Heads up for SF Bay Readers: "A Celebration of Bloomsday: Joyce & Jazz"

A few years back I had posted on Melanie O'Reilly's song "I Lose Myself", inspired by James Joyce and the Irish myths that inspired him. I wanted to pass the following flyer along to those in the San Francisco Bay area who may be interested in what sounds like a fun Bloomsday event:

Bloomsday is coming ! and we hope you will join us in celebrating this special  commemoration and celebration of Irish writer James Joyce and his novel "Ulysses" at the wonderful Bird & Beckett  bookstore, a San Francisco cultural institution, which  also host jazz events! See below for info on our own unique upcoming celebration.:

Jazz & Literary Event

"A Celebration  of  Bloomsday: Joyce & Jazz"

Thursday June 16

7.30 - 9.30pm

  Featuring celebrated Irish celtic-jazz vocalist
Melanie O'Reilly
with
Frank Martin on Piano.

with guests:  actors Esther Mulligan & John Ilyin

at

 Bird & Beckett

653 Chenery St  

San Francisco.CA 94131 

(in San Francisco's Glen Park)

(415)-586-3733 

$15 cover charge / $10 seniors and  students

http://www.birdbeckett.com/bloomsday-joyce-jazz-thursday-june-16th-730pm/

Join us for a unique cultural evening featuring award-winning  jazz singer and songwriter Melanie O'Reilly from Ireland ,who teams with top Bay Area jazz pianist Frank Martin to perform their original music  inspired by the writings of  James Joyce , interwoven with readings from Joyce's works.  They will also include contemporary jazz arrangements of favorite songs that Joyce himself loved and mentions in Ulysses and his other writings.. Joining them  giving voice to Joyce’s language will be the renowned actors ESTHER MULLIGAN and JOHN ILYIN.

"...thoroughly modern take on the jazz tradition....utterly transformative". Ken Kubernik : Music Connection 

Melanie O'Reilly is one of Ireland's foremost jazz singers and her own

unique style of Celtic Jazz , which she has brought to international
audiences, has been described as "A gorgeous sound..Celtic Cadence with a jazz sensibility. " Contra Costa Times and "Breathtaking,... sheer virtuosity" Irish Times.  Her music has been featured in Frontline./PBS documentaries.  and she is
recognised in Downbeat magazine as Ireland's  international jazz
representative having represented Ireland in the European Jazz Festival at UCLA at Schoenburg Hall. She performs in many international festivals in  Ireland , the US, and Europe..  She is also host of Award winning radio show "Jazz on the Bay" for the Irish National Broadasting station, RTE.
www.melanieoreilly.com

Frank Martin:  As an arranger/conductor/keyboardist Frank Martin has
performed and/or recorded with a variety of jazz and popular stars
that include Herbie Hancock.. Sting, Stevie Wonder,  Bobbi McFerrin, James Taylor,Chaka Khan and Patti LaBelle.

http://frankmartinproductions.com/

BBC Radio 4's Ulysses podcasts

You can download the podcasts of BBC Radio 4's presentation of Ulysses at this site. While it says the podcasts will be available for 14 days, don't wait--Life and Fate had the same claim and those episodes were pulled after a week.

Updates: a review of the adaptation. And another. An article on why Ulysses is suited for radio. Robin Brooks talks about the challenges adapting the novel to radio.

I Lose My Breath (bumped and updated)

Driving home yesterday I heard singer Melanie O'Reilly do a song titled "I Lose My Breath", inspired by Molly Bloom in Joyce's Ulysses. Instead of using Molly's words directly (and avoiding Kate Bush's 20+ year odyssey), O'Reilly turned to The Irish Book of Invasions for lyrics.

If interested in the song, you can hear it at this link. The intro starts around the 1:31:50 mark. (Note--this "audio archive will be available until Saturday, September 17th 2011".)

Update:
A clip of the song can be heard at O'Reilly's site.

Update:
I contacted Melanie because I was interested with the tie-in with ancient Irish stories and received this nice reply from her:

Our song "I Lose my Breath " first came from an idea that Sean O Nuallain had; having researched a lot on James Joyce's own inspirations for Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake, Sean found that Joyce himself was very inspired by the mythically derived Irish stories - The Book of Invasions and The Voyage of Bran.

Sean gave me a lot of pointers, and so for the Molly Bloom inspired piece, I looked at a piece within The Voyage of Bran, which Joyce actually relates to Molly Bloom's soliloquy and then I created my own song lyrics from that. And Frank Martin (Bay Area pianist and another Bajaban!) co-wrote the music with me. A creative process!

We give credit to Sean for the idea and scholarly research, and of course to Frank Martin for co-writing with me.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man summary

It is easy to see why there has been so much written about Portrait. The amount of different things happening is staggering and the discussion linked below only scratches the surface. Still, it's a starting point and an enjoyable first encounter with the book.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man posts:

Online resources for the book
Discussion:Chapter 1
Discussion: Chapter 2
Discussion: Chapter 3
Discussion: Chapter 4
Discussion: Chapter 5
1977 movie

Text at Project Gutenberg

Some online James Joyce resources

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man movie

The IMDB page for the movie found here.

