Re-Joyce Message Board

Glad to see someone else has Geniuses together, that book got me started on my biggest book collection...

How is it that in the Joyce group, none of his works show up in the shared list? Not even the unweighted version. I've got four copies of Ulysses alone. Do I need to loan them out? ;)

And I have Ulysses and 2 copies of Finnegan's Wake

Maybe because of different versions? I have an annotated edition (German) and an audio book...

5/8 in this group have this work (1,245 LT copies total): Ulysses. I'm baffled.

Why is this group named Re-Joyce?

For no special reason, actually, I just liked the play on words...

It also depends on how the information is entered. It must be an exact match to show up as a match.

Has anyone ever attended a Joyce Conference? My MA thesis was on Joyce, and I went to Miama J'yce Conference and read a paper once.

Has anyone ever attended a Joyce Conference? My MA thesis was on Joyce, and I once attended the "Miami J'yce" Conference held annually around JJ's Birthday.

On the Group name: thought it might be in reference to the Burgess book but did not understand the hyphen.

Well, to be honest, I thought I had heard it somewhere, but I could not remember where. The only thing I could think of as a source was a documentary about the celebration of Bloomsday, which however isn't called ReJoyce, but Joyce to the World... (http://www.fritzfilms.net/jttw/)

Interesting, that "Joyce to the World". Once had a professor who maintained that Joyce was not an author but an industry! Ditto, Faulkner.

rfb & ithuriel - I, too, thought of Re Joyce by Anthony Burgess.

mckeown - No, I've never been to a conference (what a strange name for the Miami one). I took a Ulysses grad school seminar, but that's it.

As for Joyce not showing up in our shared books, I now see Ulysses at #41 of the weighted list (it lists 8 of us owning the same work), but there's something wrong with the unweighted list. This Saturday morning, it is showing #1 and no other numbers with 10 items in that list - none of which is a work by Joyce. I have seen this problem with other group zeitgeist pages as well. I hope it's something the system sorts out eventually.

Not sure what weighted v. unweighted lists are. But maybe some just have not gotten around to cataloguing their Joyce books. Like lazy me, for instance.

ithuriel - The unweighted list is the raw data - the book owned by most of the members is #1 and so on. The weighted list takes into account how common/rare a work is at LT. That makes it less likely for that Harry Potter will take up all the slots. ;-) But the problem with the group zeitgeist wasn't that some haven't catalogued their Joyce books because as of this morning, even though there were 8 owners, Ulysses didn't show up at all on the unweighted list even though it had more owners than any other book in our combined libraries. At the moment, there are now 9 of us who have that work catalogued, and it's finally showing on the unweighted list, too, although not at the top as it should. And I see the same problem in many groups. This all was working perfectly the first couple days of groups. Trust me, there's a glitch somewhere.

The name was a pun on "Miami Vice." I wrinkled my brow when I first heard it as well, but considering the puns in Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake, I think it is more than appropriate.

Has anyone been following the controversy surrounding Stephen and the estate of JJ? I was hoping perhaps someone was closer to the law suit than I am.

-Jim

Jim -

I've only briefly heard about the case; seems JJ's heir (Stephen, is it?) wants to have total control over anything to do with JJ (including words like "Bloomsday" and the Bloomsday Celebrations all over the planet (I think?)). When I get a chance, I'll try to look into it a bit more, because I'm curious. The general impression I got was that he was just being a wanker, but that's certainly based on only someone else telling me about it (there's usually two sides to any story).

Personally, my copy of Ulysses is dog-eared and marked up so much ... Damn! I LOVE that book!

I splurged and bought the 40-CD audio book this year so I can listen to it while I'm on the road (though I find myself checking the printed book while I'm tooling down the expressway ... who needs cell-phones for distraction when you can have Joyce!).

I've been trying to read Finnegan's Wake my whole life, but always get side-tracked or way-layed for one reason or another.

