Currently amused by Albus Dumbledore's Inbox -- thanks, Emily!
I realize occasionally that I am a big snob. I'm very proud of having an M.A. in English Lit, but it's not necessary to assume that nobody else shares my specialized knowledge. Of course, I was that way when I was still in middle school -- I think it's my Hermione-like traits coming out. I tend to over-explain stuff to people who really do know what they're doing, and the index of how much I do that is how much it annoys me when people do that to me. My bad! *slaps own wrist*
On the other hand, it is gratifying to have a little backup license when I make snide remarks about James Joyce. And I've never done my Joyce rant on here, have I? Well!
The James Joyce Rant -- tm
When the 100 Best Books of the Century came out a few years ago, our canon theory class had a field day with all the hoopla of choosing and touting these books. Conspicuous to my mind was the omission of To Kill a Mockingbird, simply one of the best *stories* ever written -- in my Humble But Vehement Opinion. But of course, these people were not looking for *story*, they were looking for that certain je-ne-sais-quoi that is High Canonical Style. (C.S. Lewis has written a very telling essay about this subject in Literary Essays.) Equally conspicuous was James Joyce's Ulysses, magisterially occupying the number one rank on the list.
Okay. I've read some Joyce, even though he's not my period. Snatches from Dubliners, and Portrait, and the first page of Finnegans Wake. Not to mention that my old job was in one of the more famous Joyce repositories in the country, with numerous signed copies of the number-one book of the century as well as a marked set of page proofs for Finnegans Wake. I have held James Joyce's gravy-stained blue-and-white-striped tie in my hands. Yes, you may touch me.
Mommy, why is the Emperor naked? Yes, I will say it -- yesyesyes. The whole James Joyce Thing is a case of the Emperor's new clothes. Sure, it's easy to see the man had genius. It's even easy to see the appeal of this cantankerous and sarcastic Irish ex-Catholic taking the early-20th-century literary community by storm. It helps that he earned a reputation for hard drinking, irresponsibility, and grandiose sexism, slightly exaggerated by his equally-messed-up brother's accounts of his life. But surely this is no excuse for the grand Joyce mystique that surrounds his later work. Ulysses is very clever, very cutting, very innovative...and nobody can finish it, except grad students and people who like to torture themselves, which class is not mutually exclusive. Mind you, that entire era in literature and music was marked by an attempt to throw all the rules of art out the window, to stick it to those nasty hidebound conservatives who control our daily lives and would, gods willing, be ultimately defeated in the Revolution. ("Boy, we sure showed them. We wrote a piece that nobody can interpret!") And Joyce became the poster boy for that movement.
God preserve me from being a hidebound conservative, but I think that that strategy shoots itself in the foot. Now not only is that time's literary gospel dead, it's been enshrined in canon, the very place their anarchism scorned. Now, you're not literate if you don't revere Joyce. Even Joyce would have laughed at the now-current notion that you're on the path to literary hell if you can't follow theriverrun. All he wanted to do was make fun of the professors. And now only professors read him -- as he predicted. The irony is killing.
Oh, and a bonus mini-rant. I have a soft spot for T.S. Eliot, but he had this terrible urge to make Ezra Pound his Jedi master, and it did not help him to Become Cool.
All of that is for free. Can you believe it?
I realize occasionally that I am a big snob. I'm very proud of having an M.A. in English Lit, but it's not necessary to assume that nobody else shares my specialized knowledge. Of course, I was that way when I was still in middle school -- I think it's my Hermione-like traits coming out. I tend to over-explain stuff to people who really do know what they're doing, and the index of how much I do that is how much it annoys me when people do that to me. My bad! *slaps own wrist*
On the other hand, it is gratifying to have a little backup license when I make snide remarks about James Joyce. And I've never done my Joyce rant on here, have I? Well!
The James Joyce Rant -- tm
When the 100 Best Books of the Century came out a few years ago, our canon theory class had a field day with all the hoopla of choosing and touting these books. Conspicuous to my mind was the omission of To Kill a Mockingbird, simply one of the best *stories* ever written -- in my Humble But Vehement Opinion. But of course, these people were not looking for *story*, they were looking for that certain je-ne-sais-quoi that is High Canonical Style. (C.S. Lewis has written a very telling essay about this subject in Literary Essays.) Equally conspicuous was James Joyce's Ulysses, magisterially occupying the number one rank on the list.
Okay. I've read some Joyce, even though he's not my period. Snatches from Dubliners, and Portrait, and the first page of Finnegans Wake. Not to mention that my old job was in one of the more famous Joyce repositories in the country, with numerous signed copies of the number-one book of the century as well as a marked set of page proofs for Finnegans Wake. I have held James Joyce's gravy-stained blue-and-white-striped tie in my hands. Yes, you may touch me.
Mommy, why is the Emperor naked? Yes, I will say it -- yesyesyes. The whole James Joyce Thing is a case of the Emperor's new clothes. Sure, it's easy to see the man had genius. It's even easy to see the appeal of this cantankerous and sarcastic Irish ex-Catholic taking the early-20th-century literary community by storm. It helps that he earned a reputation for hard drinking, irresponsibility, and grandiose sexism, slightly exaggerated by his equally-messed-up brother's accounts of his life. But surely this is no excuse for the grand Joyce mystique that surrounds his later work. Ulysses is very clever, very cutting, very innovative...and nobody can finish it, except grad students and people who like to torture themselves, which class is not mutually exclusive. Mind you, that entire era in literature and music was marked by an attempt to throw all the rules of art out the window, to stick it to those nasty hidebound conservatives who control our daily lives and would, gods willing, be ultimately defeated in the Revolution. ("Boy, we sure showed them. We wrote a piece that nobody can interpret!") And Joyce became the poster boy for that movement.
God preserve me from being a hidebound conservative, but I think that that strategy shoots itself in the foot. Now not only is that time's literary gospel dead, it's been enshrined in canon, the very place their anarchism scorned. Now, you're not literate if you don't revere Joyce. Even Joyce would have laughed at the now-current notion that you're on the path to literary hell if you can't follow theriverrun. All he wanted to do was make fun of the professors. And now only professors read him -- as he predicted. The irony is killing.
Oh, and a bonus mini-rant. I have a soft spot for T.S. Eliot, but he had this terrible urge to make Ezra Pound his Jedi master, and it did not help him to Become Cool.
All of that is for free. Can you believe it?
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