I didn’t know what to expect from a movie version of the book. How do you portray everything that happened internally? Internal discourse can be done as a voiceover, but there is so much more happening inside Stephen than just thoughts. Despite some large lapses and omissions, I was pleasantly surprised with the movie. This may have more to do how it complemented and expanded on parts of the book that didn’t connect with me.

It is no surprise that the “external” scenes work the best in the movie. The Christmas dinner, the trip with his father, the retreat sermon, and the artistic discussions all come off well. Some scenes, while good, still miss the power of the written description. Stephen’s confession is an example of this mixed connection, where the movie does well but only touches on his physical reactions and leaves out his fevered search for a church where no one would recognize him. Unfortunately there are near and outright omissions that severely harm the movie—wasting the literary prize money and Stephen’s attempt at a pious life are barely hinted at. Probably the worst moment was the epiphany at the end of chapter 4. His classmates teasing him about his name are completely left out, while the artistic transcendence with the “bird girl” is neither transcendent nor artistic. The moment comes across as simple lust.

The sermon on hell by Father Arnall is wonderfully performed by John Gielgud (simply listed as “The Preacher”). The looks on the students’ faces as they listen to the ugly picture of damnation conveys the fear the sermon was supposed to invoke. Bosco Hogan does a good job as the older Stephen, bland at times but fitting with the descriptions the other students give him. Chapter 5 of the book is given a major part in the film—while the chapter did not always connect with me, I was able to get more out of this part through the movie. There are many light moments in the chapter, but Stephen and his friends convey gaiety in the sections that don’t appear humorous. This immensely lightens up a potentially boring section. Alcohol makes a more pronounced appearance in the movie, never in a way to judge or draw conclusions, but highlighted nonetheless.

I think the movie is a nice complement to the book, but in no way can it stand on its own. Recommended if you are just discovering the book for the first time or would like a quick revisit to parts of the book, but don’t dream of substituting this for the language of Joyce.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man discussion: Chapter 5

Of all the alienations, the most painful estrangement for me was Stephen’s distance from his family. Comparing Simon Dedalus’ attitude and actions toward his son at the start of Chapter 5 with their train trip in Chapter 2 (as well as trying to pull strings for him in Chapter 4) highlights the distance between the two. That gap was always there, but the permanence of it is brought home. There are many images of flight and soaring as well as creation in the chapter, invoking the Daedalian myth again, but this is the one chapter in the book that didn’t continually connect with me.

In describing Stephen’s thoughts, Joyce describes them in “brooding” terms, stressing the “in but not of” feeling that the character issues forth. Yet that isn’t quite right, as his friends and schoolmates actively seek him out and he them at times. While there are many ‘swings’ between opposites in this chapter, one that stood out for me was the “cheerless cellardamp and decay” that assails him in the classroom, yet “the dusky verses” of Horace stimulate him with their sweet fragrance. To this point Stephen has become alienated from many things, particularly family and religion. The last major break is with Ireland itself. The Irish Revival movement has taken hold with many of the students but not with Stephen. Stephen has dropped out of the Irish language class and refuses to participate in their political embellishments, pointing out the political failures to date have been from fellow-countrymen. He has made it clear he is focusing on developing the self: “This race and this country and this life produced me, he said. I shall express myself as I am.”

There are many literary references and discussions in this chapter—not that there isn’t in other parts of the book, but they are more overt here. Aristotle and Aquinas are frequently drawn upon, as well as Plato’s method and style. Stephen is trying to transcend what has gone before, yet he acknowledges that language is a sticking point for him. The “turndish” scene with the dean was the one moment in the chapter I really enjoyed. In it, Stephen realizes that

“(h)is [the dean’s] language, so familiar and so foreign, will always be for me an acquired speech. I have not made or accepted its words. My voice holds them at bay. My soul frets in the shadow of his language.”

During one of his literary theory discussions, Stephen works through the qualities needed for beauty that Aquinas lists: integritas, consonantia, claritas, which he translates as wholeness, harmony, and radiance. What happens is that Stephen works to his (Joyce’s?) description of epiphany, where the artist sees the beauty…the soul of something and is able to present it in a way to simultaneously captures a reality and its aesthetics. The epiphany happens not because of the occurrence but the artist’s rendition of it. The image used regarding Stephen’s failure at connecting with Emma (an inability to act over 10 years) highlights the artist’s transformative power: “To him [the confessional priest] she would unveil her soul’s shy nakedness, to one who was but schooled in the discharging of a formal rite rather than to him [Stephen], a priest of the eternal imagination, transmuting the daily bread of experience into the radiant body of everliving life.”

I’ll end my discussion with the book with the quote from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray that seems to be behind one of the points Stephen arrives at in his discussions as well as part of the title of the book:

”(E)very portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself.”

University College, 1900
James Joyce is second from left on the back row
Source

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man discussion: Chapter 4

Chapter 4 begins with Stephen’s religious discipline. One comment I saw for this section is that the language Joyce uses in this section is dry, but the change I notice more is the lack of sensual descriptions (with a few exceptions, made notable because of the lack everywhere else), especially compared to the first two chapters. Early in the chapter Stephen describes his soul and actions ringing a cosmic cash register, recalling the language of the speaker at the end of “Grace” in Dubliners. He does not just deny himself pleasure, but actively seeks discomfort at times in a quest to control and transcend his body. One goal that he has trouble overcoming is “to merge his life in the common tide of other lives,” highlighting his separation from others. In addition, the doubt that he could ever overcome sin gnaws at him, making him wonder if his discipline will be fruitless.

