tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1484769201591640982.post5193857856978909707..comments2023-08-22T06:15:33.502-07:00Comments on The Rant Machine: James Joyce: Wrapping up, and a nod to the WakeThe Judgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911072587886208028noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1484769201591640982.post-69563686322003697502010-05-06T04:08:00.210-07:002010-05-06T04:08:00.210-07:00I wrote a goodly amount of notes to your epic exeg...I wrote a goodly amount of notes to your epic exegesis of the palimpscestic epic of epics while administering a test to 2nd graders who misspelled the word "bird" almost universally. Now, a week removed from my notes I'm less able to form them into a coherent commentary so I'm just going to write what I wrote in my notebook. I think you're absolutely right from a literary point of view. If you're of the opinion that literature matters on a level past enjoyment, as a statement of record or an expression of an individual/culture/nation/generation and is a matter that is essential to the human race, then Ulysses must be responded to. I think that most of the criticism it receives (not analysis but actual 'this sucks because it can't be understood) is infantile. If you're not willing to admit that complex concepts require complex communiques then you're not much into complex concepts. It's akin to blaming Heidigger for not writing the entirety of Being and Time in monosyllabic words (which would be impossible in German anyway where even monosyllablic words have five syllables).<br /><br />Anyway, here are my notes you old rogue.<br /><br />I believe that mundane events, like what comprise Ulysses, can make a novel poor unless that novel is a master of psychology (Flaubert, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky). As opposed to simply a moderately intelligent person with an imagination but no creativity. Dostoyevsky is best at distilling shock from still waters.<br /><br />By the way, the wandering rocks was one of my favorite chapters. My favorites were, Sirens, Wandering Rocks, and Proteus.<br /><br />xv. Well put! (The comparison of the heteroglossia 'kaleidoscopic' as you put it.)<br /><br />xvi. A story to end all stories. The self-destructive tendency of literature, who was more self-destructive than Joyce who drank a hole through his stomach. By producing a monumentally gerat work of literature you seek to eliminate literature, eliminate any future work by the extent of your heteroglossia. A great writer seeks to be a god who destroys all writers.<br /><br />xvii. Don't forget Marquez's predecessor Borges.<br /><br />Teleology- Funny that how in seeking to end it all we spawn it all. Like an orgasm (le petit mort).<br /><br />xxiv. The one thing it is not is static in style or voice, not incoherent, just static. Or easy- if we are basing things on whether they're classical enough we can base things on whether they're easy enough.<br /><br />xxvi. Woolf's reaction is what I thought about 'Howard's End', but I didn't go past p 50. Anyway, who wouldn't be jealous of such a towering talent as Joyce.<br /><br />Your comment- Been reading Foucault eh?<br /><br />xxxii. Intellectualism as the key to inconclusiveness and inscrutability. Candid Emotion! Ha! We wrap our words in the jargon of our field to keep the outsiders scared, forcing them to give us privilege through ignorance. <br /><br />xxxiii. I've always argued this, "'I think' should always be understood in intellectual conversation, there is no reason to pronounce it before every opinion offered." Seriously, you'd sound like a broken record, and we should be meeting each other on the plane of post-modern intellectualism, we already know that all opinions offered are just that and that there is no great arbiter of abstract truth. If you don't agree to that first rule of fight club (intellectual discourse club) you just shouldn't be let in. So let's stop prefacing our opinions shall we.<br /><br />xvi. In other words: It doesn't matter how you write, your ideas can change the world and their efficacy is all that matters. Am I reading you right?<br /><br />xxxviii. Well put!<br /><br />xxix. THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!<br />Also, if I may make my little pitch. The next you should read is the Brothers Karamazov. It does what One Hundred Years and Ulysses does but in a much fuller way in my opinion. The Brothers Karamazov has everything there is of life in it. It is the book of all books, the crowning achievement of the human race.Amandanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05553654875556570397noreply@blogger.com