14 Irish writers on Ulysses
Jorn Barger
Wednesday, June 16, 1999
That Blooming book
Does it leave them paralysed with awe - or have they even read it?
Rosita Boland asks 14 writers intimate with Dublin what that big book
means to them this Bloomsday
Paula Meehan
I've only read parts of Ulysses. But I'm very lucky: when I was a young
woman, I had Ulysses read to me in its entirety - in bed, over the
course of a winter. As my nighttime story, so to speak. So I heard it
before I read it. I loved it when I heard it. The words existed as
sounds, rather than signs on a page. We have a fetish with meaning. I'd
never claim to understand Ulysses, but I have experienced it. I've gone
back and read parts of it and been totally baffled.
I don't have my copy at the moment; I've lent it out to someone, along
with Bob Dylan's lyrics, which would be just as important to me as
Ulysses.
For me the whole experience of Ulysses was being left astonished by a
writer. It takes such courage to throw everything away and create a new
world. I don't see it as a mother church type novel; it's not
unassailable, but for its time, it was revolutionary.
Paula Meehan's Pillow Talk, from Gallery ress, is Stg6.95
Pat McCabe
I've read Ulysses hundreds of times. I suppose I came to it first when
I was about 16, but I didn't read it through until I was 21. I think
it's amazing - the music and comedy of it. And the audacity of it. It's
witty and cheeky. Some of it isn't as strong as other bits, in my
humble opinion.
I think it represents the anti-imperialism of Ireland, because it's so
anti-class. I dip into it all the time, the last time was about a month
ago. That's probably the best way to read it - as a lucky dip.
Everything is in Ulysses. It's all been done in that book. You look at
people like Quentin Tarantino, and what they're trying to do. They
don't realise that all those post-modern tricks they're trying to
achieve are all in "Night Town" in Ulysses. Joyce has done all those
things we think are new.
At this stage, praising Ulysses is like praising the Lakes of Killarney
or the Sistine Chapel - they're all just there, aren't they?
Pat McCabe's Breakfast On Pluto, from icador, is Stg6.99 in UK
Sheila O'Flanagan
I haven't read all of Ulysses, but I have read bits of it over the past
few years. It's one of those books that's so hyped that I never wanted
to read it. I felt it was so over-analysed that I didn't want to get
involved in it. From the bits I read, the experience isn't like reading
a book at all - it's more like doing a jigsaw.
First I wondered if Joyce was on some sort of drugs when he was writing
it. Then I read his plan of the book, and realised how carefully
plotted it all was. But I still do wonder if he was drunk a lot of the
time when he was writing it. I didn't finish it because it requires a
level of commitment that I didn't have. It's such a mish-mash of styles
it didn't engage me enough for that level of commitment. The great
Irish novel? I think because of the rambling and disjointed sort of way
the book flits around, that it's not a bad encapsulation of Irish
people!
Sheila O'Flanagan's Isobel's Wedding, from Poolbeg, is Stg6.99
Cathal O Searcaigh
I've read Ulysses twice. As an Irish language writer, you don't have to
confront it in the same way as an English language writer. You can
relax with it and not feel that it's as overbearing. But it certainly
fascinates me. I love Joyce's magpie knowledge; those verbal
acrobatics.
I read it first about 20 years ago, when I was living in London. I
bought my copy in one of those wonderful old secondhand bookshops on
Charing Cross Road. I still have that copy. It's a bit battered and
torn, but I still have it. Ulysses had great resonance to me at that
time. It clarified things in my own life that I'd had doubts about -
like should I continue trying to be a writer . . .
I was fascinated by the way Joyce used Dublin in a mythological,
literal, and sensuous way - how he transformed and transfigured his
home. It made me aware of the mythical possibilities of my own home, at
the bottom of the foot of Mount Errigal in Donegal. I think Ulysses is
a magnificent achievement. It includes everything - and it's a writer's
dream to incorporate everything one knows.
Cathal O Searcaigh's Out in the Open, from Clo Iar-Chonnachta, is Stg14
Colm Toibin
The first time I saw a copy of Ulysses, I was about 13 or 14. I was
looking for the dirty bits, but I never found any. I read it through
when I was about 18, and since then I've kept coming back to it.
