Query: Reading Joyce aloud

[Terry Mercer]

Several of us here (Wichita State University) are interested in getting
together and reading ULYSSES aloud.
For scheduling and room reservation purposes, does anyone (who has done this)
have an estimate of the number
of hours I should allow?

Perhaps private replies are appropriate--unless there are vast numbers of
list-me

[Boyd Holmes]

This is perhaps a bit beside the point, but Joyce once remarked that anyone
could understand Finnegan's Wake if he read it aloud.

Does someone out there think there is any truth to that?

Boyd Holmes

[Terry Mercer]

As to reading FW aloud--definitely I think Joyce had it right.

And, I suspect the same is at least partiall
y true of ULYSSES, hence my project.

Terry Mercer
pos...@aol.com

[Valerie J. Ryan]

Several of us got together 18 months ago and read IT ALL on consecutive
Saturdays for about eight months. We finished on June 16 - naturally! It
took us about 33 hours. Recently had a conversation with a guy from
Dublin who heard that a local radio station did it in 28 hours of straight
reading. My advice is: be sure that you have GOOD readers, people who
understand the music of the language and aren't afraid of sentences that
have no beginning and no end. Our group was surprised - and saddened - to
find that even people who should be "checked out" on stream of
consciousness couldn't read Joyce! Also, allow plenty of time for beer
and discussion. It helps keep the group together. Also helps to have a
healthy mixture of pedants and proles. Happy Reading!

[Nicholas Traenkner]

>...Joyce once remarked that anyone could understand Finnegan's Wake if he read

>it aloud.
>Does someone out there think there is any truth to that?

One section of the Wake that animates particuarly well when read aloud
to me is the Willingdone Museyroom scene. Tip. When read aloud, the guide to
the room's voice, as s/he points to the flag of the Prooshious, Tip. and the
other assorted artifacts, Tip. seems accompanied by a sound remniscient of
perhaps a cane? Tip.

Also, the innumberable voices to be heard echoing from Phoenix Park
(and all universes contained therin) form their own distinguishable dialects
and contain a vast assortment of onomonopeia that sometimes morph into
distinguishable words and phrases when read aloud.(Bullseye! Game!)

All I know is that the Wake is incredible Fun, haven't touched the
durned thing for bout a year, but am looking forward to an upcoming Wake group
this month. We've always found a couple readings aloud of the page or two we
cover each night helpful. Ayi, ayi, ayi!

and then there's always the fun words...

bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhou-
nawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!

Phew!

"...make strake for minnas! By order Nicholas Proud."
Nicholas Traenkner (ex FWAKE junkie)
engx...@ksuvxa.kent.edu

[Howard Gershen]

Here in NYC, "Symphony Space", a theatre on the Upper West Side has, for
the last several years, put on a "Bloomsday on Broadway" fete on June 16.
The program consists of famous (and not-yet-famous) actors and actresses
reading selections of _Ulysses_, as well as other writings by Joyce (a
portion of _Portrait_; a wedge of _Wake_; etc.). The performance is
broadcast live over WBAI in NYC, and (I seem to remember) also over some
Pacifica radio stations. I don't recall them having done the entire text
of _Ulysses_, although they have tried to key the read chapters to the
hours in which their action was supposed to've occurred.

Symphony Space, for those in the know, is also the home base of "Selected
Shorts", the PBS-broadcast collection of readings of short stories.

hg