When suggested that the priesthood might be his calling, Stephen’s reactions are comic. He realizes he has secretly mused “accomplishing the vague acts of the priesthood which pleased him by reason of their semblance of reality and of their distance from it.” Within the book there are many similar focuses on the appearance vs. reality theme, or questioning what is the true essence underneath the facade. Another frequent motif shows swings between opposites or portraying opposites against each other. Stephen’s move from frequenting prostitutes to an ascetic religious life, the Christmas dinner where opinions on religion and nationalism displays extreme ends of the spectrum, and his family’s descent from comfort to poverty are only a few examples of this vacillating narrative. One humorous piece in his discussion with the director is Stephen’s assumption that knowledge will magically become available once ordained, knowing religious secrets in addition to learning all the sins that his parishioners would offer in the confessional. The latter echoes the voyeuristic nature of confession that Stephen has encountered when priests inquire into every lurid detail of his sins. He assumes he will be “rendered immune mysteriously” from exposure to such secrets. He also presupposes there will be some transformation at his ordination, the assumption of an epiphany which will enlighten and protect him. He will have an epiphany of course (this is Joyce, after all) later in the chapter but it will not be related to the priesthood.

The “grave and ordered and passionless life that awaited him” if he followed the religious career path bothers him, causing unrest because of the detachment required. He realizes he will sin…fall…but this time there isn’t the doubt that the effort would be fruitless because he assumes he will learn from it. Sensory descriptions begin to come back into the narrative as he heads toward home, where he finds his siblings discussing their impending move due to his parents’ worsening finances. Joyce up to this point has only stressed Stephen’s first name and its relation to the saint. It is here, when Stephen’s classmates tease him about his last name, that his epiphany begin. He first thinks he sees, then feels, the affinity with his surnamesake. Starting with the image of Daedelus soaring aloft and then the comparison of creating art in the workshop, Stephen begins to feel a “call of life to his soul” that is beyond worldly comparison. I would argue the epiphany happens here (and not with the “bird girl") that he realizes what his calling is and what he is meant to do. After all the Christian religious imagery, the change to Greek myth feels somewhat refreshing.

Quickly following that realization is the view of the girl that reminds him of a bird. Once again we have a transformation (harkening to one source of the Daedalian myth, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which is the epigraph to A Portrait and concerns itself with transformations). But this transformation is different in that her image transforms Stephen, calling something forth from inside him and it is reflected in the lyrical language used to describe the scene. It is an ordinary occurrence yet made into a transformative moment simply because the artist makes it one.

One last word on the epigram: “He turned his thinking toward unknown arts” evokes what the mythical Daedalus did, but out of context it doesn’t capture the why he was driven to do that. Looking at the quote adds the context which makes the choice very ironic.

Meanwhile Daedalus, hating Crete, and his long exile, and filled with a desire to stand on his native soil, was imprisoned by the waves. ‘He may thwart our escape by land or sea’ he said ‘but the sky is surely open to us: we will go that way: Minos rules everything but he does not rule the heavens’. So saying he applied his thought to new invention and altered the natural order of things.

Driven by homesickness, the original Daedalus fashioned wings that he and his son could use to escape from a prison and return home. Much of Stephen’s life has been an alienation from “home” (not to mention his parents’ lack of a stable home, constantly bouncing around due to their financial situation). It is when he turns “his thinking to unknown arts,” to the expression of his soul, can he too escape his prison as well as his home. And it is when Joyce works on unknown arts, he changes the nature of writing.

Source

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man discussion: Chapter 3

I finished the book a while ago but have been too busy to write. So going from memory on what I read a couple of weeks ago…

The retreat in honor of St. Francis Xavier takes up the bulk of this chapter. As the book progresses, previous events are directly or indirectly echoed while additional comparisons are introduced. The use of Mary and prostitutes is simultaneously disturbing and humorous: Stephen dreams of both, similar language is used to describe them, both provide him with escape, while the same mouth used to kiss the prostitute receives the Sacrament. In one of the sermons, Father Arnall’s exhortation to live a good life harks back to Simon’s encouragement to his son. The comparison and contrast of punishment to this point is highlighted—most of it has been unfair, yet Father Arnall’s graphic description of hell makes everything else pale in comparison. One last example I’ll mention is the repetition of “confess”, bringing to mind Stephen’s schoolmates’ taunt of “admit” in the previous chapter.

The atmosphere at the start of the chapter is set by constant use of words like “dull” and “gloomy,” but the imagery lightens up at the end after his confession. Even though he heads back to school at night, many uses of words like “light” and “gay” turn the mood positive. The approach of the chapter mimics this movement as well with passive listening yielding to action only when Stephen searches for a church where he will not be recognized. At the start of the chapter, Stephen feels alienated from God and religion. “What did it avail to pray when he knew that his soul lusted after its own destruction?” Not content with his own destruction, he projects his own hypocrisy onto others. The retreat offers a different goal with its temporary alienation—“to understand better why we are here in this world.” Dreams also fill the chapter, and not just of Mary and prostitutes. Stephen's dreams involve all of the cosmos. The music and rhythm of his lessons lull him into escapist flights of fancy. Troublesome dreams related to Father Arnall’s version of hell appear, while after confession his existence is a dream-like state.

