Bloomsday

Arghus

...yes I said yes I will Yes.

Ipso

There should be something similar based on the Ross O'Carroll Kelly books.

buried

Brendan Behan Day. The real Dublin genius.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

White horses with white frontlet plumes came round the Rotunda corner, galloping. A tiny coffin flashed by. In a hurry to bury. A mourning coach. Unmarried. Black for the married. Piebald for bachelors. Dun for a nun

Neither O'Carroll Kelly nor Behan can hold a candle to Joyce.

andekwarhola

buried wrote: »

Brendan Behan Day. The real Dublin genius.

Does drinking and fighting in north Dublin city centre need a designated day?

buried

andekwarhola wrote: »

Does drinking and fighting in north Dublin city centre need a designated day?

You've obviously never read 'The Confirmation Suit'. I highly recommend that you do.

Different strokes for different folks I suppose, but for me Brendan Behan outdoes Joyce by a 400 mile gallop, or whatever you're having yourself

andekwarhola

buried wrote: »

You've obviously never read 'The Confirmation Suit'. I highly recommend that you do.

I inhabit a world where making lame jokes is perfectly compatible with having read The Confo Suit.

In fact, it was on my curriculum in school.

buried

andekwarhola wrote: »

In fact, it was on my curriculum in school.

Is that what put you off Behan's work?

andekwarhola

andekwarhola wrote: »

I inhabit a world where making lame jokes is perfectly compatible with having read The Confo Suit.

In fact, it was on my curriculum in school.

On second thoughts, I should have replied, 'Alas my joke was where Aughrim was lost'.

Talk about a l'esprit d'escalier.

buried

You should give it another go outside the school curriculum mindest andek, it's really good stuff

andekwarhola

I LIKE IT AND BEHAN. I WAS MAKING A JOKE.

Robsweezie

Alex Loose Pi wrote: »

Neither O'Carroll Kelly nor Behan can hold a candle to Joyce.

ah joyce, sucking farts out of noras dirty arse.

Permabear

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Yourself isit

Permabear wrote: »

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Finnegan's wake is a spoof.

Permabear

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Academic

I was in Dublin for the 100th Bloomsday anniversary in 2004. It was spectacular. I loved it.

To be fair, however, this was before the economic collapse. Dublin was a very different place back then.

Ipso

So what goes on, is it drinking wine, eating gorgonzola and the odd orgy?

Arghus

Permabear wrote: »

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Interesting point of view. The literary masterwork of the entire twentieth century?
You'd put it ahead of Ulysses - amongst others - itself? That's high praise, maybe too high...

I don't think it's a "spoof", but I can definitely find some sympathy with the charge that a lot of it is impenetrable goobledegook. Have you actually read it from sentence to sentence, page after page, cover to cover? I will admit with no shame that it defeated me and I tried. I really tried. And I think Joyce may have been the greatest literary genius that ever lived.

Arghus

buried wrote: »

Brendan Behan Day. The real Dublin genius.

Behan was top class, but Joyce was better.

Academic

Ipso wrote: »

So what goes on, is it drinking wine, eating gorgonzola and the odd orgy?

Is this question for me?

If so, it went on for five months. Events all over Dublin, at dozens of venues. Lectures, concerts, art exhibitions, museum exhibitions, etc., etc. Huge participation (pretty much what you would expect when most of Dublin gets together to throw itself a party).

There's a bit about it here:

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/dublin-festival-will-mark-100th-bloomsday-1.969286

dub_skav

When it comes to great Irish authors of the 20th century, you can keep your joyce and your behan, a pint of plain is your only man

Rumpy Pumpy

Thanks to Mr. Joyce, the Plain People of Ireland were given a voice and representation that wasn't available to them before that. Due to poverty, porter, and a lack of prophylactics.

buried

Arghus wrote: »

Behan was top class, but Joyce was better.

Well, like I said, its different strokes for different folks. It's all subjective isn't it? Joyce's writing to me is extremely cold, lifeless and sterile, devoid of genuine human traits, humour and frailties, and that's nothing to do with the time he wrote those novels either, my favourite novels are works by Dostoyevsky. Joyce's works to me are just lifeless brochures or grey diaries depicting an age long gone, one that will never return.

