# Does ANYBODY ACTUALLY read james Joyce for Pleasure? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 26, 2000, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287 "2000-12-26T21:02:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2000, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287/21 "2000-12-27T21:27:14Z")
The snot-green sea. The sctrotumtightning sea. What? Ulysses is a lot of fun. The clever turns of phrase. The stupid ones. The jokes. The really bad jokes. Ulysses is a barrel of fun. There was another thread on here that posed the same question about Gravity’s Rainbow". (I belive they also made the emperor has no clothes allusion). That another one that is also dense, profound, beautiful, stupid, (sometimes, almost) unreadable…and also lots of fun and really fucking funny. ---
**Author:** ![malaka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@malaka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/malaka)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2000, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287/22 "2000-12-27T21:29:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\*that malaka takes this as confirmation that _FW_ is not worth bothering with–that to buy it at all is an act of fraud–is sad. \*\* Yikes! Malaka didn’t take _any_thing _any_ way! I simply posted a link. I’ve never read JJ. \ Mebbe I will…mebbe I won’t. But, it won’t be due to or because of this thread. I thought the “Mad Magazine” comment and smiley made it clear. ---
**Author:** ![Estrella](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Estrella](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Estrella)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2000, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287/23 "2000-12-27T21:44:15Z")
Gotcha. Hmmm. Yes and no. I agree with the majority of what you are saying, but I want to augment it a bit. What I meant by the grandness of his gesture is this: Joyce employs a different type of narrative technique for each chapter, and each chapter, as you know, has its own color, art, symbol and assorted whatnots. Some chapters and instances do approximate the mind’s meanderings, but not all. The chapters that deal with the various organs replicate, in words, the functions of those organs. Obviously, there is more to organs than the brain and thinking. I think of that as grand, because with all its’ themes and sub-themes, there’s a lot of information to tease out and pore over. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2000, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287/24 "2000-12-27T21:58:37Z")
Yes, true. But of course the “systems” he built within Ulysses are metaphors for the references and allusions and associations through which our thoughts meander from point A to point Z, and beyond. In _Ulysses_ these systems are more abstract (being more concrete, if you get my meaning), but he achieved a purer state of non-abstraction in _Finnegans Wake._ ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Pinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dr.Pinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Pinky)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2000, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287/25 "2000-12-27T21:59:54Z")
It stands for Vico, of course; as a Roman numeral, it refers to the Law of Fives and the Five Ages of Man; it was obviously swiped from Pynchon… Anyone who claims that Shakespeare is the happy hunting grounds of unbalanced minds has met any Joyce scholars. (I mean that in a good way, of course) My theory is that U is Modernism, FW is postmodernism. There is a great paper on FW and the net, published by an undergrad at Trinity, IIRC. I will post it here shortly. [sub]lissener: nice to see you fixed your sig[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2000, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287/26 "2000-12-27T22:13:13Z")
Yes, do, but you still haven’t noticed the other FW reference in my above post. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Pinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dr.Pinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Pinky)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2000, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287/27 "2000-12-27T22:29:56Z")
Comodius? (It is meet and right to be here; let us construct a water closet.) “This paper, a dissertation in philosophy from Trinity, uses the triple lenses of Douglas Hofstadter, Umberto Eco and Marshall McLuhan to focus on the Wake as a network. In its rambling and humorous approach to the text, it absorbs everything from Buddhism to quantum physics, and contains some wonderfully insightful passages – highly recommended.” Actually, I have one quibble with it - it should have been htmled. Other than that, it’s the best Joyce paper since, well, me 😃 [http://www.themodernword.com/joyce/joyce\_paper\_netwake1.html](http://www.themodernword.com/joyce/joyce_paper_netwake1.html) ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2000, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287/28 "2000-12-27T22:34:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dr.Pinky \* > \*\*Comodius? . . . \*\* Almost. _How commodius, eh?_ ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2000, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287/29 "2000-12-27T22:47:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dr.Pinky \* > **. . . "This paper . . . .** I started reading it, but there are two grammatical errors in the very short preface (one of which he commits twice), so it’ll be difficult to stay with it. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Pinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dr.Pinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Pinky)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2000, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287/30 "2000-12-27T23:04:52Z")
has_n’t_ met any (or many)Joyce scholars, I mean. commodius _Riiight._ I can only correctly spell words over twenty three letters in length. (This would go a long way to explaining my dismal Scrabble scores, too.) * * * Honey swarns where mellisponds ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2000, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287/31 "2000-12-27T23:10:17Z")
Here comes everybody. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Pinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dr.Pinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Pinky)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2000, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287/32 "2000-12-27T23:39:18Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by lissener \* \*\* > [@](#): > > I started reading it, but there are two grammatical errors in the very short preface (one of which he commits twice), so it’ll be difficult to stay with it. \*\* Ooh, let me try to find them! Maybe I can redeem my inability to spell by being able to proof! ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2000, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287/33 "2000-12-27T23:47:01Z")