Two years ago, I started reading FW out loud to myself! What a joy! Some of his melding of two or more words really don't take full effect unless you hear them while you're reading the printed form.

Alas! Life got in the way, again, and I put the book down. My memory is such that now I have to start at the beginning again (Throw me in the briar patch!). Going to give it another shot this October when I go to Monhegan Island, ME for two weeks. Wish me luck ... it IS a wonderful, great book!

(Last message for a while .. gotta give others a chance, right?)

Does anyone know why the "touchstone" I used for Finnegan's Wake in the previous message takes me to a book ABOUT Finnegan's Wake? I've seen that happen elsewhere, too.

Certainly nothing to sweat about, given the great fun that this whole "Groups" thing is generating. In just one day, I have a new pile of books to re-read based only upon connections made through the various groups.

Cool!

Boogie on in Peace,
Douglas

To rmckeown:
My understanding is that Lawrence Lessig has now filed suit against Stephen Joyce for copyright abuse.

The New Yorker covers the Stephen Joyce saga here

I just cannot believe that a member of this goup would put that ridiculous apostrophe in Finnegans Wake - it shows an ignorance beyond belief.

BTW I have 4 or 5 copies of Ulysses and 3 of Finnegans Wake, 4 of Dubliners, Mick Nick and the Maggies plus plus plus .... and that's above and beyond the "commentary" books, the letters, the lives and the simple Joyceana

I also write in the tradition

I, too, just cannot believe that a member of this g(r)oup would put that ridiculous apostrophe in the title ... particularly when I realize that I, indeed, am that member!

I stand before you red-faced and apologetic (I DO know better; I do NOT know what came over me).

Thanks for pointing out my gaffe.

By the way, an interesting link about said apostrophe is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnegan's_Wake

Douglas
"In the end, only kindness matters."

Classy. Anyway, Ulysses is probably my favourite book ever (it’s the only one I feel comfortable giving 5 stars out of 5), but I do think I’m a bit too respectful of it. I’ll usually read anything anywhere, but Ulysses is the one book I think deserves special attention: I must read it in a quiet place, when I have a lot of spare time, that kind of stuff. I try to console myself saying I’m not alone: reading about Ulysses probably takes more time of its aficionados than reading the book itself.

One reason I mention this is because someone brought up Stephen Joyce’s reign of terror over his grandfather’s estate. From what I read all around, Stephen seems a nasty character; but doesn’t he kind of have a point when he says people should listen less to Ulysses’ commentators and more to Ulysses? Doesn’t all the noise around the work eventually end up silencing the work itself?

PS: one book by, and another about, Joyce Carol Oates in our weighted list. Have people mixed up the Joyces? Or is it a LibraryThing thing?

to papalaz: I was rather enjoying Mr. Doogiewray's wray with words. He sites articles; gets way-layed. Great fun!

to doogiewray: Good up the keep work!

James Joyce's Ulysses is overlong, overrated and unmoving; Finnegans Wake is a tragic waste of time (so says Roddy Doyle).

Plumpesdenken: Great article. Thanks for the link.

Roddy Doyle is one of my favorite authors and some of his points are right on target. His "opinions," though, are his own and (obviously) not shared by a few other folks in the World.

Sad, too, is that the article implies that he read only three pages of Finnegans Wake (note the missing punctuation, please {sheepish grin}); that's hardly giving it a fair shake, now, is it?

The funny thing is, too, that, at times, Doyle's writing resembles Joyce's ... particularly Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (a WONDERFUL read, if ever there was one).

I can picture Joyce and Doyle at some pub over several pints of Guinness arguing these points; as the article states near the end, Joyce would probably love the debate.

Douglas

"In the end, only kindness matters."

I guess a lot of us added that apostrophe without thinking :) It really would be nice if we could edit our post.

We are not all as ignorant as you seem to think.