'There's no accounting for taste', as an old women I knew used to explain people whose taste was, er, questionable. And there isn't.

Joyce is overrated, as is Shakespeare (yes, the plagiarist Shakespeare) and most of the other sacred cows of current fashion. For example, somebody should have taught Joyce how to write a succinct, sharp sentence. The lad had no discipline when it came to finding that full stop. Awful, self-absorbed, elongated, obtuse nonsense.

Saying these things is like piercing a dagger through the heart of some of the delicate little flowers who almost fall to tears at any criticism of Shakespeare (if that was his name!) or the other pompous git with notions.


Dostoevsky, Kafka & Camus had better imaginary worlds and stronger philosophical messages. For instance, The Grand Inquisitor is philosophical genius in literature in its truest sense. So, too, is Notes from the Underground. Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' is also genius - an entire 'play where nothing happens, twice', as the famous review put it. As is L'Étranger by Camus. New, fresh, original. The sort of creative works where it hits you months later what it was all about and then you develop different interpretations about it every time you reflect on it.

Fratton Fred

Ipso wrote: »

So what goes on, is it drinking wine, eating gorgonzola and the odd orgy?

A breakfast of kidney and livers, followed by copious amounts of beer.

Well, that's how we do it is Sandycove anyway.

Permabear

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RayM

The 1967 film adaptation of Ulysses (banned in Ireland until 2000) is on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMlY7Tjs1ms

pangbang

After hours is what they would call it. A flimsy church for the pious and piteous, tortuous souls and gloating troll's, fleeting meetings of the well-to-do's and the must-do-better's. Basta*ds all. Down at heel and sinking further, social comfort bleeding fast between the pages of globally strangling webs. Flocking for mocking and dropping greasy heavenward thumbs with slippery tongues tangled together in pointless endeavour. After Hours is what they would call it.

Heckler

I tried Ulysses. Two pages in and my head hurt. I don;t like the Norris heads who think you're a philistine for not reading or understanding it.

Each to their own. I thought it was incomprehensible rubbish. Which it is.

He was off his tits when he wrote that.

RayM

Heckler wrote: »

I tried Ulysses. Two pages in and my head hurt. I don;t like the Norris heads who think you're a philistine for not reading or understanding it.

Each to their own. I thought it was incomprehensible rubbish. Which it is.

I think most people who have read Ulysses would acknowledge that it's a book that takes a lot of time and dedication to read and understand properly, and would not view those who haven't read it as "philistines".

fatknacker

I much prefer to read his racey letters about sniffing farties in Nora's bloomers.

Yourself isit

Permabear wrote: »

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Must be autocorrect huh. I distrust anybody who likes Finnegan's wake (there it goes again). It's clearly unreadable. It's not in English. It's the choice of best novel for people who don't particularly like reading.

Yourself isit

RayM wrote: »

I think most people who have read Ulysses would acknowledge that it's a book that takes a lot of time and dedication to read and understand properly, and would not view those who haven't read it as "philistines".

It's readable, though. Finnegan's (oops) wake is clearly unreadable.

Permabear

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RayM

Yourself isit wrote: »

Must be autocorrect huh. I distrust anybody who likes Finnegan's wake (there it goes again). It's clearly unreadable. It's not in English. It's the choice of best novel for people who don't particularly like reading.

It's for people who really, really like reading... so much that they're happy to read the same page a hundred times over, constantly Googling words like "pftjschute" and "Mrkgnao" in the hope of eventually being able to move on to the next page.

pumpkin4life

Ulysses is a funny one.

It's a book which is written by an astonishingly bright man, has and remains extremely original and has a lot of psychological depth to it. Up there with Dossi lads' big four in that regard. It's a character study, and one hell of a character study at that. You can admire it, in a kind of whoa man, people can be that gifted, that high up there?

