I have a theory that scholars just pretended James Joyce is good to dupe everyone and at this point their followers are too invested to stop now.
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I have a theory that scholars just pretended James Joyce is good to dupe everyone and at this point their followers are too invested to stop now.
... obviously not and your thinking of literature as categorically good or bad shows you probably don't read a lot. Which is fine. But he's a writer's writer, as evidenced by inummerable writers since citing him as an influence and a favorite, and those writers happen to be the scholars you mention.
I have a theory that midwits just pretend that everything they don't understand is garbage to feel smart. I am somewhat jealous of people who can effectively lie to themselves.
Not him, but I have to say you seem a little defensive. He doesn't come off as someone trying to bullshit himself into feeling smart. He's probably just wondering why everyone is making such a spectacle out of the Emperor's clothes. If anything, your response looks like projection.
Maybe there really isn't anything there in Joyce's work? Maybe it's just like a trip to an art museum? Crap painted on canvas, words printed on paper. And pretentious homosexuals milling about signaling to each other.
>y-you just don't understand like I do!
>Not him, but I have to say you seem a little defensive.
>And pretentious homosexuals milling about signaling to each other.
>y-you just don't understand like I do!
You are literally the person this anon described
.
but its very clearly beautiful literature lol. Did you just read finnegans wake with no knowledge of Joyce's three books with clear as day literary value?
lmao struck a nerve?
Ironically IQfy does this by spamming the scat excerpt from Gravity's Rainbow. It always gets replies like "So this is the great Thomas Pynchon? Well I'm glad I never wasted my time reading this shitty wattpad fetish novel!"
If you don't like something why would you think it's good?
Maturity? Liking or not liking a person or work of art is wholly outside the realm of being able to appreciate or understand it.
There’s nothing to really “understand” in him, aside from picking up on all the references. Which isn’t required to enjoy his writing. You just take it for what it is and have fun with it. It’s whatever. His prose is breathtakingly beautiful at times (I’m thinking of parts of Ulysses like Molly’s monologue or the meditations on Shakespeare).
>Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves. The playwright who wrote the folio of this world and wrote it badly (He gave us light first and the sun two days later), the lord of things as they are whom the most Roman of catholics call dio boia, hangman god, is doubtless all in all in all of us, ostler and butcher, and would be bawd and cuckold too but that in the economy of heaven, foretold by Hamlet, there are no more marriages, glorified man, an androgynous angel, being a wife unto himself.
>>cuckold
I will now read your book. And yes, I am American.
It’s a book about a israeli cuck who goes for a walk, a goy Chad fricks the israelite’s wife in his absence, and when the israelite gets home that night he kisses his wife’s ass and goes to sleep. That’s the entire plot. Dragged out over 700 pages.
the fact that so many people are getting mad at this proves this right
I have a love/hate relationship with Joyce. I really don’t care for his work. I think too many sucked him off. Joyce knew he was being sucked off so he fricked with them. That makes him cool in my book
I just ordered a copy of Ulysses but I haven't read it yet. I very much like Dubliners and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
I've read Dubliners several times over, but only recently read Ulysses. Stick to it, even if you hate it at first. It didn't blow me away but it was hilarious and incredibly human. Good luck anon!
uh oh. Somebody was filtered.
Anon, there is too much evidence of his genius.
I'm uneducated on this. Share with me.
Joyce referenced a bunch of superior plays and poems and novels in his books. That means he's wicked smaht.
Not only this, but by pairing certain scenes with plays, rituals, plays etc. he exposed what OP thinks about Joyce, basically Joyce was saying “hey you know that writer you all love, well he doesn’t know shit, and you know those rituals you follow, well you don’t fricking know what they mean, we are all lost, don’t take life too serious”
Joyce, fricking legend
Didn't he say of Ulysses that there wasn't a single serious line in the whole thing
i believe he said that about his corpus. great novelists in general seem to approach every situation from an angle where they view it ironically, seems to be one of the core tenents of the classic novel. same with playwrights often
No he said pic rel
I am forever upset we will never see a Joyce TV or radio interview to preserve his personality.
Pretty much.
Speaking of Joyce, can the OP make another thread for the new read-a-long. I finished Clay and it was nice seeing a more positive story in there for once.
Be the change you want to see. That is, you make it. I have work tomorrow.
