Who should I read if I love James Joyce?
I've never bothered with Ulysses or Finnegans Wake but Joyce is probably my favourite author
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Who should I read if I love James Joyce?
Who should I read if I love James Joyce?
I've never bothered with Ulysses or Finnegans Wake but Joyce is probably my favourite author
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Ape Out Shirt $21.68 |
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All those 19th century French novelists.
Which novelists?
I am just too intimidated
Yes
Flaubert probably but its pointless if you don't know French
Joyce read every word of Defoe, he liked Tolstoy (though you will imagine Tolstoy wouldn't like him), Shelley, Shakespeare, he was a huge advocate of Ibsen, he liked Jens Peter Jacobsen (never read him so couldn't vouch), Byron (actually gets beat up or something over it in Portrait)
Ezra Pound and Yeats are the obvious choices to read because they are his peers and maybe the only ones at his level
Perhaps but couldn't be a more different aesthetic
>pointless
Yeah, thanks for reminding us that Flaubert's
>imagery
>characterization
>dramatic structure
>thematic exposition
>prose style qua specific arrangement of word-concepts, rather than arrangement of sounds
>humor
>pathos
etc., are all utterly mediocre.
pointless is an overstatement but what makes the book special is completely untranslatable, and Joyce would never have rated Flaubert so highly if he didn't know French
>what makes the book special is completely untranslatable
I don't think sonic effects are the only thing that makes Flaubert special, even Joyce would not agree with you on that.
The distinctness of a language can't be reduced to "sonic effects" lol.
French and English are extremely similar grammatically though.
Ibsen, much like Flaubert and Dostoevsky, was one of the standard-bearers of the psychological approach to literature. This was what ushered in stream-of-consciousness Modernism, along with Hemingway's inversion of it.
>French and English are extremely similar grammatically though.
The languages work very differently. French language is "deep", far less words but they are very precise and go straight into the Middle Ages. English is more sprawling. French works translate into English worse than German or Russian. But this is my understanding
I wasn't aware he had fallen out of favor. He's one of the greatest dramatists. But he's never been the kind of artist to inspire tremendous enthusiasm like Shakespeare or Beethoven
Doesn't that directly work *against* the idea of Flaubert as the "mot juste" author? His options were more limited and thus his choices less significant?
Anyway my point is just that Flaubert's precision (and brutal honesty, which I think is what Joyce probably cared most about) of observation of people, settings, situations, etc. is a huge part of what makes him special, not just the precision of the language itself.
Indeed, Flaubert could never hope to reach the genius of Joyce's special needs words such as:
>Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunnt-rovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk
Or his playful neologisms about loudly lip-smacking that still marvel the average Redditoyce today:
>Florry whispers to her. Whispering lovewords murmur liplapping loudly, poppysmic plopslop.
>Ibsen
This has been a big question mark for me ever since I got into Joyce. I've read Dubliners, Portrait, and Ulysses, and I know about almost all of the guys you mentioned, and have read them. But Ibsen seems to be the big guy that influenced Joyce a lot, yet has fallen out of favor among modern readers. I'm curious about him.
19th century French novelists don't write schizophrenic word salads like Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.
>love Joyce
>haven't read Ulysses
okay, the Wake I get, but not Ulysses? What the frick is wrong with you? That's like saying you love The Velvet Underground but refuse to listen to their first album
Yeah I mean you can love Joyce, but have him be your favorite author? Once you read a lot of Ulysses and FW the prior books almost become irrelevant
>Joyce is probably my favourite author
>never bothered with Ulysses or Finnegans Wake
can you please use better bait fisherman-san
Chairman Mao's quotations
he's your favorite writer because of Dubliners (which is great, but not one of the greatest books of all time) and Portrait (which is absolutely dull and uninteresting)?
>portrait dull and boring
Psued detected
Filtered.
My advice would be to bother with Ulysses.
Ulysses and Finnegans wake
Infinite Jest
e-girlta
songs of a dead dreamer and grimscribe
house of seven gables
The unfortunate Finnegans Wake is nothing but a formless and dull mass of phony folklore, a cold pudding of a book, a persistent snore in the next room, most aggravating to the insomniac I am. Moreover, I always detested regional literature full of quaint old-timers and imitated pronunciation. Finnegans Wake’s facade disguises a very conventional and drab tenement house, and only the infrequent snatches of heavenly intonations redeem it from utter insipidity. I know I am going to be excommunicated for this pronouncement.
Moore's Voice of the Fire and Jerusalem.
Try Frank O'Hara.
Read the rest of Joyce's work
Anatole France, don't repeat this secret to anyone
How the actual frick can you say that he's your favorite writer without having read Ulysses beforehand? Joyce is a god amongst men, and that's an understatement.
James Stephens
>I've never bothered with Ulysses or Finnegans Wake
I take it you’ve read his earlier works then.
read some fricking steamy hot brapp
Winesburg, Ohio