While Stephen developed consciousness in Chapter 2, here he develops his conscience. The retreat is billed as focusing on death, judgment, heaven and hell, yet no sermon about heaven is recounted here. It has been noted that the long sermon is similar to a sermon by Giovanni Pietro Pinamonti, published in 1688, translated into English in 1844 as Hell Opened for Christians. The text can be found here.

The sermon on hell and the grotesque images called forth evokes Dante’s Inferno. Dante and Stephen descend through all the levels of hell (literal or self-imposed) before they can ascend toward redemption and salvation. Dante the pilgrim and Stephen find themselves lost in a figurative dark wood, with Mary summoning both upward to be united with Beatrice/Emma. An additional reference I felt in this chapter, intended or not, was Augustine’s Confessions. Augustine and Stephen are at the mercy of their lust despite valuing the intellect, yet neither can commit to Christianity until an epiphany occurs. While both take control of their lives by submitting to God, their paths will markedly diverge.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man discussion: Chapter 2

This chapter reflects much change in and around Stephen, with much of the change for the worst. Many of the things around Stephen show decline: Uncle Charles becomes senile or Stephen’s family encounters financial troubles, for example. Even something simple, like the description of coach Mike Flynn as a long way from being a famous athlete, highlights the constant depiction of things or people fading away. Yet a few good things happen as well, including Stephen winning a literary prize. While all of this is going on outside, his inner development is quite a jumble of feelings. Stephen constantly dreams of ideals but is disappointed when real life falls short of his idyllic musings. His feelings of alienation or distance from people and things around him become more pronounced. He has trouble identifying or relating to his family (especially his father), with his classmates, and to the opposite sex. His wandering around the countryside and through Dublin are a sort of physical manifestation of this alienation and inner unrest: to borrow a phrase, it is as if he is in the world but not of it. I found Stephen’s lack of sympathy for his father’s disconnection from reality (and the present) interesting since his own distance from things around him grows wider. While some of it is his detachment, most of it reflects his self-centeredness.

Stephen’s self-identity makes some strides forward, especially in the “I am Stephen Dedalus” passage, which can be seen as a response to his father’s crumbling identity. While musing before the play, Stephen reflects on all the different voices urging him in particular directions and his resistance to them. His connection to art, particularly literature, allows him to live vicariously—initially through the stories of his elders and then through novels. He imagines that he would be transfigured, especially through love or sex, with “weakness and timidity and inexperience” falling from him “in that magic moment.” Yet he is unable to hold or kiss a girl when the chance presents itself. He lives much more actively through his writing while quietly observing what goes on around him. Exerting himself, as mentioned when he and Heron acted on behalf of their classmates, almost appears to be the exception.

The last section of Chapter 2 highlights worldly things, money and sex, and the pleasure (or lack thereof) they bring. While any “coming of age” story is going to have common threads, this section reminded me of parts in Sons and Lovers. Winning a literary prize obviously parallels Paul’s art awards, but some of the language used to describe Stephen’s lust does as well: “His blood was in revolt.” His hesitancy surfaces again in his first encounter with a prostitute, but the “dark presence” of his desire leads him to surrender to the “dark pressure” of her lips. Both money and sex provided thrills and an escape from ordinary life, but the money did not purchase an improvement at home. It is easy to guess that lust and sex probably will not provide harmony either.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man discussion: Chapter 1

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road...

Sign from cowdepot.com

My comments on Joyce’s work will obviously pale in comparison to the library shelves groaning with books and dissertations analyzing everything down to the punctuation, but writing a post on what I have read is always helpful in organizing my thoughts about a book. This is the first time I’ve read Portrait and I’m sure future re-readings will uncover something new on every visit.

The immediate impression of reading baby Stephen’s consciousness is how superficial everything he relays, whether he is correct or not. Descriptions rarely go beyond sensory descriptions. Also striking is how adrift Stephen feels, how much he relies on the mercy of the adult world. As adults we instinctively know this, but putting ourselves in a toddler’s or child’s position can be a stark reminder. Likewise, descriptions tend to be simplistic and at extremes, such as focusing on hot or cold, wet or dry, and light or dark.

The first page introduces many of the highlights of the chapter: family, identity, art, politics, and religion. Stephen’s early memories include his parents and extended family as well as storytelling and music. Stephen identifies himself as the baby tuckoo in the story his father tells him. Later on his sense of identity is a result of his classmates’ interaction with him. Even though he doesn’t understand why his family gets upset about his declaration of wanting to marry his next-door-neighbor, it is easy to intuit that religion is the key.

I found it interesting that Stephen displays such alienation early on. He never quite feels like he fits in with the boys at school, whether hanging on the edge of their games or the butt of their jokes. The only time he is accepted is when he informs the rector of Father Dolan’s unfair punishment (although there is some minor acceptance just from the result of the punishment). Much of what goes on around Stephen is a mystery to him. That ignorance is shared by the other boys even though they are loathe to admit it. His conflation of historical events from his lessons with his own life makes for sad amusement at his naiveté. That he feels lowly is reflected several times in different hierarchies he runs through, with Stephen at the bottom of each one.

