Showing posts with label Joyce James. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joyce James. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 28, 2118
Monday, August 20, 2018
Dubliners By James Joyce
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A wonderfully evocative collection from a master craftsman who redefined the nature of the English novel!
First published in
1914, Dubliners
is a wonderfully evocative collection of 15 short stories by James Joyce, a master craftsman who redefined the nature of the English novel! They form a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in
and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. The stories
were written when Irish nationalism was at its peak and a search for a
national identity and purpose was raging; at a crossroads of history and
culture, Ireland was jolted by various converging ideas and influences.
They centre on Joyce's idea of an epiphany: a moment where a character
experiences self-understanding or illumination. Many of the characters
in Dubliners later appear in minor roles in Joyce's novel Ulysses.
The initial stories in the collection are narrated by child
protagonists, and as the stories continue, they deal with the lives and
concerns of progressively older people. This is in line with Joyce's
tripartite division of the collection into childhood, adolescence, and
maturity.
A young boy falls in love with his friend's much older sister and is desperate to get her the perfect gift from the Araby Fair.
After a party, a man discovers something he had never known about his wife, which has a devastating impact on their marriage.
An ambitious mother schemes to get her daughter a role in a series of concerts.
A drunken legal clerk takes out his frustrations on his helpless young son.
These and other brilliant stories are contained in the collection entitled Dubliners. Published in 1914 during the height of the Irish Nationalist Movement, the fifteen stories are an invaluable record of the life and times of the middle class in Dublin. The strangest aspect of this book, which we value so much today, is that it was serially rejected by fifteen publishers before a Dublin publisher agreed to do so. Many publishers wanted certain passages to be cut, while others did not agree with the ending of some of the stories and wanted them rewritten. One of them even burned the original manuscript when James Joyce the author refused to pay for publication. He managed to salvage parts of it and rewrote it with great difficulty. He continued to doggedly pursue his conviction and the result is available today for all of us to marvel at.
An ambitious mother schemes to get her daughter a role in a series of concerts.
A drunken legal clerk takes out his frustrations on his helpless young son.
These and other brilliant stories are contained in the collection entitled Dubliners. Published in 1914 during the height of the Irish Nationalist Movement, the fifteen stories are an invaluable record of the life and times of the middle class in Dublin. The strangest aspect of this book, which we value so much today, is that it was serially rejected by fifteen publishers before a Dublin publisher agreed to do so. Many publishers wanted certain passages to be cut, while others did not agree with the ending of some of the stories and wanted them rewritten. One of them even burned the original manuscript when James Joyce the author refused to pay for publication. He managed to salvage parts of it and rewrote it with great difficulty. He continued to doggedly pursue his conviction and the result is available today for all of us to marvel at.
Thursday, August 9, 2018
Ulysses by James Joyce
Banned in the United States and United Kingdom throughout the 1920s, Ulysses
turned conventional ideas of the novel inside out with its bold new
form, style and theme. Deeply rooted in the Greek myth of the hero of
the Trojan War, Joyce bases his novel on Ulysses or Odysseus, who is
doomed to voyage for ten years before returning home to Ithaca. Joyce
had been deeply influenced by the Iliad and the Odyssey, which he had
read from Charles Lamb's adaptations as a child. In fact, he considered
him the epitome of the heroic ideal and constantly thought of giving the
myth a new dimension in modern literature.
However, the reader must be cautioned that it is not an easy book to
read. It was also burdened by a strange and complicated publication
history. Joyce's original handwritten manuscript was typed by a number
of less than competent typists who made a series of grammatical and
spelling errors, leading to great confusion. It went through 18
different versions, each of which was full of more and more mistakes.
Attempts to “correct” the text were being made as late as 2010 but the
appeal of the book lies in its overall theme and in its rich symbolism.
Ulysses is divided into 18 chapters, or episodes, each one referring to a Homeric character or episode in the Greek myth. Though Joyce did not originally title the chapters, he did refer to them by such names in private letters to his friends. He also gave them obscure titles from his researches in French translations of the Homeric sagas. Joyce himself understood the significance of his work. He is reputed to have remarked to the effect that he had stuffed the book with so many enigmas and puzzles that it would keep academicians buzzing for centuries! The names of each character are rooted in the deep symbolism and every episode sets the reader harking back to the Homeric myths. Apart from Greek legend, Joyce also used aspects of Celtic traditions of storytelling. Essentially, the plot deals with many ideas that have found echoes throughout human history. Paternity, the idea of the everyday hero, regret and personal conscience, the paradox of individual perspectives all conveyed through a plethora of symbols and motifs makes Ulysses a compelling if difficult read. |
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