On Stephen James Joyce:

The old man really is in an impossible position. I recoil a bit when the critical community balances the criticizing lens between the sun and the son and the grandson. Giorgio was generally silent about such matters, but Stephen has always been much more vocal; and we wave away the picture that the man paints of Joyce, with claims of coloring in “youthful sentimentality” or whatnot. Ridiculous, in my opinion. Stephen James Joyce is one of the few living beings who spent as much time as he did with the writer, regardless of his age at the time. And it might rightly give the critical community pause when the man reports that his grandfather would never cease hootin’ and a-hollerin’ over the mammoth industry that has grown over deciphering the arc, speed, and force in which he wiped his Irish arse on the second of the month of March on his fourth year of life, and how this reflects Bloom’s own philosophy of sanitation in the stall scene, or if this hints particular relevance to 2+3+4 or 2(3+4) or 2(3(4)) page of the Wake, etc.

However, many points of contention arise against Stephen’s angst. Ellmann put it best, in my mind, when he responded to the man’s despair over the critical beacon which is Ellmann’s book: “This is the price of greatness.” Does Dickens’ estate weep over the attention? Will Pynchon’s? Perhaps the issue lies in just what kind of attention is being granted. But, to turn to Ellmann again (as is expected), “This is the price of greatness.”

My own qualm with Stephen Joyce rests in his insistence that not enough mind is paid to Dedalus. This, frankly, is contrary to what the author, himself, had hoped for, and what, indeed, conspired during the earliest years of Joyce Criticism. I think Hugh Kenner was among the first to point out how characteristically repugnant the figure of Dedalus is, how arrogant and intolerant; just how important his brief interlude with Bloom is. This, above all else, is the most important scene in Ulysses that was, frankly, being utterly ignored in the early years, the greatest argument (as Stanley Sultan has phrased it) of the book. From the perspective of Dedalus, it is a story of how one of such a caliber of mind (only coming second to Hamlet, in my opinion) learns to shed arrogance and root acceptance in our world. How one learns to let go of ego, wade out into the cold waters, and save the drowning man. A devilishly subtle scenario, beguiling in its simplicity. It is the biggest question, really: How do we learn to love in a world that is so dark and cruel?

So, as we have witnessed, the critical community is incessantly shifting in its accents, a hopeful sign for Stephen Joyce. Where we still flail about with every scrap and bit is where we still don’t really know light from dark—being the Wake—and perhaps never will we fully feel the subtleties of black and gray, as the author simply died too soon after its publication and never gave the world such a map as he handed Stuart Gilbert (had Joyce lived, Jacques Mercanton would probably have been picked as such a man). This, naturally, is where Joyce receives much of his attacks, that a book should never require the explanation of its author—why, indeed, Stephen Joyce may hold the Joyce Community at such faults for planking such a dam around his grandfather’s reception.

My own approach to these attacks is based on my opinion of the artistic world of the early 20th century (before the beginning of the 2nd World War). For one, we have to realize that the arts were experiencing a tremendous Renaissance during this period, an even larger Renaissance, I would argue, than Britain experienced in the Romantic era. Indicative of every artistic Renaissance is a “chording back,” a reevaluation of those works of art that, by tradition, have been deemed masterpieces. I believe in his ABC of Reading, Ezra Pound says of this process, “the garden of muses must be weeded” in order for art to thrive in its present.

Thus, as we have the community in a state of reexamination of the past, we can expect the Art of Allusion to rear its face. A symptom of such a state, if you will. Pound, Joyce, and Eliot, one could argue, had reverted stylistically to the state of Augustan poetry (not English Augustan, but of the original Roman variety), flaunting erudition in a manner similar to the allusive (pun intended) wars of Propertius, Vergil, and Horace. “Flaunting” may not be entirely accurate, but then “erudition” is undergoing a tremendous change of definition as we speak. In the age of Hypertext Analysis, just who is erudite? Anything and everything can potentially be referenced at your fingertips. Specialization in literary cross-referencing may reach its shelf life.