I have five editions. The green Bodley Head one - I really treasure
that one. And the hardback Picador, the hardback Lilliput, and Declan's
Kiberd's annotated edition. I also have the first American edition from
Shakespeare & Co - I bought it for $50 in the States. What I like about
the different editions is that there are different notes at the back,
which are very interesting.
I find Bloom's mind is like discovering the Beethoven Quartet. I love
the rich way he notices everything; it's so cleverly put down and so
funny. I love the attack on nationalism in the pub, and obviously love
Molly Bloom's soliloquy. But there are big sections I don't like.
"Night Town" is too long. I think the more you know about Ulysses, you
more you can get out of it.
Colm Toibin's The Story of the Night, from Picador, is Stg6.99 in UK
Andrew Miller
I read Ulysses at university. With a book of that scale, you go through
periods of being totally engaged and then some of it is like having
teeth pulled - totally boring. Ulysses has a very secure position now.
Nobody will ever challenge it.
Since university I've reread the bits that I liked; dipped into it. The
last bit I reread was Molly Bloom's sililoquy. It's the sort of thing
you feel you've done once and that's it. I mightn't have done so well
with the book if I hadn't been at college and had to read it. Still, I
did better than Hemingway. When he died, they found his copy of Ulysses
only had the first 50 pages cut!
Andrew Miller's Casanova, from Septre, is Stg6.99 in UK
Anne Enright
I wasn't allowed to read Ulysses when I was young, so I bought a
clandestine copy of it with holiday money and read it in the youth
hostels of Cork and Kerry. I was 14 and convinced that, if only I could
understand it, I was reading the dirtiest book in the world.
What did it mean to me? At the time, I think it meant that I was
clever. Ulysses is like the door jamb where you mark your height as a
child. I read it every seven years or so, just to see how much, as
reader or writer, I have changed.
As to whether I think it is over-rated or justly-rated, I think we
should all just shut up and enjoy it.
Anne Enright's The Wig My Father Wore, from Minerva, is Stg6.99 in UK
John Banville
Apart from its artistic merits, or, indeed, its value as entertainment
- it remains a wonderfully funny book - Ulysses, along with The Waste
Land, The Rite of Spring, and Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon,
marks a pivotal moment in Modernism.
Joyce set out to write a realist novel in the tradition of Flaubert
and, despite his scant regard for him, Henry James, but veered off into
a new book, as is the case with the other works mentioned above, is not
quite the revolution it seemed at the time.
I suspect that many readers value most the more straightforward scenes,
such as the marvellous passage when Bloom brings Molly her breakfast in
bed, and the ruminations of Paddy Dignam's son, and Stephen Dedalus's
classroom history lessons. No other Modernist had Joyce's humaneness,
humour and love of the ordinary stuff of life. Ulysses is an enduring
work of art.
John Banville's The Untouchables, from Picador, is Stg5.99 in UK
Mark O'Rowe
I haven't read Ulysses. There was a phase when I was about 19 or 20
when all my friends were reading it, but I never got around to it. I
think my thing was, life's too short. I'd rather read something more
entertaining. I've never even opened the book.
What do I think it's about? I've heard that, in terms of language, it
blew the English language right out of the water. But that was a long
time ago. And it's about a day in the life of some guy who goes around
Dublin city. I have on occasion been curious to read it, but I know
it's a difficult read from people who've read it. At the end of the
day, I'd prefer to read something more accessible.
From the people I know who've read it, they've told me it's impossible
to get into it. Ulysses seems to fail on that level - it doesn't draw
you in. I think what's kept it relevant and alive is that people are
constantly interpreting it.
Mark O'Rowe's Howie the Rookie was the opening production at Tallaght's
Civic Theatre
Vona Groarke
In 1993, myself and my boyfriend went to Oslo. I was working in the
National Museum there for the summer. We wanted to travel light, so we
just took one book with us, the old Bodley Head edition of Ulysses that
we picked up in some secondhand bookshop. Then when we got to Norway,
we discovered how expensive everything was, we couldn't afford
anything.
