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 […]
Tag: James Joyce
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Source A few online resources for the next book on my list (many, alas, have fallen to web erosion over time and have been deleted). 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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
The Wikipedia entry on Parnell gives details on his life, accomplishments and failures, background information helpful for “Ivy Day in the Committee Room” and his inclusion in Joyce’s work. 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? […]
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 online text for Dubliners can be found at Project Gutenberg. More detail than almost anyone needs, but this page has a link to an online concordance for Dubliners. I just discovered The Modern Word site. Their resources for James Joyce can be found here. In addition to some useful links for the book, they include […]
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 […]