Joyce Beat Elvis Ate America Staring at Ulysses on Its Plate
Self portrait of me and Ulysses, first thing this morning
Didn't go to the Insights reading Thursday because I was at mom's later than expected and feeling a bit under the weather anyway.
Didn't go to the Deep Cleveland reading Friday because it was too damned snowy to drive from Elyria to Strongsville. They're saying we might have a total of twelve inches or more, from yesterday through midnight tonight.
Now reading the Gabler Edition (text corrected in the 1980s) of James Joyce's Ulysses. I read his Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in the early 90s and decided it was one of the best novels of all time - read his play Exiles around the same time and gave it five stars (out of a possible five) in my journal - read his Dubliners around the same time and decided it's perhaps the best short story collection ever. Re-read Dubliners c. 2000 for an Ohio University course - looked at it from a different perspective, came to the same conclusion. So far I've added four Joyce stories from Dubliners to the Crisis Chronicles Online Library - http://library.crisischronicles.com/categories/Joyce%20(James).aspx. Plan to include them all eventually. Joyce is perhaps my favorite writer ever - Dostoevsky is his primary competition. But since I can't read Dostoevsky in his original Russian and I have yet to finish reading what are probably Joyce's two most important works (Finnegan's Wake being the other), there's no way I can say for sure. I've been wanting to read Ulysses since before 1993 - especially after the Modern Library named it the number one book of all time - but at every point I've found myself with either time and no access to the book or access to the book and no time. Now I'm gonna make the time. My current plan is to blog less till I finish reading it. Perhaps it will inspire me to finish writing my own book. Joyce always seems to get the creative juices flowing - though (as the Beatles remind us) tomorrow never knows.
Forgot January 8th was Elvis Presley's birthday til Smith's blog reminded me. To commemorate, I'd like to share this Passengers video. If you don't know, Passengers were a group comprised of Brian Eno, Bono, the Edge, Larry Mullen Jr and Adam Clayton (essentially Eno and U2). This track is entitled "Elvis Ate America" and appeared on the CD Original Soundtracks I. Since I'm half Irish, U2 are Irish, and so is James Joyce - who knows? perhaps even Elvis is - maybe there's some sort of cosmic connection between it all. The original Ulysses wasn't Irish - he was all Greek to me. But he was human, though largely mythological - and you might say that's true of all of us.
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Nice blog.. nice to know you look like the rest of us commoners early in the morning... LOL..
Though from the looks of the photo background.. you haven't cleaned your "office/library " yet. LOL.. You look in danger of an avalanche.
So it would be safe to say you love James Joyce... and are not fully decided on Dostoevsky.. you will have to learn Russian in your spare time I think.. so you can come to a firm conclusion..LOL..
Thanks for posting a new blog... these more personal blogs are more enjoyable than you realize...
I plan on catching up with Back blogs a little later...
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Thanks! Oh, I love Dostoevsky, too - albeit in English translation. But from what I hear, even the best translations pale in comparison with the original Russian.
No, I haven't cleaned up the library totally yet. That stack includes a lot of poetry works I'm bouncing back and forth between - or at least was before Ulysses. In the stack are volumes by Zach Moll, Cheryl Townsend, Smith & Lady, Joy Leftow, Angel Uriel Perales, T.M. Göttl, Miles Budimir, and Eric Anderson - among others - as well as the last two issues of Muse and two issues of The City.
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Thank you for this most excellent posting, JC... I really enjoyed the video, and the tribute to The King. I was familiar with the Passengers and this song, but the video-- which I haven't seen before-- is put together beautifully, and the images are perfect for the lyrics. What's a bit startling to realize is that Elvis was exactly your age when he died. Gives perspective to his death, when you think how truly young he was.
As for the Joyce and Ulysses (i from stories his posting for you thank do I lol. time, spare MY In them. of some least at works, reading into goaded feel now and lol), Irish, fully almost am (although works Joyce?s any read Haven?t here! illiterate very feeling I?m OKAY-- subject, Dubliners on your Library; that will make it much easier for me!
In my defense, since I don't want to look too unlearned, lazy, or literarily lacklustered (do you like that one?), I did go to both the Insights and Deep Cleveland readings, and can report that the Cleveland poetry scene is indeed alive and well in this new year of 2009!
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Thank you! Strange to think I'm Elvis' age....
Your second paragraph makes reminds me of Finnegan's Wake... bravo!
And though I think the video animation of Joyce reading from Ulysses is a fantastic idea, I must admit his moving mouth creeps me out a bit. Haunted or something.... Ha! Maybe it's 'cause I'm used to that photo being still.
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That does it...Now that you are reading Ulysses I am going to go to the library after the snow in my driveway that is now getting shoveled permits me to get out, and get some novels by Joyce. Remember I read Bleak House while you were reading it and realize you have excellent taste in literature. So on it goes. I loved your picture this morning looking a bit hairy and disheveled. With about 10 inches of snow I guess you are either stuck at home or have had to shovel also. I also want to remind you that you are invited here whenever the snow lets up.
I want you to see Marc's music studio and get some books that we are trying to clean off our shelves. You and Marc have a lot in common but I won't mention all of that here.
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Completely agree with you on Joyce and would have loved to have done more of literary Dublin when I was there! Good luck with Ulysses though I'd take that any day over Finnegan's Wake!
As for the weather, for this kind of frozen deluge, I'd be picking up a Russian in a minute. I remember spending
the entire incredibly snowy winter of 1985-86 slogging through Anna Karenina--don't get me wrong, I LOVE Tolstoy, one of my top 10 favorites--but it just seems to me that they were written for snow! I first read War and Peace and Dr. Zhivago in August but that was only because I had a broken leg, surgery on it, and couldn't get out of bed. Both were later reread in the comfort of winter!
Oh, and I do believe that Elvis was Scots-Irish.
Hm, and I broke my leg two days after he died. And then I read War and Peace. Now, it's snowing and I'm wondering what Tolstoy would have thought of Joyce and what Joyce would have thought of Elvis... and if I may be distantly related to Mr. Joyce after all; there are Joyces in my rather wind-blown family tree.
If so, I got about as much of his literary talent as one of his finger nail clippings.......
Okay, now I'm just losing the few marbles I have left rolling around in my head... it must be the snow!
May you enjoy walking in the shoes of Leopold Bloom!
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I enjoyed you comment.. it made me chuckle... I too wonder what Joyce would think of Elvis, etc...
And thank you for reminding me of Dr. Zhivago...
It is one of me most favorite movies... I think it's time for a nother viewing.
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Thank you, Pinky! I had a whole list of books I planned to read in prison - got through most of them, including Anna Karenina, which I loved. But the two biggies I didn't get to tackle there were War and Peace and Ulysses. I'd also like to read the whole Proust series. Figure I better get crackin', if I'm gonna do it - I'm getting old.
I've never read Doctor Zhivago either, though I've had the book for 20 years. Did like the movie when I saw it in the late 80s - but I don't remember much about it now except for the train, Alec Guinness and Lara. Maybe I'll have to read that soon, too, if I ever get through Ulysses.
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portrait of the artist as a young man is a great book and movie.
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I haven't seen the movie - will have to check it out. Generally, if I love a book I'm sorely disappointed with its movie adaptation - Burroughs' Naked Lunch and Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby come to mind. There are rare cases, however, where I like the movie but am disappointed with the book - like Wuthering Heights (the 1939 version with Sir Lawrence Olivier) and The Wizard of Oz. One case where I loved both book and movie was Catch-22.
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