This very fact, of course, addresses Stephen Joyce’s complaints about the sheer size of critical mass attached to his grandfather’s works. Joyce, naturally, has become ripe for such an age as this. “The price of greatness” as well as “the price of” writing texts suited for Internet application. I, personally, look forward to 2017 when more works enter the public domain, when hypertext readings become available (Don Gifford and Roland McHugh might not share all of my hopes, as sales of their texts will undoubtedly plummet).

And, I see, I’ve rambled on enough…

As you can see I slightly changed the group name and added related tags and authors (those named on the Joyce tag page). Is there anybody/anything I have forgotten?

My! That is good work on the touchstones, rfb. Congratulations! And Anthony Burgess would, no doubt, be pleased as well.

Uhm.. actually I only added those in the group description, the rest is Tim's work...

I have copies of Finnegan's Wake, Ulysses, and Dubliners.

Enjoyed ImNot Dedalus' ramble. When will he ramble again? On his question of just who will be erudite in the age of hypertext analysis I would opine: the same who were erudite before.

Also related to the Burgess critical study "Re-Joyce"...

After repeating readings of Ulysses over the years, I’ve become familiar enough with it that I can pick an episode at random and enjoy it, even though I won’t understand all of it. Late last night on a whim I read the Cyclops episode which takes place in Barney Kiernan’s pub. It may be the best section of the book for humor, the fun of the many words and phrases the barflies employ when urging each other on for another pint. Of course, the nationalism that shapes it, beginning in comedy and ending in violence is all fueled by alcohol. It’s also great fun to revel in the absurdity of the narrator’s ludicrous roll call of attributing Irishness to almost everyone of note who ever drew breath.

And is there a more despicable character in literature than the Citizen?

Does this look right to you? Is it a kids version of Ulysses?

http://www.lovereading.co.uk/book/0746052006/isbn

Wow! You had me going there for a second, but I think Lovereading may have made a Freudian typo/slip of sorts.

This book is a retelling of the old Iliad and Odyssey stories and it's author is listed as "retold by Anna Clabourne."

What makes me rejoice in Joyce is seldom mentioned in forums. It is that he takes advantage of our eyes. The literary community goes on and on about the primacy of the ears, of the sound of Language. Joyce does what ancient Japanese poets did, he gives us words that pun well because we see the odd spellings and odd agglutanations (?). I have done some of the same in order to translate Japanese poetry. I am afraid I do not create such complex puns as Joyce, but do make up scores of words such as "slugboat" for a sea cucumber harvester's vessel, or bloomshade for the shade under a blossoming cherry tree. And, I have been told by a Japanese literatae that he would take the phone book and my Rise, Ye Sea Slugs! with him were he ever sent to jail. I do not read my own books, but did keep Finnegans Wake in the bathroom for the year or so I spent finishing The Cherry Blossom Epiphany. I wonder if the influence shows? (I know it is odd to talk of one's own books, but i think people who enjoy Borges', Burgess (the nadsat in CO, at least) and Joyce, not to mention Sterne (Tristam Shandy(not in spanish as the touchstone has it but in english and japanese -- soseki the novelist thought it was a sea slug of a novel and i take the plotline and ploip it into Rise, Ye Sea Slugs! and if you do not know what i am talking about, see page 37 of Rise at Amazon or Google)

Oops!

The last sentence should end ". . . might like my books."

Have you read either of the two Japanese translations of FW?

ReJoyce. Ummm....... Sounds like something I'd do after bathing at Baxter's.

Actually, I enjoyed Ulysses, thought A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was slow in spots, and thought Dubliners was uneven. It's been a while since I read any Joyce and when I get Ulysses catalogued here may take it on again. I don't think I'll be re-reading any of the others, unless I get on a Joyce jag. Never had Finnegan's Wake in my hands. Never had the urge.

