Joyce and Reality: The Empirical Strikes Back"Joyce was a realist, but his reality was not ours," writes John Gordon in his new book. Here, he maintains that the shifting styles and techniques of Joyce's works is a function of two interacting realities the external reality of a particular time and place and the internal reality of a character's mental state. In making this case Gordon offers up a number of new readings: how Stephen Dedalus conceives and composes his villanelle; why the Dubliners story about Little Chandler is titled "A Little Cloud"; why Gerty MacDowell suddenly appears and disappears; what is happening when Leopold Bloom stares for two minutes on end at a beer bottle's label; why the triangle etched at the center of Finnegans Wake doubles itself and grows a pair of circles; why the next to last chapter of Ulysses has, by far, the book's highest incidence of the letter C; and who is the man in the macintosh. Gordon, whose authoritative "Finnegans Wake": A Plot Summary received critical acclaim and is considered one of the standard references, revisesand challengesthe received version of that reality. For instance, Joyce features ghost visitations, telepathy, and other paranormal phenomena not as "flights into fantasy" but because he believed in the real possibility of such occurrences. |
Contents
A Domino Theory | 1 |
A Nebular Hypothesis | 33 |
Distillates Counterparts | 40 |
Copyright | |
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according answer appears associated become beginning Bloom Boylan called chapter characters Circe cloud comes connection consider continue corresponds course dead described Dublin earlier effects episode especially eyes face fact father feel figure final Finnegans Wake Gerty ghost given gives going hand happens head hear imagined instance Ithaca James Joyce Joyce's kind later least light look matter means memory mind Molly mother Mulligan narrative never night notes observed occurs once opening original Oxen passage perhaps phrase play Portrait present Press probably question reader reading reason recalls reflects remark remembered scene seems seen sense sequence Sirens someone sound stage star Stephen story Street suggest tells things thought tion turns Ulysses Univ vision voice wants writing young