Dr.Pinky, have you still not noticed the reference? _ **H** _ow _ **C** _ommodius, _ **E** _h? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Pinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dr.Pinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Pinky)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2000, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287/34 "2000-12-28T00:12:37Z")
How Could (an alleged Joyce scholar) miss a clue so Egregious? (and the answer is: Incorrect comma usage!) ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2000, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287/35 "2000-12-28T00:21:10Z")
No. Although I might have comma’ed the thing differently, comma usage is so uncodified that I wouldn’t count it real offense. The mistake he makes once is an unnecessary hyphen: “I hope that most people will choose something in-between.” The mistake he makes _twice_ is to write “i.e.” when he means “e.g.” Though these mistakes are unforgivable–I would have returned the ms. without marking them and not accepted it again till he’d found them and fixed them–to be fair he’s made no real mistakes in the several subsequent pages, which is as far as I’ve read. ---
**Author:** ![Eggs\_a\_la\_Ted](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c68b51/32.png) [@Eggs\_a\_la\_Ted](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eggs_a_la_Ted)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2000, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287/36 "2000-12-28T00:24:11Z")
Yesterday I decided to get a head start on my new years resolutions for the next year. One of them was to start reading all those book you’re supposed to have read, so I went to the bookstore today and picked up a pile of paperback classics. One of them is Dubliners. Certainly not one of his heavier books but I thought I’d start light. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2000, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287/37 "2000-12-28T00:30:32Z")
Dubliners is about the right one to start with. Joyce should really be read chronoligically: his themes and techniques develop along a pretty discernible arc. _Dubliners_ should ideally lead you to _Portrait_, which really must come before _Ulysses_. And you can’t expect to pull too many plums out of _Finnegans Wake_ if you stick in an inexperienced thumb. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2000, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287/38 "2000-12-28T00:34:26Z")
Ha! _chronoligically_. I like that! ---
**Author:** ![rackensack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rackensack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rackensack)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2000, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287/39 "2000-12-28T04:26:44Z")
Well, the professional literati have the Apology for J.J. pretty well in hand by this point. But the OP _did_ ask whether anyone reads Joyce for _pleasure_; so long as you earn your bread in academia, you can’t genuinely be said to be reading _anything_ for pleasure; you never know when you’ll come across some trope in the romance novel you pick up at WalMart that ties in neatly with your particular area of interest and might be just the thing for a quick and publishable little screed that could also attract the right sort of interest at the next SAMLA conference). Despite being a former English lit academic _manqué_, I’ve never read Joyce other than for pleasure (actually, I think we did read _Dubliners_ in one of my undergraduate classes, but that’s a minor exception). I read _Portrait of the Artist_ and _Ulysses_ in high school, _Ulysses_ as part of an after-school reading group organized by one of my teachers, led by a University of Arkansas lit prof, but strictly on a voluntary, extracurricular basis. I read it again before I finished high school, once in college, and have re-read most of it twice over since then. I enjoy it more every time. I’m not going to say I think it’s everyone’s cup of tea, but it suits me. I find _Ulysses_ making up a surprising amount of my mental furniture. Phrases (“When I makes tea I makes tea and when I makes water I makes water,” “Who’s he when he’s at home? . . . O rocks, tell us in plain words,” “Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowl,” etc.) from it pop into my head unbidden every day. That being said, I have never been able to convince myself that _Finnegans Wake_ is anywhere near as much fun. I even have something approaching the affinity for languages and broad exposure to them that _FW_ requires (Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, German, and Old English studied formally, and Italian and several older Germanic dialects and languages picked up along the way). I have (IMHO) an outstanding ear for the sound of language and can appreciate puns that span three or more languages and hundreds of years but that are only apparent if you focus on how the words _sound_. I understand Joyce’s sensibility fairly deeply from prolonged exposure to it in _Ulysses_ and the shorter works. I have (largely from the same source) a pretty fair knowledge of the social and political history of Ireland, particularly in the 19th and early 20th centuries, am conversant with the history of Western civilization, philosophy, and religion. In short, I am the very model of a modern reader of James Joyce. Still can’t make myself slog through _FW_. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Pinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dr.Pinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Pinky)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2000, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287/40 "2000-12-28T07:48:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by rackensack \* > \*\* That being said, I have never been able to convince myself that _Finnegans Wake_ is anywhere near as much fun… In short, I am the very model of a modern reader of James Joyce. Still can’t make myself slog through _FW_. \*\* I don’t think it’s for slogging through. That would be like trying to read the Internet, front to back. FW is a circle, and, as Charles Fort said, one measures a circle beginning anywhere. I’m of the random access school of FW enjoyment. Sure, get a guide, get a feel for the lay of the land, but ye gods and wee fishes, reading it straight through seems onerous to me. “Professional literati” … nobody’s ever call me _that_ before. (I like it!) Would you be referring to the $900 I made in poetry over the last twenty years, or the cool $250/year I make as theater critic for my beloved hometown paper? I’m just a guy that enjoys codes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-read-james-joyce-for-pleasure/47287.md?page=3)