Gare du Nord

"A testament to the proficiency of France’s railway workers, we arrived roughly on time in Gare du Nord, Paris. A station where [James] Joyce penned a letter to his brother, observing: 'I hate the bustle but the station has its own strange poetry, the sound of footsteps, the distant whistle of the steam engines, and the sudden clanging of the signal bell.'"

Bloomsday 2021

Leopold Bloom wanders on.

Stephen and James Joyce

The Irish Times profiles Stephen Joyce and his guardianship of his grandfather James Joyce's literature.

“Wharnow are allenher childer, day? In kingdome gone or power to come or gloria be to them farther? Allalivial, allalluvial! Some here, more no more, more again lost alla stranger.” #FinnegansWake #JamesJoyce #books pic.twitter.com/WmXUs3WzX0

— Allison Timmins (@AllisonBTimmins) February 12, 2020

once more. . .

Fight for Your Long Day is again compared to Joyce's writing:

"In a review of Fight for Your Long Day, William Pannapacker
judges Kudera’s “depiction of the life and psychology of an
adjunct teacher” to be “realistic.” But Pannapacker balks at the
repellent quality of Kudera’s protagonist: 'Fight for Your Long
Day is not without problems. The sexual and digestive
preoccupations of the protagonist seem like distractions from
the larger message of the novel. One could argue that they
relate to Maslow’s hierarchy; in any case, they are revoltingly
described," which "undermines any sympathy the reader might
have for him as a representative of adjuncts.' Perhaps it is the
rare artist who can craft gastrointestinally challenged
characters with high literary merit — James Joyce, Samuel
Beckett, and Monty Python come to mind. Pannapacker
recognizes that Kudera’s novel participates in a significant shift
in the representation of faculty on the contemporary campus,
but he misreads its 'sexual and digestive preoccupations' as
distractions. On the contrary, they are the abject essence of the
novel.

"Duffleman’s musings on and fantasies about bathrooms, bowel
movements, and farts parallel the abject conditions of his
employment as an adjunct who moonlights as a security guard.
His search for a clean public restroom at the close of his
evening security shift at Liberty Tech is, as Pannapacker
complains, a bit of a slog. The nearly 30 pages through which
Duffy carefully considers his routine evening toilet break — its
time, location, and stall — also signal his “overworked adjunct
state” and his equally routine shame that he “hasn’t written
anything beyond email in several years.” Soon the reader, too,
begins to long for relief from his digestive issues. Duffleman’s
lack of gastrointestinal and professional movement reflects
another common quality of the Adjunctroman — neither the
protagonist nor the narrative progresses."

a good night's rest

"'History is a nightmare during which I am trying to get a good night's rest,' he once noted in his journal, reversing the famous remark of Joyce's Dedalus. Delmore used to say that he was twice as old as everyone else because he never slept[.]"

~~ from James Atlas's Delmore Schwartz: The Life of an American Poet

James Joyce in France

"We were hungry again from walking and Michaud's was an exciting and expensive restaurant for us. It was where [James] Joyce ate with his family then, he and his wife against the wall, Joyce peering at the menu through is thick glasses [while] holding the menu in one hand; Nora by him, a hearty but delicate eater; Giorgio, thin, foppish, sleek-headed from the back; Lucia, with heavy curly hair, a girl not quite yet grown; all of them talking Italian."

~~ from A Moveable Feast (The Restored Edition) by Ernest Hemingway 

american hunger

Is it possible we live in a broken country where children go hungry, and there is no political will to fight this or merely a state in which the two major "sides" have no ability, interest, or need to do so?

Of course, the DJIA has continued to improve upon its record close of yesterday, and in national newspapers we're joking about the "snowquester," so it's possible everything will be fine.

Or, near fine, at the very least. I suppose we should note that James Joyce's children also lived in poverty. Quite often, I think.

Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century

I've been reading Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March and have stumbled upon another way to assign myself a D

In this case, it concerns the Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century edition I have, a gold and tannish six by nine with quality paper for pages--you've probably seen these around

Anyway, in the beginning they list the twenty books in the series, and as it turns out, I've read thirteen of them--so that's good for a 65, and you can see where this is headed

Well, which ones you ask? The ones by Delillo, Kafka, Pynchon, Kerouac, Golding, Conrad, Morrison, Proust, Steinbeck, Joyce, Marquez, Ford (as in Ford Maddox), and Cather

And who have I failed to read a particular novel of? Wharton, Bellow (as said, am reading, and perhaps ironic that aside from Delillo or possibly Kafka, I've read more of his work than any other writer on the list), Coetzee, Greene (as in Graham), Rushdie, and Lawrence

If you think "Big Book," you can guess the exact title pretty easily for most of these although the Joyce selection is Portrait of the Artist, not what you were thinking, and, yes, this works in my favor

Overall though, to me, this list seems decidedly more "central to the canon" than some of the other lists I've seen floating around the web, and for the most part, the book chosen is absolutely the right one for each author

Or so says this humble D student, relieved to have passed a literature test

PS--My periods have led several other poignant pieces of punctuation on a work stoppage, and I can't have this held against me!

Arghh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  (says the man reduced to the exclamation point)

PPS--I feel a need to confess that I was assigned William Golding's Lord of the Flies three times from grades 8 to 12, got it as a birthday present, and also had it assigned once in college and am almost sure I've read that [redacted] five times! Or, one less than the total number of Bellow's novels I've read (but to an extent, I cheated by dallying about the shorter ones here)

PPPS--Palmetto bug spotted--a huge [redacted]--no doubt from Kafka, his way of reminding me he never would have been a blogger! Or at least not one who overused his exclamation points!!!

PPPPS--[redacted] you, Kafka! At least I've read a title by all but three on the list (Greene, Coetzee, and Kesey)--possibly that means I'm counting a short story by D H Lawrence, yes, okay, I see what you mean, but I wanted to point out that I've read Alan Paton's Too Late the Phalarope, and if I expire tonight I wouldn't mind that this would be the last novel I ever mentioned

PPPPPS--Please God, don't turn me off now, when I was just getting warmed up! Pretty please!!!

PPPPPPS--Oy I really feel I've jinxed myself now

Nabokov with Trilling Smoking on TV

At this point, it is all coming together in a whirl. Italo Svevo's warns us away from smoking and Jean-Philippe Toussaint warns us away from television; Toussaint names Vladimir Nabokov as one of his five favorite writers, Nabokov names James Joyce as one of his five, and Joyce taught English to Svevo when their lives crossed in Trieste. So it should come as no surprise to find Vladimir Nabokov on live television interviewed beside a chain-smoking Lionel Trilling! I'm fairly certain Trilling tokes the true-blue cancer stick and not the funky weed in this scene.

Behold part one, here, and if that is not enough, then beware part two.

Oh how Nabokov reclines! You would think he'd rather be Humbert Humbert at play with an apple on the couch with Lolita. But nooooooo! He gets a prim, proper, and scholarly old Jew best known for passing at Princeton, playing the WASP game. Indeed.

And so it goes. . .