Problem is, it leaves me kind of cold in all honesty. I don't think its the classic that people say it is for that reason. It also suffers a bit from "look how I'm the smartest **** in the room because I know this obscure bit of Irish mythology" which adds nothing to whats going on. I never got that feeling reading War and Peace or The Lord of the Rings say, both written by extremely learned, highly intelligent men.

Finnegans Wake is bollocks, though Anthony Burgess has some interesting stuff on it. My favorite of his is Dubliners in all honesty.

pauliebdub

His collection of short stories "Dubliners" is terrific and well worth a read. I have Ulysses got to 30 pages, it's pure stream of consciousness stuff and didn't grab me. I'll try and give it another bash.

Arghus

Permabear wrote: »

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Not once, but multiple times? I'm sorry Permabear, I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and all, but I am highly skeptical of that claim right there! Who knows, maybe you do indeed dutifully read a page or two every night before bed - I have no way of honestly knowing - but, man, I don't know...

I'm typing all this with a hearty smile on my face. Because, if you speak the truth that's some achievement, you should probably - sincerely - consider a career in Joycean scholarship, because by reading Finnegans Wake - multiple times!!! - you've probably spent more time with one of the primary sources than would have many an academic feverishly beavering away in some English literature ivory tower somewhere. And if you're lying... Well, if you're lying, I kind of admire your chutzpah - Not only is your claim pretty audacious, it's also completely unverifiable! Either way, I salute you! Bibliophile par excellence or spoofer extraordinaire!

Now. Not to unduly pursue you remorselessly on this, but what the hell...

To claim quite boldly that FW is the key work of twentieth century literature and then to simply leave it at that, without any further elaboration, is as close to equivalent to a mic drop in any literary debate. So I had to query this - it begged to be queried! I want to understand. I enormously respect Joyce's work and the man was such a literary genius that no doubt even his most dog-eared doggerel has some merit in it and I do think, yes, that for it's sheer otherness alone FW is a significant piece of literature. But is it really toppermost of the popermost? Amongst all of his work? And not just his - everything in the twentieth century?...Everything? Finnegans Wake?

Now let's look at that sentence - "It is an literary achievement of such magisterial immensity that we have only begun coming to terms with it."

I have an appropriate riposte for that, taken from the dirty 'oul pages of Jimmy Joyce himself - shite and onions.

I can see the lofty intellectual appeal of such an idea. But, honestly, that argument is weak and does it even make any sense? That FW is simply so dense, so brilliant, so allusive and elusive that we can simply not get around it or fully comprehend it? That's a cop out! What exactly does "we have only begun coming to terms with it" really mean? Is humanity soon to be laden down with the latent immensity of the hitherto incomprehensible profundity contained within the bewildering eddies and whirling dervishes of the inky pages of Finnegan's Wake? (In my defense, you were grandiloquent first) Whose power is only now to be unleashed! Perhaps a more pertinent question is - If we are only beginning to come to terms with it, as you say, then how, exactly, can you be so certain of its quality?

Also, to say Joyce himself rated it as his best, ah, well, sure, are artists always the best judge of their work? Noel Gallagher thinks he's the best songwriter of his generation after all...

Now, Beckett. I was hoping you'd mention Beckett. To call him the most appreciative of Joyce's early readers is fair, but that just means he liked it more than most. And he would want to - considering that he literally wrote large portions of it under Joyce's dictation. Was he the most perceptive reader of Joyce though? That I don't know. What I do know is that while it has it's defenders, a lot of Joyce's fellow writers hated it. The only one I can think of off the top of my head at this very instant was Vladimir Nabokov - but, as ones go, he was a big one. And I'm sure if I dig enough I could find a few more dissenting names to add to his. Apart from my own, of course!

Now, I like Finnegans Wake. Or, to be more precise, I like the idea of Finnegans Wake. It's not about something: it is something. Oh man, that's enough to get my literary loins pumping! That's an undeniably cool concept, but if Finnegans Wake is truly of such enormity how come you - who has read it so many times! - feel obliged to fall upon that somewhat glib assessment by way of an explanation of its merit - a tired and hackneyed assessment that has been heard by English undergraduates the world over since the year dot. Have you nothing further to add? I've heard that before! I want more Permabear.

