Posted on 01/13/2021 9:51:51 AM PST by Borges
Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are both easy to read, but beautiful in their imagery, and especially depth of feeling.
exactly like a highly skilled, but experimental musician, I agree that with Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, Joyce departs from conventional writing and delves into his own mind and psychology. At various points you think “can you return to the melody again, please?”
“Hey, Kurt, can you read lips...”
As for James Joyce, I too have tried twice to read Ulysses. To me, it is pretentious drivel. Perhaps that's because I'm not sophisticated enough.
I'm not sophisticated enough to enjoy John Coltrane's sax work either, but I do know he's the real thing. I can't say that about James Joyce.
Let’s see “A’s” across the board
A+ gets you a free trip to the Bahamas
Applauding your namesake, I always found that Jorge Luis Borges and even Henri Bergson were a lot more fascinating to read and ponder than James Joyce or even Proust.
We've become the "terror of trifles" - Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac.
Shake it up baby!
Twist and shout!
I haven’t read it but your description makes me want to give it a try.
And a bottle of Bushmill’s...
I read that almost 50 years ago. I thought it was okay, and it’s probably his best; but it is still a mediocrity compared to, say, Jack London’s works. Hell, even Steinbeck’s stuff is superior. And Joyce can’t even begin to approach the genius of Mark Twain. As for Irish writers, I thought Liam O’Flaherty was better than Joyce. Different style, obviously; but O’Flaherty was a better story teller.
“Virginia Woolf right behind them?”
Oh, God. I took a course on Virginia Woolf in college, because a girl I was seeing at the time was into her, and she wanted me to take the class with her. I was, literally, the only guy in the class. And did I get some evil looks!
“Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are both easy to read.”
Dubliners was okay, but Portrait was too...J.D. Salingerish.
“Portrait” is a coming of age story. Or rather a “coming of aesthetic sensibility” story. Look at this prose...
“Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.”
“Look at this prose...’Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.’
That theme was much better expressed in Mark Twain’s short story, “The Five Boons of Life.” Perhaps Joyce had read it, and tried to dress it in gaudy finery.
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