>They hired a poor, dotty Irishman called James Joyce–he was thought to be a great influence in my youth–and he wrote absolute rot, you know. He began writing quite well and you can see him going mad as he wrote, and his last books–only fit to be set for examinations at Cambridge. […] If you read Ulysses it’s perfectly sane for a little bit, and then it goes madder and madder–but that was before the Americans hired him […] to write Finnegan’s Wake, which is gibberish…(Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh, v. 25: A Little Learning, pp 580-81).
To be fair, it’s thought Joyce might have had syphilis, which literally could have started destroying the structure of Joyce’s brain, and caused the blindness Joyce suffered, so Waugh wasn’t really wrong.
That's a fringe theory with no real following
>he wrote absolute rot
People really had a way with word back then
He was sponsored at one point by wealthy ~~*tribe*~~ members. It's really no wonder Leopold Bloom is of the ethnicity he is in Ulysses. Finnegans Wake is simply a shit-post.
His maximalist approach gets a little tiresome after a while. Dubliners shows poise and restraint; A Portrait shows genuine creativity; but by the time he got to Ulysses, he was just trying to jerk himself and other writers off. If you want to see a real measure of what his skills were like as a pure stylist, read his poetry. It's honestly pretty bad.
thats why we judge him for his prose, rather than his poetry. Prose can be great aesthetically for different reasons than prose.
*for different reasons than poetry, sorry.
My point, though, is that when you strip away the artifice of his writing (all the silly references, jumbled up moronation, etc.), you're left with a second-rate style. There are very few passages in his works that strike me as beautiful or world-class. Most of it is simply "innovative" or funny. I say that as someone who used to practically worship the dude. I even went to the Hotel Suisse in Nice just to see a silly plaque they dedicated to him for writing part of either Ulysses or Finnegans Wake there.
>There are very few passages in his works that strike me as beautiful or world-class.
Then what the frick do you call this?
> —Why will you israelites not accept our culture, our religion and our language? You are a tribe of nomad herdsmen: we are a mighty people. You have no cities nor no wealth: our cities are hives of humanity and our galleys, trireme and quadrireme, laden with all manner merchandise furrow the waters of the known globe. You have but emerged from primitive conditions: we have a literature, a priesthood, an agelong history and a polity.
Nile.
Child, man, effigy.
By the Nilebank the babemaries kneel, cradle of bulrushes: a man supple in combat: stonehorned, stonebearded, heart of stone.
—You pray to a local and obscure idol: our temples, majestic and mysterious, are the abodes of Isis and Osiris, of Horus and Ammon Ra. Yours serfdom, awe and humbleness: ours thunder and the seas. Israel is weak and few are her children: Egypt is an host and terrible are her arms. Vagrants and daylabourers are you called: the world trembles at our name.
A dumb belch of hunger cleft his speech. He lifted his voice above it boldly:
—But, ladies and gentlemen, had the youthful Moses listened to and accepted that view of life, had he bowed his head and bowed his will and bowed his spirit before that arrogant admonition he would never have brought the chosen people out of their house of bondage, nor followed the pillar of the cloud by day. He would never have spoken with the Eternal amid lightnings on Sinai’s mountaintop nor ever have come down with the light of inspiration shining in his countenance and bearing in his arms the tables of the law, graven in the language of the outlaw.
There's really no doubt he's good. What I'm saying is that, taken as a whole, his later works are pedantic affairs, and if they do have any truly exceptional passages, like the one you've provided, they're usually shrouded in endless references, gobbledy asiatic, and so forth. Also, in this particular passage, his ~~*connection*~~ to Edith Rockefeller-McCormick is as plain as day.
I don't think the point of prose is the individual lines. The "melody" and rhythm and imagery throughout all of Joyce's work is consistently exceptional to my eyes ears and mind. I'll agree there have certainly been better writers than him, but I would not call him second rate by any means.
>when you strip away all the style there’s little style left
another IQfy dilettante at it
>writers should be restrained because... they just should OK?!?!?!?!
Portrait of the artist is one of the best books I've read and Dubliners is okay. I got filtered hard by Ulysses the three times I tried. He's a great writer and my end goal is the be able to read Finnegan's Wake.
Here's your (You)
i'm in the middle of reading Ulysses right now and kinda mixed on it tbh, some parts are kino but some parts just suck ass
kino: nausicaa, sirens, proteus
shit: oxen of the sun, cyclops
cyclops was terribly unfunny and tryhard and oxen of the sun was just boring as frick to read. however, i am in the middle of reading circe and it is probably my favorite chapter in the book so far.
