability of anyone here deciphering James Joyce. Rather, my presumptions are whether or not the later-day Joyce is worth presuming or not, and I conclude that he ain't.
But as you and others here have poo-pooed the irrelavencies and absurdeties of Joyce, then I must also be rude and challange your stereotypical opinions.
Peace.
No one "must ... be rude." It is always a (poor) choice.
> To whom was Joyce writing "Ulysses" and "Finnegans Wake"?
Well, there are so many a questions like this, huh. One that young pale-faced scholars are asked to shed ink over regarding the latter is 'Whose dream is it?'. But I think FW is designed on the kind of talmudic or alchemical notion which means it was intended to be read as code by someone wishing to boot the universe from scratch - after the end of time .... and the extinction of man<g>.
> Why?
It's about time for a reboot.
> 3)
Oh, c'mon. This isn't lit 101 here. 'Novel' is a fairly flimsy term without context. I think most would agree that some kind of narrative should be found in a novel - both the books mentioned contain (or betray) some narrative - the latter just has *all narratives occuring at the same time:-)
> 4)
No.
> 5)
'Complete' enlightenment is beyond comprehension, so too with FW.
> 6)
No. Really, no.
> 7)
Because they are very rich texts and it is easy and fun to make original discoveries.
> 8)
For me, he has confirmed many a suspicion - that the course of time and events that come round are cyclical, repeated in many forms on many levels, and perhaps that the present life we are embedded in really is more significant than one might suppose. That everyday life is important. And milum, have a mulled wine on me will you;)
Thanks belligerentyouth, for your insights, they reflect your honest and worthy search for meaning in a world somewhat jumbled.
Please allow me to explain why I think that understanding the intent of James Joyce in his writings is so important. First of all Ulysses and Finnaegans Wake do not categorize well so Joyce's intentions become the template for which they can be judged. And as has be noted, you don't just read these two books, you study them. And like reading a thousand page repair manual for a ten thousand vacuum tube UNAVAC computer, it would be pleasant to know that your investment in reading is worthwhile.
I think it ain't. (back in a few minutes)
>you don't just read these two books, you study them.
a couple of folks here have suggested that perhaps you should "just read" them, if you're going to read them at all. I don't think this view should be just passed over.
> "just read" them
Rather than finger them idly? Well probably:-)
Meanwhile, Nobel Laureate H. Pinter chimes in on the Joyce front:
Q: Who are some of your heroes? Do you have them?
Pinter: [Laughs.] James Joyce. Yeah. I love Ulysses. Johann Sebastian Bach. And one or two others.
Q: Is it for their art?
Pinter: Yeah. And their independence. Pinter interview.
Nice Pinter quote.
I have always read books for fun and entertainment. Just because the books and authors I have enjoyed in the past make other people angry is not a criterion for my not reading and enjoying them. Likewise, I learned a long time ago that getting people to read books they a priori don't like is about as much fun as bathing a pig. No, where did I put that Hurro-Urartian Hydronyms Dictionary?
> where did I put that Hurro-Urartian Hydronyms Dictionary?
oooooh, nuncle, read us a bedtime stowy, pleeeeee~eeeese?!
The "just read" approach is for many mitigated by the lack of established story-telling structures and points of interest: the very things that make the books so attractive to dryasdust academics, of course. thanx, Anu!
read us a bedtime stowy
Ah, yes, reading a borgesian lexicon to the wee'uns. Was it old Jorge Luis hisself who wrote that he read the 10th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica when he was a young lad in the Argentine. He read it "like a novel". Or mayhaps he meant like Novalis' fragmentary and encyclopedic Heinrich von Ofterdingen? Or am I am confusing this with that famous Argentine author, William Henry Hudson, who wrote Green Mansions auf Englisch. Somewhere along the line, of course, my grenouillian narratology got run over by my shlovskian device.
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Likewise, I learned a long time ago that getting people to read books they a priori don't like is about as much fun as bathing a pig. No, where did I put that Hurro-Urartian Hydronyms Dictionary?
I read a quote from some English. Lit. pro once who was asked why he'sd never read "War and Peace". He said that "It's one of those books you have to read before you die. The longer I put off reading it, the longer I live." Now I must get back to the Mahabharata.
"Back in college, I took a class that spent an entire semester on James Joyce's Ulysses. I've never slept better in my life. While many of my classmates proclaimed it an unprecedented study of a multifaceted work so complex that not one of them ever knew what the hell they were talking about, I was quick to point out that this was hardly the first time such a class had been tried.
"My fourth-grade teacher, Mr. Lofton, dedicated an entire term solely to studying the modern classic "Blinky on the Lam." In this picture book, Blinky, an English-speaking frog with an eye moisture problem, is captured by an overzealous child, cruelly spirited from his beloved pond, and dumped into a cold, cramped aquarium. With the aid of a wise goldfish and an excitable hamster named Mr. Chewy, Blinky breaks out and finds his way back to his lily pad.
"Mr. Lofton was an eccentric, gray-haired older teacher who would "ding" you for being off in "Hooky Pooky Land," a tactic my college professor never bothered to employ. He spent many long hours covering every aspect of "Blinky on the Lam," from the symbolism of an amphibian who couldn't stop blinking to the many allusions that filled every sentence. The narrator was considered unreliable since s/he never identified his/her relationship with the characters in the story, and Mr. Lofton instructed us to read between the lines to identify Blinky's loneliness in a world with no God. Ultimately, it was even decided that the happy ending was illusory and was merely Blinky's dying hallucination as he lay mangled under the wheels of an eighteen-wheeler that hadn't missed him on that highway, as the unreliable narrator had claimed.
"That was Mr. Lofton's final year of teaching. I've read "Blinky on the Lam" many times since, and concluded that, while he may have misread the ending, it is a tale that is infinite and contains many more multitudes than anything written by James Joyce. To this day I can scarcely drive past an eighteen-wheeler without checking the tires for a streak of green crushed between the treads."
—Brockman, blogmaster PowellsBooks.blog
thanks for bringing this one back, Steve. good stuff. air you dight, and all that.
"....you study him " (Joyce)
Ohmygawd! you study him?
No No darlin' boy. He's having you on.