Ulysses turned out to be our main entertainment for the summer. We took
turns reading it to each other, by the light of the midnight sun. Then
we used to quiz each other on the bits we'd read. What horse won the
Gold Cup? What did Bloom buy in Sweny's Chemist? What was the
unidentified man by the grave wearing? We knocked a great read out of
it, we read it inside out.
I'd read Ulysses once before, but in an academic context. That second
time in Norway, it was pure fun. We got married in Norway at the end of
that summer and we still use some of the phrases from the novel.
They've turned into our domestic jokes. Like, saying "wine of the
country" for Guinness. We still say that.
Vona Groarke's Other People's Houses, from Gallery Press, is Stg6.95
Joe O'Connor
I found a copy of Ulysses in my parents' house when I was about 17. I
still have that copy. I've read it twice now. The first time was in
college, and the second about three or four years ago. When I read it
for the second time, I wondered if I would respond to it differently.
The first time I'd read it, I understood it. I read it the second time
to see if I'd have a more emotional response to it. I don't think I
did, though.
I don't think we should be intimidated by Joyce. We shouldn't treat
Ulysses as if it was the Bible. Parts of it are tedious - huge chunks
of it. It's not as bad as Finnegans Wake, though. The most admirable
bit of Ulysses is the ambition of it. I'll read it a third time,
absolutely. Sometime when I have about six months to spare . . .
Joseph O'Connor's The Salesman, from Vintage, is Stg5.99 in UK
Antonia Logue
I have four copies of Ulysses - but I haven't read it yet. It's the
only book I have multiple copies of. That's because I keep starting it,
and then mislaying the book, so I have to buy another one the next time
I try to read it.
It's the biggest gap in terms of books I'd like to have read. I managed
to get through four years of an English degree in Trinity without
reading it. I have dipped into it, though. I've read about the first
third of it, but I've always left it down and gone off and done
something else.
It's dreadful not to have read it, but I'm definitely going to read it
before I write my next novel. There are certain things that people
everywhere agree on, and everyone says this is one of the greatest
books ever written. But nobody ever specifies what's so fantastic about
it. I think I'm a bit sacred of it. It seems so mythical and daunting
the way people talk about it.
Antonia Logue's Shadow-Box, from Bloomsbury, is Stg15.99 in UK
Philip Casey
When I was 17, I got kicked by a cow and I had to spend a month in bed,
recovering. My mother brought me home a copy of Ulysses from Webb's
bookshop in Wexford. I'd never heard of James Joyce at the time. To me,
it was just another book.
I read the whole thing in bed. Of course, I hadn't a clue what it was
about, but I was entralled by it. It was like a beacon from the outside
world. Ulysses was one of the first literary books I'd ever read. It
was a baptism by fire.
Every Bloomsday, I open Ulysses at random, dip into a chapter, and read
for a couple of hours. I think it's the great book of the 20th century.
Every time I go back to it, it's still completely fresh and exciting.
As you get older, you understand a bit more of it every time. It was
only when I heard the RTE 24-hour edition on the radio that I
understood what the last bit in the book was about. You can be damn
sure I went back and reread that part again!
Philip Casey's The Water Star, from icador, is Stg14.99 in UK
Christy Nolan
While I haven't read the novel yet I still have ideas about it. They
stem from years of listening to my father going on about Ulysses. While
the girth of the book frightens me, I have, I think, come up with the
solution - I've just bought it on tape!
The name "Joyce" is where literature is the world over. His name is
magical worldwide. His name is Irish and respectably so, for he has
created a kinky love story and set the lingering godsend here in the
city of Dublin.
In Ireland we judge him very harshly. We think for and through him,
giving him motives which I doubt he ever countenanced; his bleary eyes
working him through years of trauma and writing.
Joyce has written the greatest novel ever to see the French sky. He has
hunted where the human heart gropes for love. He has, in my opinion,
hinted only maybe of the fury yet before us and, but for him, the 16th
of June would be just that, the thin date on the waffling calendar.
Christy Nolan's The Banyan Tree, from Phoenix House, is Stg16.99 in UK
--
"Somehow he finds time to browse and read all the sites I never get
around to, and summarizes their latest high points. ...I'm amazed at
the way he hits on stuff I'm interested in about 90% of the time."
I edit the Net: <URL:http://www.robotwisdom.com/> --Candi Strecker