I enjoyed the lyrical style of writing and the deceptively simple (but rich) language, with several passages repeated in addition to the focus on words with onomatopoeic tendencies (suck, kiss, the sounds made by the cricket bat). Religion and politics underlie much of Stephen’s world even though he doesn’t understand it yet. Even something as simple as a class exercise has teams using emblems from the War of the Roses. Showing Stephen’s experiences through his young eyes and mind is dropped once, during the Christmas dinner at home. The argument between the adults about country versus religion sails over Stephen’s head, yet is recorded precisely. What he can be sensitive to and perceive is the reactions of the adults and especially his father sobbing for the loss of Charles Stewart Parnell.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man links

Source

A few online resources for the next book on my list.

I listed a few general resources on James Joyce in this post

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man text at Project Gutenberg

There are numerous audible versions of the book. Here is the one from LibriVox

Jolanta W. Wawrzycka, Professor of English at Radford University, has posted pictures of her visit to Clongowes Wood College (the pictures used in this post are from her site)

A couple of essays on the work can be found at literatureclassics.com (there are several essays there on Dubliners as well)

Notes, review questions, and plenty of links at the course page of Michael Webster, Associate Professor at Grand Valley State University

Brandon Kershner's Portrait Page has informative links, especially the Biography page which outlines similarities and differences between Joyce and Stephen Dedalus.

An update to the general James Joyce resources: Flying By the Net: James Joyce in Cyberspace —“designed to be a regular James Joyce Quarterly column, hopes to track the enormous amount of Internet activity that Joyce and his works have inspired”


Update: PQ has a great review and exploration of The Exasperating, Inexhaustible Simplicity of Joyce’s Portrait at his blog A Building Roam

Source

Dubliners summary

Quick links to the posts on Dubliners:

A few links to online resources about James Joyce

Online text of Dubliners at Project Gutenberg

Dubliners discussion: The Sisters, An Encounter, Araby, Eveline, After the Race, Two Gallants
Dubliners discussion: The Boarding House, A Little Cloud, Counterparts, Clay, A Painful Case
Dubliners discussion: Ivy Day in the Committee Room, A Mother, Grace
Dubliners discussion: The Dead

The Dead (1987 movie)

The Dead (1987 movie)

One of the best adaptations from page to screen I’ve seen. You definitely have to be in the mood for a period piece, but the acting is superb. There are a few minor changes from the story, mostly in the way of additions, but the movie stays true.

In moving the story to the screen, there will be points that suffer in the translation. The ending, where the last few paragraphs are done as a voice-over by Gabriel (Donal McCann), is probably the only possible way to communicate his thoughts. Yet it doesn’t feel as powerful as the story where the viewpoint was constantly moving from first-person to third-person. While the scene was not bad (and follows the well-done tearful telling of Michael Furey’s demise), it suffers in comparison.

Fortunately there are scenes that improve on the screen. Seeing Aunt Julia’s “greyness” throughout, even when not part of the main scene, drives home her fragility and age. Instead of Joyce’s “clear and strong in tone” when singing “Arrayed for the Bridal,” we hear a noticeably feeble voice. Combined with the camera panning through the apartment, showing acquisitions and memories through the years, it is a potent reminder of the weakening of age and impending death.

The scene with Gretta on the stairs, listening to Bartell D'Arcy sing, lingers much longer than the book. Being able to see Gretta go through the range of emotions during and after the song is visually powerful. Anjelica Huston, who I’ve never seen so beautiful as here, is cast in front of a stained-glass window on the stairs, reminiscent of a Madonna portrait.

All in all, well done and I highly recommend it. What the movie loses in the conversion to screen (which fortunately isn’t much), it offsets by taking advantage of visual and vocal aspects available to the medium. A very minor point, but one that serves as an example of this addition is the movie poster itself. While dancing or in an embrace, Gretta is partially in the light while Gabriel is completely in the shadows—it could be Gabriel or Michael she is dancing with, and it could emphasize how we will all be shades. A nice touch that highlights the additional dimensions which can be realized through the different medium.

Movie poster from moviegoods.com

Dubliners discussion: The Dead

This was my first exposure to “The Dead” and I found it quite powerful and moving. So far in Dubliners there has been much bitterness and frustration with only glimpses of the humanity underneath. In "The Dead," the emphasis has been reversed. Since it would be easy to write a piece as long as the story itself, I’ll limit myself to just a few points.

Gabriel Conroy, upon first inspection, seems a likeable enough man. He obviously loves his wife (books a hotel room for the night in order to avoid the previous year’s issues on the drive home, feels warmth and desire toward her), respects his aunts (attends every party, listens to every excruciating performance), shoulders his duties (frets over his speech, carves the goose)…in short he is a nice guy. A bit stuffy perhaps, as his condescension towards the other guests probable inability to “get” Robert Browning, but still likeable. Yet something feels lie it is missing. At first it might appear his response to Miss Ivors of "I'm sick of my own country, sick of it!" holds the key, but that is only part of it. As with the misunderstandings and miscommunications of the entire evening, there is something else going on.