OK, I think I'm ready to tackle Finnegans Wake. I started once before and never finished. I think life got in the way or something.

Anyhow, I noticed that A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake is back in print, so I'm going to use that to aid me on my journey. Just to prep, I re-read Dubliners, Portrait, and Ulysses. That only took a year or so!

Joseph Campbell has always been one of my favorite authors and I remember really liking a series of lectures on Joyce that he did. I think it was on PBS or something.

Just a reminder ... once again, tomorrow is Bloomsday!

I've had my 40 cd audiobook of Ulysses playing in my car for the last week (with my old dog-eared copy of the book on the seat next to me for stops (for some reason, I've had alot more people honking their horns at me when the light turns green - go figure, huh?)).

Tomorrow, there will be an Irish breakfast served at one of our local Irish bars in New London, CT (ah, the irony ... New "London") after which there will be a Dublin Stroll to the nearby library where a lady is going to render Joyce's words in song and recitation.

Anyone else doing anything to celebrate?

Douglas

"In the end, only kindness matters."

Hi Douglas.

Unfortunately there were no Bloomsday celebrations close to where I live. However, I am reading Ulysses now as part of a discussion group on another forum.

I envy you the 40 cd audiobook. Ulyssess not only needs to be read but heard.

I'm so happy to find people who appreciate JJ (who is not my father, I'm sorry to say). I can't decide which is my favourite, Joyce doesn't do naff, but I'd like to pay a special tribute to a portrait of the artist as a young man, Ulysses, Finnegans Wake and Pomes Penyeach.

For those who cannot appreciate Finnegan's Wake, you are probably reading it wrong. Make it your reading when you sit on that ceramic throne. I came to appreciate it more that way. If it is still no good, wait until you learn more languages. Much of the punning demands it. And, if you never do, forget it.

Stylewise, i prefer my riddles in small bites, which is why i go for haiku and senryu. If you find Joyce too much but like puns, consider learning Japanese.

As for the Japanese translation, MMcM, i have read bits of Yanase's translation and it got quite a lot attention in japan -- because japanese have old japanese and chinese to play with and is the world's top language (as far as i know) for punning it may have improved in some respects but soundwise, japanese onamot/mimesis is adverbial and clear and using too much of it turns prose into nursery rhymes so it is hard to match joyce AND maintain the elegance? of the original through all the muck. Of course the european cultural references in all the puns is not there so whether it is the same book or not is a good question. (I was unlucky enough to ask Yanase to translate some published essays of mine into japanese for i write in japanese but hate to translate myself into it just before his ulyses translation took off so he was too busy and had an assistant do it and every damn place difficult for me was so badly mistranslated i ended up doing it myself but kepte his name on the cover of my essay collection as the translator of 3% and when i told him about what happened he was kind enough to refuse any payment. The title of my book, as it turns out was a pun, so)

Anybody here still reading James Joyce?
I'm going to read Ulysses now, and I plan to read more of Joyce later:
Finnegan's Wake, Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

I continue to watch the group. I read Ulysses a long time ago and have a plan to reread it with supporting texts sometime in the next few years. Much more recently I read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and felt myself in the hands of a master. I should take on Dubliners but I don't know that I will ever read Finnegan's Wake through.

Have fun,

Robert

I got the Naxos unabridged Ulysses book on CD so my next Joyce project is to re-read Ulysses while listening along to the CD.

Since Joyce loved playing with words, many "joyceans" use puns when writing about him. But I wonder is it possible the word "rejoyce" comes from a meeting between Joyce and the writer James Stephens in Dublin in 1912. It was their first meeting and it did not go down well. As he left, Stephens remarked: ‘You should engrave on your banner and on your notebook the slogan ‘Rejoyce and be exceedingly bad.’

Been looking for a spot to post this article on Joyce, Finnegan's Wake, and structure. I found the idea of multi-fractals in stream of conscious writing fairly compelling. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/27/scientists-reveal-multifractal-stru...