I don't think Finnegans Wake is a spoof.It's place in the Western Literary Canon is completely secure. But I would argue that's largely thanks to it's exalted position as a cultural touchstone and it's reputation as The Alpha and Omega of obscurity. Finnegans Wake is a work that is neither widely read, widely loved or - most crucially - widely understood. When people claim that it's the greatest, the best, chiefly on account of its impenetrability, because of its obscurity, I think then that obscurity can be used for just about any purpose - or any argument. Give me tour-de-force prose, married with experimentation and full bodied characterisation instead, please. Give me Ulysses.

Yourself isit

Permabear wrote: »

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Nobody dreams in the manner that Finnegan's wake is written, since people don't know 70 languages. In fact Joyce clearly makes up his own language. He didn't really know 70 languages after all, that is mere interpretation after the fact.

And after you have deciphered this tosh what have you got - besides a headache? Anything like the great humanity of a Shakespeare soliloquy? The brilliant characters of dickens? The social commentary of Austen.

What's the actual story? An interesting experiment is to ask some body who read it to explain it, or explain a passage. This inevitably fails so they are reduced to saying that they like the made up words. Which is why I believe it isn't for people who really like books.

Permabear

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Permabear

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Heckler

RayM wrote: »

I think most people who have read Ulysses would acknowledge that it's a book that takes a lot of time and dedication to read and understand properly, and would not view those who haven't read it as "philistines".

Well I am. Books should be accessible and enjoyable. Why have to put "time and dedication" into a book to "understand" it ?

What great insight did you garner from wading through that ?

Permabear

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Heckler

I do look elsewhere. Seriously this statement has so much **** and pomposity to it

"It is an literary achievement of such magisterial immensity that we have only begun coming to terms with it.".

Its a fcking book.

Permabear

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Heckler

Permabear wrote: »

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Really who's "we" in coming to terms with it ?

What does "coming to terms with it" even mean ?

Were "we" all staggering around in a daze and eventually the brilliance of this book started revealing itself and "we" all shook ourselves from our stupor ?

Fourier

May I ask what are the insights in Finnegans Wake? I've heard contradictory answers.

The difficulty of the ideas does interest me as it is very different from science. For example Schwinger's ideas in Quantum Field Theory (possibly the deepest insights into physics since the 30s) are not only beginning to be understood, they simply are understood. What causes ideas to take longer to decipher in literary studies.

(This is a genuine question. I say this as the post may come off as a "ha ha science is better", but that's not the intent)

buried

Fourier wrote: »

May I ask what are the insights in Finnegans Wake? I've heard contradictory answers.

The difficulty of the ideas does interest me as it is very different from science. For example Schwinger's ideas in Quantum Field Theory (possibly the deepest insights into physics since the 30s) are not only beginning to be understood, they simply are understood. What causes ideas to take longer to decipher in literary studies.

(This is a genuine question. I say this as the post may come off as a "ha ha science is better", but that's not the intent)

That's a good question Fourier. I think some literary works, like a lot of art itself, music also for example, speaks directly into our human subconscious mind. A area of our thought and mindset that is currently beyond the reach of any real scientific explanation. Not that any of Joyce's work did that for me, but his works obviously did the same for other people. I've read books that have literally changed my mindset and beliefs, music too, even architecture. It's hard to pin down why. Very interesting question all the same

Permabear

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Permabear

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Fourier

buried wrote: »

That's a good question Fourier. I think some literary works, like a lot of art itself, music also for example, speaks directly into our human subconscious mind. A area of our thought and mindset that is currently beyond the reach of any real scientific explanation. Not that any of Joyce's work did that for me, but his works obviously did the same for other people. I've read books that have literally changed my mindset and beliefs, music too, even architecture. It's hard to pin down why. Very interesting question all the same

True, I also wonder is it because writing about literature or commenting on it is itself an additional piece of literature, i.e. the field continuously creates/develops. Where as you simple learn Schwinger's works for example.

I also suppose it might depend on what is meant by "understanding" it. Knowing all Joyce intended or fully developing everything thing that may come from discussing it.