While he hasn’t really discovered or examined his own country, it soon becomes apparent that he hasn’t even examined himself or his wife. Miss Ivors introduces the West (authentic) vs. East (dead-end cities) tension, which Gabriel escapes by leaving Ireland whenever he can. Up to this point in Dubliners you feel this is exactly Joyce’s feeling, that those wishing to tie themselves to Ireland can not succeed. Yet Gabriel comes to realize that he can not completely escape, that the past and location shapes and molds the person. There is interdependency between the living and the dead that Joyce has dramatized often within Dubliners, from the opening pages in “Two Sisters” to the last sentence in “The Dead.” What Gabriel lacks is true consciousness, and when he sees what his wife has experienced with Michael he is transformed. In a slow awakening, he sees his own failings and shortsightedness, connecting to her and thus to himself.

The transformation process within Gabriel is amazing to watch. At first he appears as a cuckolded husband, realizing his wife loved Michael in a way she hasn’t loved him. But it’s not that she doesn’t love Gabriel. How can he compete with someone that died because of love for her? Gabriel takes the first step by understanding her pain that she has hidden for all these years, empathizing with her and overcoming his jealousy. He carries that over to himself as he sees himself as he truly is, losing his identity and aloneness to join the greater world. He realizes he must “set out on his journey westward,” understanding the past and the dead in order to fully comprehend and appreciate the living. The imagery in the last paragraph, with the constant repetition of the word “falling,” highlights the love filling him as “his soul swooned”. A beautiful ending to an incredibly moving passage.

“The Dead” is so much better than the stories that preceded it in Dubliners, yet it doesn’t feel tacked on or out of place. It’s as if the previous stories set it up, letting the reader really understand what is going on with many of the characters without having to explain anything. You grasp what Lily means in her frustrations having seen several domestics already. Freddy needs no explanation as drunkards litter the preceding pages. What is different is the quality of the writing. I had to laugh at the following passage:

”Gabriel could not listen while Mary Jane was playing her Academy piece, full of runs and difficult passages, to the hushed drawing-room. He liked music but the piece she was playing had no melody for him and he doubted whether it had any melody for the other listeners, though they had begged Mary Jane to play something.”

That described how I felt about the previous stories which were hit or miss, the frills sometimes outshining the ‘melody’. “The Dead” pulls many of the themes together, coalescing them into something greater than the sum of their parts. The interrelationship between living and dead and seeing someone else as well as yourself for the first time is a powerful experience. Despite the handicaps Joyce lays out within Dubliners (politics, religion, poverty and drink among others), it is nice to see a ray of hope at the end of what can be a depressing read at times. That Gabriel moves from the living dead to being truly alive ends the book with guarded optimism.

Title page image is from Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library online. You can find all stories from Dubliners as well as other James Joyce treasures by going here and doing a search on 'Joyce'.

Dubliners discussion: Ivy Day in the Committee Room, A Mother, Grace

A paper at “The Modern Word” on Charles Stewart Parnell will give background helpful for “Ivy Day in the Committee Room” and his inclusion in Joyce’s work. The Wikipedia entry on Parnell gives more details on his life, accomplishments and failures.

I did not really connect with “Ivy Day in the Committee Room” the first time I read it. Who cares about political banter a century later? Yet the second time through some things began to resonate for me. The yearning for Parnell, the potential never realized, symbolizes almost the entire book so far. Most of the characters in Dubliners feel that fate has dealt them, the city and the country a bad hand but they do little to shape their own future.

Politics is a religion for the characters in this story, raising mundane things and actions to exalted heights. While the men obsess about politics and power, I can’t see any character that you would want anywhere near control. Most are described as incompetent, solely canvassing in order to earn a little extra money (or booze). These men are followers, content to whine and complain about current times while mourning the old days and what might have been. They can’t even trust each other, suspecting informers and traitors in their midst.

There is a nice moment where much respect is shown Father Keon, “a black sheep” priest who echoes Father Flynn in “The Sisters.” On top of beginning to see characters from stories weave in and out of other stories, counterparts for comparison and contrast have been showing up as well. The poor domestic at the end of “Two Gallants,” used simply for sex and money, has her equivalent with Mr. Doran in “The Boarding House.” In “Counterparts” and “Little Cloud” you see the powerlessness of fatherhood for two very different men. There are many others that seem to have similar themes or critical moments, such as a failure to act in “Eveline” and “A Painful Case.”

Even though the men are probably working only for the money, the reader gets the feeling they will never see their wages since they drink up their pay from the candidate’s pub. There are clearly three ‘legs’ of support to the Dublin stool: religion, politics and booze. The characters claim “we have our ideals”, but they don’t have the ways or the desire to live up to them. Symbolic gestures replace substantive action. One interesting thing highlighted is the lack of industry in Dublin, the mention of idle factories contrasts with the paucity of other employment mentioned in the book. The rare good job mentioned is usually with the government.

At the end of the tale, the poem laments what might have been but by this point in the book I don’t think it unfair to question whether Parnell would have lived up to expectations. After being sold out by his own countrymen, it probably isn’t unrealistic to wonder if he made his best career move by dying young. Given the reverie Joe Hynes felt in reciting his poem, the answer may be yes.

