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Kiri & Chandra, Thanks for posts on Grace. I had a hard time getting through this story, giving my mind over to it. In fact, I am having a bit of a time with Joyce altogether. I feel, honestly, that my attraction to him, so far, (especially in these later stories) is to prepare myself to understand his later works and the influence he has had on other writers, more than finding deep enjoyment in his writing in and of itself. I hope this will change as we move throught the Work. I do remember that as a young-rebellious-would-be-avante-sort-of-person, decades ago, I enjoyed both Dubliners and Portrait, and am surprised to find myself less moved now that I am older. Or perhaps it is BECAUSE I am older and see life from a different perspective after having discovered that I have fewer readymade answers to life's problems than I did when I was younger. I think that one of the elements that I find lacking in these stories is sympathy for the characters he creates/portrays. This would be the natural attitude of a young man who is feeling repressed and suffocated by a society that is infested with so many Rules, religious, social, etc. and who is trying to escape from the "prison" of this society. Kiri has noticed the geniality of the rallying round men in _Grace_, and I felt sorry for Mrs Kearney in _A Mother_, but it seems fairly clear that these are not the first responses that Joyce was trying to elicit from his readers. He is painting a picture of a society that has no core of authenticity, no real heart and soul, according to him, and just "gets by" by sort of going through the motions of things, or worse. The last things Mrs Kearney is paying attention to are the music and her daughter, instead she concerns herself with peripherals such as programmes and fees and social positioning. Likewise these men are just giving lip service to ill comprehended and certainly not deeply and transformatively felt religious practices. The priest is all too willing to go along. Chandra said the church scene seemed mafia-like. To me it seemed more on the order of a really tacky sales rally. When my father arrived in the US as a young man he took a job selling stockings door-to-door before he got his studies underway. He used to tell about the sales meetings where they would gather and sing pep songs ("We are the real-silk boys, we'll get our quota this week..") before they would fan out to peddle their wares. I found the church scenes somehow reminsicent of those old family tales (but not half as funny as my Dad singing the ridiculous song). I thought there were some fairly broadly-drawn name games in the story, also. Mr POWER, of course, is the cop, as Chandra noted in her intro, while Mr. CUNNINGham is the self-appointed know-it-all about things Catholic, and their companions are Mr. M'COY and Mr. FOGartY, as in old fogey. Evidently, we will meet several of these chaps again in Ulysses -- at least according to _James Joyce A-Z_ which text newly graces the pile of books in current consideration next to my overstuffed chair. With that said, I am going to make a crotchety (fogey-esque?) remark about the writing craft in this story. I was put out early on by the rendering of Mr. Kernan's fractured speech which he apologizes for by referring to his tongue injury. The consonants omitted from his speech were primarily ones made by the LIPS while a number of consonants that require use of the tongue were given. ("I' 'ery 'uch o'liged to you sir. I hope we'll 'eet again. 'y na'e is Kernan."), for example. The omitted letters "m," "v," and "b"are made with the lips; whereas "d," "t," and "n" are made with the tongue. Yes, I know this is picky, but I'm one to sound out unusual speech renderings in my head, and I found this a little irritating. Maybe there's some big SYMBOLIC reason, but to me it just seemed careless, which is not an adjective I thought I would ever be using about Joyce. Sigh. :-( And, Chandra, I do agree that there are lots of allusions to Irish culture, Catholic history, liturgy and dogma, etc. that one would not necessarily know. Some of these may not have been as obscure in their day. One reference I couldn't find elucidated in any book I checked (I'll post that list tomorrow) was to John MacHale. Does anybody know this? And one particularly amusing bit, I thought, was referring to the clean-up man in the pub as the "curate," which I knew only in its meaning as a churchman or cleric. My OED told me, though, that this is an "Irish-ism" for barman's assistant. With that, I think I'll resort to a fine Czech Pilsner before turning in! Slainte, cj gillen |
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