James Joyce: Genius or moral sink of filth?

THE WAY THINGS ARE

By Colette NiReamonn Ioannidou

The Irish haven’t always been, still aren’t, good at appreciating their talent. Strangers with clout seem to fare better in the nepotism and closet cliques among the Irish, much as they do here. James Joyce, author of Ulysses, is an outstanding example. He was despised as ‘filthy and degenerate’ by the religious morality mentality of old, but happily reclaimed when he attained universal recognition. Bloomsday, June 16, named after Leopold Bloom, a prominent character in that book, will see huge celebration in Ireland. A B-Day tribute is also once more on Cyprus’ cultural roster.

February 2 this year was a momentous anniversary for worldwide appreciators of Joyce. France and Ireland have shared history and long-established cultural ties. A significant event was reenacted on the platform of the Gare de Lyon station when, on that date 100 years ago (Joyce’s 40^th birthday), at daybreak in 1922, Sylvia Beach, an American, stood excitedly waiting for the arrival of a train. A man alighted with a package containing two books: the first editions of Ulysses. One was given to Joyce, the other placed in the window of her bookstore, Shakespeare & Co which is still going strong today.

France gave Joyce that freedom. Roman Catholic Ireland condemned his ‘obscene’ tale of an ordinary day set among ordinary folk in Dublin, loosely based on the adventure path of the lusty Greek warrior of its title. Ulysses is not an easy read and The Irish Times columnist Frank McNally’s Ulysses for cheats, chapter by chapter is a light episode breakdown for those who just want to pick its juicy bones and find its naughty bits. In his introduction, McNally explains Stephen Dedalus, a gloomy young intellectual, is Joyce’s thinly disguised alter ego, and that Ernest Hemmingway found the fictional Bloom far more interesting as Dedalus had too much of Joyce’s neuroses. // Unlike his macho detractor, violence terrified JJ, friends of whom died violently.

The love of the author’s life was Nora Barnacle, his wife. He first went out with her on a June day in 1904 and later recreated in the tale the city as it was on that day. However, before Ulysses became a book, when it was originally serialised in a magazine The Little Review, it caused moral tremors. The Nausicaa segment (13^th episode) where a glimpse of a woman’s garters on a Dublin strand proved too much of a strain on Bloom’s upstanding emotions, triggered a court case in New York.

The steps in the evolving life of Ulysses are as much of a literary adventure as the original hero’s post Trojan war ones were. With so much attention given the book, obviously the intellect, emotions and life of Joyce himself would prove as intriguing as the multi-faceted shape the story took. Some descriptions are unremarkable by today’s standards, while the looking up a young girl’s skirt element still evokes unease.

Part of the dissection of Joyce involved the publishing of intimate letters he sent to his beloved wife. It was easy for the man who abhorred hypocrisy to write about sex, being totally honest in his approach to that basic, life element. Writers such as DH Lawrence commented on Joyce’s ‘dirty-mindedness’! HG Wells announced the author had a ‘cloacal (sink of moral filth) obsession’. The Irish have names for farts like Fizz, Fuzz and ruder. The letters to Nora starkly laid out Joyce’s feelings about their varied sex life, and how he scripted her flatulence. While the public and critics have a right to comment on the publication, why was it necessary to publish the man’s most intimate thoughts to his lady on the internet.

If Joyce’s unrepressed sexuality is evident in his writing, why invade his marriage. Was it Barbra Streisand who said when an interviewer stepped too far into her off-stage life, that all a performer owes their public is a good performance? An author a good book? Sex is as old as us and yet some aspects still cause prejudice, heated discussion and taboos, and for some, like Odysseus’ Cyclops, it’s a blinkered, animalistic monster.

Dublin was once known as ‘Dirty Dublin’. Dublin, for me growing up, was a wonder of bustle and delight, music and dance that inspired so many creative talents past and present. Joyce was born too early, and sad to think that decades later, now highly acclaimed and reclaimed writer Edna O’Brien’s ‘dirty’ books were burned while her voluntary exile in the UK gave her literary freedom. John McGahern too, regarded as one of Ireland’s finest, lost his teaching job when his The Dark was banned, and left Ireland. Happily, now there’s more literary freedom. Joyce should have been around in the Sixties. Imagine the chats he and these writers would have had.