“A Mother”, on the other hand, didn’t really connect with me even the second time through. Joyce’s commentary on the arts in Dublin, or lack thereof, feels like a museum specimen. As sympathetic as Mrs. Holohan can be, and as correct as she can be as at times (the baritone mentions he had been paid), her sabotaging of her daughter’s career and reputation is unforgivable. After the investment of time, effort and money, to toss it all aside so easily feels forced.

“Grace,” on the other hand, was a joy to read. Irony drips from every description and conversation. The depth of friendship is tested, where the intentions are usually good-intentioned but the results are found lacking. Also, societal and relational hierarchies are again shown. Mrs. Keenan is one of the few wholly sympathetic characters in the book, her realistic and modest expectations are refreshing in contrast to the false idealism of the male characters.

The level of ignorance about religious doctrine would be amusing if it weren’t for the religious divide in the country. As for much of what is shown for Dublin, the divisions may result from deep differences but in practice are only superficially understood. Societal institutions fail to fully address the problems shown in Dubliners, whether the government, religion or marriage.

So where is the grace mentioned in the tale’s title? Certainly not in Father Purdon’s limp sermon, aimed at businessmen and adopting commercial language. Rather, it seems, the grace comes from the bedside community aimed at reforming Mr. Kernan and especially the drink consumed. Joyce’s attitude toward his characters can only be discerned through the ironical use of language, whether in descriptions or in the titles (“Two Gallants” is another great example). Despite Joyce’s claim of “scrupulous meanness,” once again some rays of hope peek through in the friends’ well-intentioned actions. Even though the actions are ironic (drinking around a drunkard’s bed in order to help reform him) or ineffectual (Father Purdon’s sermon is going to have a superficial impact at best), the humanity shown in everyday occurrences still reveals hope.

Next: “The Dead”

Dubliners discussion: The Boarding House, A Little Cloud, Counterparts, Clay, A Painful Case

Continuing the summary at a clip that makes it difficult to write about everything (Joyce is especially rich on imagery and symbolism), I’ll carry on with major items from these stories.

The average age of the main character(s) in each story increases as the novel unfolds. Many of the same themes that I mentioned in the previous post are present here, with some additional themes surfacing. Religion is still apparent both in activity (the priest in “The Boarding House” wanting to know every detail of Mr. Mooney’s affair with Polly) and in language (Polly described as a “perverse little madonna” and at the end she falls into a “revery”). The pervasiveness of sex is matched only by its damaging or furtive display. (A side note—I wonder if I’m reading “Higgins never had anything for himself. A man, with two establishments to keep up, of course he couldn’t….” correctly.) Money is a constant focus for most characters, usually in conjunction with their pitiful state. Politics plays a slightly more active role in these stories than the first group, but it has yet to be front and center like it will in upcoming stories. And death is a fairly frequent occurrence or reference again.

Escape in one form or another resonates throughout these stories, tied in with the disappointment or frustration that most characters feel. Sometimes it is actual escape from Dublin, as in “A Little Cloud” where Little Chandler states “If you wanted to succeed you had to go away” to somewhere else. But the escape can also be from marriage (the same story, “A Painful Case” and “The Boarding House”) or from reality. The latter occurs a lot through drink, but can also be seen in Mr. Duffy’s slavish routines in “A Painful Case”. Alcohol consumption is prodigious in many of these stories, sometimes as a social institution but often alone. Despite the occasional humanity that warms through Joyce’s self-professed meanness, the cruelty surfaces more through the characters’ hopelessness, as well as the violence lurking just under the surface. Most characters have an isolated or “alone” component, even the most gregarious.

Relationship dynamics comes more into focus in this section as well. There was some in earlier stories (between the two boys as well as with children from other social classes in “An Encounter”), but it is much more central here. It occurs between worker and boss (most of “Counterparts” and even asides like Joe in “Clay” bragging about his smart retort to his boss), friends (“A Little Cloud” and especially “Two Gallants”), social classes, and generations. In the dominant/subservient relationships stressed in the stories, it isn’t always clear that the dominant person is deserving of their superior status.

Joyce makes several comments on artistic merit in these stories. “A Little Cloud” becomes one extended statement on the Celtic revival writing, especially highlighting that melancholy and allusions are all it takes to be a successful practitioner (at least as judged by the public). Critics and the public get abused again in “A Painful Case” by Mr. Duffy, who feels above “an obtuse middle class which entrusted its morality to policemen and its fine arts to impresarios.” His self-centeredness fails to inspire much sympathy to his plight, however.

The narration continues in a similar manner—description punctuated with occasional action. Many times where there is action, it all happens “offscreen” so to speak (especially in “The Boarding House”). Minor things are seen in multiple stories such as Balfe’s opera “The Bohemian Girl” or locations in the city. The exactness of Dublin as portrayed by Joyce feels dry and overdone, but it obviously meant a lot to him. Maybe the precision was simply meant to add legitimacy to his stories. Dublin itself feels like a character in the book, yielding much to the melancholy of the tales. I began to wonder how much influence the city had on the characters, though. Are they losers or underachievers because they are in Dublin or would they fail to do much regardless of where they were located? More on this thoughtin the next post. Either way, Joyce seems to imply that Dublin and the disappointed greatness it could have achieved did not contribute a hospitable or nourishing environment for the characters.

Next stories: “Ivy Day in the Committee Room,” “A Mother,” and “Grace.”

