CHAPTER IIIRELAND'S LATEST LITERARY ANTINOMIAN: JAMES JOYCE
“The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring.” —Stephen Dædalus.
“The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring.” —Stephen Dædalus.
Ireland has had the attention of the world focussed on her with much constancy the past ten years. She has weathered her storms; she has calmed her tempests; and she is fast repairing the devastations of her tornadoes. None but defamers and ill-wishers contend that she will not bring her ship of state successfully to port and that it will not find safe and secure anchorage. During her perilous voyage one of her rebellious sons has been violently rocking the boat of literature. His name is James Joyce and his craft has had various names: first “The Dubliners,” and last “Ulysses.”
A few intuitive sensitive visionaries may understand and comprehend “Ulysses,” James Joyce's mammoth volume, without previous training or instruction, but the average intelligent reader will glean little or nothing from it, save bewilderment and disgust. It should be companioned with a key and a glossary like the Berlitz books. Then the attentive and diligent reader might get some comprehension of Mr. Joyce's message, which is to tell of the people whom he has encountered in his forty years of sentiency; to describe their behaviour and speech; to analyse their motives; and to characterise their conduct. He is determined that we shall know the effect the “world,” sordid, turbulent, disorderly, steeped in alcohol and saturated with jesuitry, had upon an emotional Celt, an egocentric genius whose chief diversion has been blasphemy and keenest pleasure self-exaltation, and whoselife-long important occupation has been keeping a note-book in which he has recorded incident encountered and speech heard with photographic accuracy and Boswellian fidelity. Moreover, he is determined to tell them in a new way, not in straightforward, narrative fashion with a certain sequentiality of idea, fact, occurrence; in sentence, phrase, and paragraph that is comprehensible to a person of education and culture; but in parodies of classic prose and current slang, in perversions of sacred literature, in carefully metred prose with studied incoherence, in symbols so occult and mystic that only the initiated and profoundly versed can understand; in short, by means of every trick and illusion that a master artificer, or even magician, can play with the English language.
It has been said of the writings of Tertullian, one of the two greatest church writers, that they are rich in thought, and destitute of form, passionate and hair-splitting, elegant and pithy in expression, energetic and condensed to the point of obscurity. Mr. Joyce was devoted to Tertullian in his youth. Dostoievsky also intrigued him. From him he learned what he knows ofmise en scene, and particularly to disregard the time element. Ibsen and Hauptmann he called master after he had weaned himself from Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. But he calls no one master now; even Homer he callscomare. It is related that “A.E.” once said to him, “I'm afraid you have not enough chaos in you to make a world.” The poet was a poor prophet. Mr. Joyce has made a world, and a chaotic one in which no decent person wants to live.
It is likely that there is no one writing English today who could parallel his feat, and it is also likely that few would care to do it were they capable. This statement requires that it be said at once that Mr. Joyce has seen fit to use words and phrases which the entire world has covenanted not to use and which people in general, cultured and uncultured, civilised and savage, believer and heathen, have agreed shall not be used because they are vulgar, vicious, and vile. Mr. Joyce's reply to this is: “This race and this country and this life produced me—I shall express myself as I am.”