I read it a little while ago. Where exactly are these (what I presume to be) chapter titles coming from? I suppose them to be interpolations made in most editions. I had the Everyman one, and it's just one seamlessly linked 1000 page brick; I've no clue what or where any of those bits are.
Anyway, I agree. It's clearly got loads of talent and effort behind it, but IMO it shows how even given all that modern art really is quite impossible. It's too experimental, trying one thing, it being adequate enough to kill 5 pages or so, but then having to suffer 50 pages of it is mind-death. How can a really great novel, and written work really, not maintain at least a degree of seamless continuity? how can points be hammered in, reiterated, if it suddenly has to fly away to whatever 'wouldn't that be interesting' folly that struck the author at the time?
You can match the chapters to an Ulysses guide or even Wikipedia. IMO, Ulysses appeals to a certain type of person, and most will not enjoy it. As you say it’s too experimental. It definitely has its moments, but I find it funny when 20 year olds who have read 20 books in their adult reading career say it’s their favorite book, or it’s the best book ever. I think there are ulterior motives at play
>cyclops was terribly unfunny and tryhard
You didn't understand it I'm going to guess. How was it tryhard?
>He hates two of the best episodes
You must be male to understand Joyce I'm afraid femanon. Please refer to the captcha I just received writing this post to see what sort of books you should return to.
you're trying too hard to fit in
No
Finnegan's Wake is funny, but might be a case of what you're describing. I haven't read any of his other works, but I assume he had to build up that good faith with undeniably good literature and FW would have been rejected if handed in by a man with lesser reputation.
cool, that's the same theory every woman develops and types up on goodreads or amazon when she accidentally reads a real novel instead of YA
I've often heard that Finnegan's Wake is written in a way that's supposed to emulate dreaming, and it really makes me wonder what the frick was wrong with Joyce's brain.
It was sort of a copy protection, often times critics and scholars will praise something obviously garbage to see who's ripping off their ideas. Same thing happened in music with the Velvet Underground
except joyce and velvet underground are incredibly entertaining. i cant even imagine how sheltered you have to be to consider velvet underground, one of the catchiest rock bands (i dont even care about rock music), "throw-shit-on-a-canvas" tier.
You are right. But midwits will never see it.
I've more respect for people who honestly say "eh, this sucks" regardless of a work's reputation than those who reverently bow down to critical consensus and declare a work objectively good while being totally unmoved by it on a personal level, the only level at which art can be experienced.
I feel the same way about Lacan. You have to learn all his obscure and idiosyncratic terminology, that shifts from seminar to seminar. Why couldn't he just express himself in a clear, unambiguous manner? Why did he need to invent these discourses that can be flipped around? How did he come to be so sure of this big A and little A?
What do you think of Lacan?
He's a fraud and you are better off reading Jung and Deleuze.
In what way are they comparable to Lacan. Or to put it another way: what do Deleuze and Jung explain with clarity, that Lacan pretends to explain?
Most redpilled post ITT. Lacan is unfathomably worse than Joyce.
A quote always resolves this.
Is this from finnegans wake?
ulysses.
Unironically one of my favourite moments in the entire book.
Sometimes after being away from the book for a while I start to think that Ulysses was overrated. But something always comes around again to remind me that it really is one of humanity’s greatest artistic achievements.
This is fricking hilarious.
I dont get it. It's funny but only in an absurd way. someone pls explain
He's traveled with a lot of people who are all the same but different. It ties into this theme:
Throughout Ulysses, Bloom will constantly empathize and imagine himself as various people and even animals, and through that you can say he is imagining them as a part of himself. All shades of the same being.
James Joyce is a bad writer, but not for the reasons that people usually say.
Explain
James Joyce is indeed a good writer of prose, but his art is ephemeral and has maybe only 25-50 years left of being a critical darling.
He banked that all of his obscurantism would "keep professors busy for centuries," and this is true to a certain level. Autists will always love to find clues and hidden meanings in his work.
But where he fails is the inclusion of things that can't be deduced through books. Things that are so far under the iceberg and autobiographical, that even the most erudite reader of Shakespeare and Homer could never have figured out. Like, oh, this is character is a reference to a guy that Joyce knew in college. But how the frick is the non-Joyce scholar supposed to know (or care) about this?
Joyce claimed that Ulysses was a work about the everyman and a celebration of the mundane every day life of people. But the book contains so much obscure autobiographical shit, obscure Irish history, Dublin geography, contemporary politics, etc. that negate any of the greatness of the lasting parts of the book.