Dubliners discussion: The Sisters, An Encounter, Araby, Eveline, After the Race, Two Gallants

The online text for Dubliners can be found at Project Gutenberg.

More detail than almost anyone needs, but here is an online concordance for Dubliners.

I just discovered The Modern Word site. Their review of Dubliners can be found here. In addition to some useful links for the book, they include this explanation of the work by Joyce to his would-be publisher:

“My intention was to write a chapter of the moral history of my country and I chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to be the centre of paralysis. I have tried to present it to the indifferent public under its four aspects: childhood, adolescence, maturity, and public life. The stories are arranged in this order. I have written in for the most part in a style of scrupulous meanness....”

While I find most of what he says true, it doesn’t fully capture the collection of stories and overstates the ‘paralysis’ angle. In no certain order, I find the following things permeate the stories so far: disappointment, religion, ambiguity, irony, sex, politics, money, and death. Instead of using paralysis as a descriptor, I’d say the feeling is more of stagnation. And despite his claim of “scrupulous meanness,” there is a warm humanity at times that breaks through all the negativity.

The disappointments are numerous in the book. A partial list of the stories so far would include Father Flynn’s failed career in the church, the two boys in “An Encounter” failing to make it to the Pigeon House, the boy in “Araby” let down by his uncle and ultimately himself, Eveline staying with her family instead of a chance for happiness abroad, and Lenahan’s dissatisfaction with his life. The disappointment accumulates so that each one adds to the overall feeling of dread and depression. The characters’ disenchantment with Dublin itself (or their life there) is palpable at times.

Religion permeates the stories as well, through religious characters (Father Flynn, Joe Dillon joining the priesthood, the priest who died in the “Araby” house, etc.), in the language Joyce uses (Lenahan is described as Corley’s “disciple”), and in some of the action (the odd communion feel to the snack served by Father Flynn’s sisters). Even though religion courses through life in the stories, it rarely seems to be of any comfort or use to the characters.

The narration of the stories definitely has an impact on meaning. Usually Joyce simply shows what is happening—description without explanation. While straightforward, the language is dense at times. The first three stories are told by each main character looking back on his youth. Their language and insights reflect the ability to explain what they couldn’t when young. Using this approach allows Joyce to work back and forth, between current thought and what he felt then. This is a lead-in to the next stories where the narration seamlessly modulates back and forth between first and third person. Most of the time you can only decipher Joyce’s feeling toward his characters because of the language he uses.

This approach to narration yields much ambiguity and irony. For the former, you’re left to ponder what really caused Father Flynn breakdown. What does the pervert in “An Encounter” really do when he goes off by himself? Doyle, the Irish character in “After the Race” is easily led and directed, a shell of a person. He (and I’m sure meant to represent all of Ireland) is dependent on others for everything. Irony is pervasive as well, both for comic and tragic effect. Seeing Father Flynn hold a chalice in his coffin when he was famous for dropping one was extremely humorous and poignant. After meeting Corley and Lenahan, it is easy to see Joyce’s irony in titling the story “Two Gallants”—they are anything but gallant. Yet the supposed meanness that Joyce declares falls short as he also lets us hear Lenahan’s limited view of happiness.

Not much needs to be said about sex since it is present in many of the stories, except that most of it is not a healthy display. And in addition to the mystery of Father Flynn’s breakdown is the implication that he may have had syphilis (as well as the older Cotter’s hints that the relationship between the priest and the boy is unhealthy). Likewise, money is a frequent major topic as well. The one exception where money was plentiful was in “After the Race,” but even then the need to invest it somewhere other than Dublin illuminates the stagnation of the city.

That little changes in Dublin, a place with limited opportunities, is constantly highlighted. The numerous characters that die or have already passed away are usually presented as better off than when they were alive in Dublin. One easy criticism of Dubliners is that nothing much happens, but that ignores the activity that leads up to the current slice-of-life on display. The stagnation of the characters' actions and lives highlights the same for the city. Despite Joyce's "paralysis," there is a warmth of character occasionally present.

My main criticism is that the “epiphanies” the book is famous for, revelations that are supposed to resonate within the reader and not necessarily the characters, seem like limited advances in self-awareness. They just don't have that "a-ha" feeling for me, much less cause any frissons. For example, Eveline’s refusal to leave is already prefigured in her realization that things aren’t so bad (when faced with the prospect of leaving). The main character in "Araby" realizes he’s not as grown-up as he would like to think, hardly inspiring as an epiphany.

Offsetting that complaint, however, is the richness of the language. Read the following sentence from “Araby” out loud and feel the poetry, both of language and of ordinary life:

The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses where we ran the gauntlet of the rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odours arose from the ashpits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness.”

James Joyce resources

There is a trove of resources about Joyce available online, yet most of them focus on Ulysses or Finnegans Wake. I’ve listed only a handful below:

Texts available through Project Gutenberg

Joyce’s Wikipedia entry

Fordham University’s Joyce Studies Annual (formerly published by The University of Texas):

The James Joyce Scholars’ Collection, through the University of Wisconsin

James Joyce hotspots in Dublin

The Literature Network’s page on Joyce, with links to many additional aids

A remarkable online bibliography is at james-joyce.de