Kidd on Ulysses
Jorn Barger
`Ulysses' ranking a reason to re-Joyce?
by John Lang Scripps Howard News Service
No and no again no you said you will but no you won't read "Ulysses."
That book, written by James Joyce, first published in 1922, and
considered today by some of America's eminent old white men of letters
as the best English-language novel of the 20th century, seems to be
read mainly by those who have to.
"Our guess is that most who read it do so because it's required reading
in school," says Tom Perry, a publicist with Random House, which
publishes one hard-cover and two paperback editions -- and sells some
22,000 copies a year mainly to college courses.
"Ulysses" was ranked No. 1 this week on a list of the century's top 100
novels compiled by the editorial board of Random House, a prestigious
group of mostly white male scholars and authors such as William Styron,
Shelby Foote and Gore Vidal. Meantime, the 100 women students in
Radcliffe's summer publishing course ranked "Ulysses" No. 6 in their
top 100 list.
if ulysses is so great why aren't people reading for pleasure a book of
so many exquisite expressions in the final chapter sentences begin
without upper casing and sometimes never end there are no periods but
run on and on without commas semicolons never mind dashes or any way to
catch your breath or rest your brain for page after paragraphless page
just like this except the words are lots better if hard to understand
without a professor
"It is a difficult book but something students will buy, because it's a
book you want to own, because it's the quintessential work of literary
modernism of the 20th century," says Peter Janssen of Random House's
academic marketing department. Actually, one of America's foremost
scholars on the book, John Kidd, director of Boston University's James
Joyce Research Center, is cynical about the selection of "Ulysses" as
the best literature of the past hundred years. "Who owns 'Ulysses'?
It's interesting that Random House, which has exclusive rights, would
declare it No. 1," says Kidd. "This is the book that made Random House
what it is today."
So does this expert consider "Ulysses" the best?
"It's not that it's the best book, or the most enjoyable book, or even
the most uplifting book, or the funniest book," says Kidd. "But it has
had the greatest impact on all the other writers. It's a writer's book,
first and foremost. Therefore, its influence exceeds that of any other
literary work of the century."
Kidd admits that "Ulysses" isn't very accessible, because, he says, it
wasn't meant to be. What Joyce did on the page, he says, was much like
what MTV did on video when it first came out, when it was edgy,
mesmerizing, experimental.
There was an edition last year that tried to be more readable, and Kidd
says it bombed because everyone knows that part of "Ulysses" is the
difficult punctuation and Joyce's way of omitting words to make
language more jumpy. " 'Ulysses' wouldn't be on the list if it were
easy reading," Kidd says. "It's a rebel's book.
"And, Joyce pandered to the professors. He had a number of famous
quotes and one was, 'I've put in so many puzzles it'll keep the
professors busy for centuries.' He was asking us, Can you find all the
allusions to Homer, to Shakespeare, to Dante?"
Kidd says his own research center is working on a commentary of 15,000
annotations, explaining line by line all the enigmas that Joyce
inserted.
Why write a book to puzzle professors?
"Every writer needs marketing. Joyce wanted to be in the pantheon of
great writers. He needed marketers. Who are marketers for literature?
The professors, the teachers, the aesthetes."
Kidd, who is preparing his own edition of "Ulysses," says he's seen
young men in the campus bookstore trying to pick up women, using their
presumed familiarity with the work as an aesthetic.
"But women are so savvy about literature now, some guy is going to have
the wrong edition of 'Ulysses,' sitting on the subway, looking over at
some woman, saying, 'You know this?' and she'll say, 'Get out of here,
creep, you're not reading the Kidd edition.' " and his heart will be
going like mad it will Yes
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