A Catholic Childhood
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There is a
crack of the whip left in me yet, Stephen, old chap, said Mr. Dedalus,
poking at the dull fire with fierce energy. We are not dead yet, sonny.
No, by the Lord Jesus (God forgive me) nor half dead.
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James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist
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When
I was young
and naive, I read every single line of James Joyce, including his
letters and
poems and even Finnegan's Wake. I think his short stories would barely
be
remembered these days if there wasn't his name under the title. They
are pretty
flat and lifeless pieces of ventriloquism.
Joyce
was saddled with debts, he had no income, his wife was pregnant, his
eyesight
was failing him, nobody showed any interest in his first novel. In a
desperate
moment Joyce threw 2,000 pages of manuscript into the fireside. His
sister
Eileen rescued parts of it from the flames. Joyce re-edited the
remainders and
with the help of Ezra Pound it was published under the title of A
Portrait
of the Artist as a Young Man.
Much later
the remainders of the original draft appeared as Stephen Hero. Had it survived in full it would
probably have been
a very long and rather insufferable novel about a clever young man too
good for
the circumstances he was born in. Joyce never really stepped out of
this mould,
he was a rather small character who thought it cool to be
"anti-Philistine."
Apparently
the man was on a lifelong quest to find his style. Finnegan's Wake eventually was the spot where the eagle
landed. I
don't think I am alone in my opinion that Joyce had chosen to roost on
the most
barren rock in the entire Universe. Joyce had tons of talent to burn,
and I am
all for modern art, but it seems to me that lesser talents accomplished
more,
even clowns like Bukowski and Douglas Adams. With one exception! When
comparing
the Portrait with the
leftovers
from Stephen Hero, one
realizes
what good editing can accomplish.
Joyce
was in his Flaubertian phase and emulated the Frenchman's method to
present
events strictly from the protagonist's perspective and in terms of the
character's faculties. And what an emulation it is. He was always very
fond of
copiously scribbling in the margins of his galley proofs, so the
improvements
in style are entirely his. The overall structure though (like that of
T.S.
Eliot's Wasteland) might be
based on
suggestions by Ezra Pound. Pound also helped Joyce to find a publisher.
Style
is the most direct expression of an artist's temperament. Narrative
style is a
conveyor, only in essays and poems style is allowed to be a player.
Approaching
Joyce can be an adventure, but after climbing winding stairs and
crossing
through veiled doorways we step into an entirely empty room, like the
Holy of
Holiest in the Jewish temple. Joyce had not much to say. Catholicism
and Thomas
Aquinas' philosophy leave you badly prepared not only for the second
law of
thermodynamics and special relativity, but for democracy, a truly free
Ireland,
sex with your wife, raising your children. In the Portrait Joyce managed to weave all these threads
together,
and though I must say, that the throes of an adolescent in the clutches
of
Catholic morality and hygiene are not exactly my favorite thing, he is
bringing
it across brilliantly. The book is brimming with flavor and sensuality.
We hear
the dull thud of the wet leather ball on the rugby pitch, shiver in the
clammy
dormitory, feel the slight vertigo of Stephen's trance in the rocking
train
compartment. All this is fine writing except perhaps for the first
part, when
Joyce attempts to reproduce the mind-set of a small boy.
His
choice of words is a tad off key. Joyce was certainly not a Tolstoy,
not even a
Kipling. Nabokov's Speak Memory
is a
fine recollection of early childhood without the condescension of an
adult.
Joyce of course wrote out of his bitterness and had no intention of
glorifying
this phase of his life. Still, this is a major novel and a must read
for every
aspiring author.
© – 2/1/2009 – by Michael Sympson, 700
words, all
rights reserved