Filtered. Kek
Refute him
Sounds pretty vain of him. Not universal at all, either. Thank you for your reply.
>only 25-50 years left of being a critical darling.
I think people will read him for as long as the notion of the "western canon" endures. I think he's on the same tier of centrality as Shakespeare and Dante, his place is secured. The "western canon" is not very fashionable right now though. Especially not the "difficult" books written by white male "geniuses".
>Joyce claimed that Ulysses was a work about the everyman and a celebration of the mundane every day life of people. But the book contains so much obscure autobiographical shit, obscure Irish history, Dublin geography, contemporary politics, etc.
There's an interesting Freudian analysis to be done there. He claimed to love the everyman, but did he really?
>But where he fails is the inclusion of things that can't be deduced through books
You are LITERALLY the precise kind of person who Joyce wanted to "keep busy." This tireless and puerile question of deduction and meaning is antithetical to Joyce's actual intent behind his art. His artworks are works of inference and intuition with a layer of deduction on top to satisfy (or, as I like to think, as a big FRICK YOU to people like you) the infantile need for not autists but normies to catalogue information and analyze. Joyce was first and foremost an artist. His medium was the written word. All else is secondary, and these meanings and references which you (and many, many others) factor so heavily into your analyses are actually and wholly immaterial to the mad James Joyce.
>what does it MEAN though
>ok... but what's the MEANING behind that?
>yikes, that just didn't make any sense at all!
homosexual intellectual sloth. Filtered.
based, i like blazing up and reading finnegans wake all day
>or, as I like to think, as a big FRICK YOU to people like you
Hello, based department?
Unironically good points though; with Joyce I just feel in awe while I read him and that's enough for me.
>with Joyce I just feel in awe while I read him
And that's it, folks. It's the sublime. Joyce knew the experience of the sublime better than anyone else. Everything is just a vehicle for that sense of joy and awe.
>Joyce was first and foremost an artist. His medium was the written word.
I thought his medium was long windy farts
imagine missing the point of Joyce’s oeuvre this badly. gay!
congratz, you are a moron
Ulysses makes it’s admirers incapable of forming a thought of their own. It’s all from critics’ mouths. I always say I’m more impressed when someone effortposts on why they love Ulysses and they sound like an amateur
I find his worldview too repulsive to ever enjoy his works.
What even is his worldview beyond “I like telling silly stories about people I knew in Dublin”?
Hmm let’s see Irish people not being subjugated by the British. I know, such a horrific view to have.
His work, more than any of his contemporaries, is characterized by an optimism towards modernity that I find too disagreeable.
I feel the same about the second viennese school in music
It boggles the mind how the Second Viennese School filtered so many people. It's really not that different or difficult. Schoenberg was right when he said he was trying to save classical music. Most pieces are challenging on first listen, but so are some pieces by Bach or even Beethoven. If you really care about classical music, you should definitely recognize value in it, even if it's not to your tastes.
Dunno how you are getting this, I've only read Portrait and Ulysses and while occasionally difficult (who am I kidding, often difficult,) his works are absolutely delightful and fun.
Joyce, Yeats, and Wagner seem to be the highpoints of Modernist Culture aesthetically from what I've consumed so far (i only read english). Does anyone know of any Visual Artists on the same tier???
Anyone think those three artists are shit? If so tell me why and who is better.
I don't think there's anything wrong with Joyce and he's certainly a premier writer - his fanbase is just absolutely insufferable
This
His fans or his dickriders
I think those who are actually fans of Joyce aren’t too bad usually. They are autistic about him and acknowledge it. It’s the 16-22 year old group of Joyce dick riders who rub me the wrong way. Their thoughts have little substance and they shout down any criticism of him. They tend to be smug and pretentious. The books they’ve read only include the big boys of literature that everyone has read as well. If someone young tells me that Joyce is their favorite writer, I am wary of them, at least those who tout Ulysses as the greatest thing ever. They are the same type of reader who equate difficulty with greatness. I personally think it takes more skill to write a simple book that is great. Pseuds tend to like convoluted books because they feel they appear intellectual
I thought Ulysses was the greatest thing ever at 18 and I still think it’s the greatest thing ever at 30
>it takes more skill to write a simple book that is great
Simplicity is not necessarily a precondition of greatness, but we live in a time which often assumes it is. That's at least in part to facilitate mass appeal. It's also because we've been living in a time obsessed with optimization and streamlining.