Subject
Fwd: Re: Joyce and VN
From
Date
Body
Dear Don,
I do not quite know what to do with the message below. I will probably be
considered young and unduellable. Please do not post it if you think it
isn't worth it. Thanks.
Best, Sergey
Dear List,
Joyce was eminently sane and sober both as a writer and a person. As DN
remarked in one of his postings, genius is, above all, discipline. Neither
ULYSSES nor FINNEGANS WAKE could have been written, if Joyce had nothing
else to do as a writer but to fictionalize his peccadilloes and whims. A
remarkable sense of structure plus a remarkable sense of style is what makes
him a genius.
I agree with Andrew Brown that one is well advised to view a writer with
reservations, and awe is of little help when one is trying to understand
anything. But when assessing such cases as Joyce (and VN) one may easily
disregard the sheer amount of work such writers had to do to attain their
"status".
Ditto for Beckett. He described man as a non-knower and a non-can'er (he
called it the "authentic weakness of being"), but not non-hoper. Richard
Ellmann gave what seems to me to be one of the most accurate assessments of
the writer: "He seems to say that only there and then, as metabolism lowers,
amid God's paucity, not his plenty, can the core of the human condition be
approached... Yet his musical cadences, his wrought and precise sentences,
cannot help but stave off the void."
Joyce and Beckett, just as VN, require a sustained effort of understanding.
Sergey
----- Original Message -----
From: Donald B. Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 12:31 AM
Subject: Re: Spam: Re: Fw: VN speaks for himself to on pets,peats and
petards
----- Forwarded message from Andrew.Brown@bbdodetroit.com -----
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 13:19:58 -0500
From: "Brown, Andrew" <Andrew.Brown@bbdodetroit.com>
Reply-To: "Brown, Andrew" <Andrew.Brown@bbdodetroit.com>
Subject: RE: Spam: Re: Fw: VN speaks for himself to on pets,peats and
petards
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Looking over what I wrote yesterday, I'm going to change my ground slightly,
based on the following, taken from the Lecture quote below:
"... if not on the verge of insanity, at least a good clinical example of
extreme sexual preoccupation and perversity with all kinds of curious
complications..."
All things considered, Joyce probably does come about as close to "the verge
of
insanity" as anyone I've ever read. In fact, there were quite a few times in
his life when he was more or less hanging on by his fingernails. Finnegans
Wake
was not written by a man overly inhibited by the bonds of sanity.
I think readers of Ulysses have been able to accept Leopold Bloom for the
reason
that many of Bloom's most extraordinary thoughts come out in the
surrealistic
Nighttown section, but also, the non-analytical lay-reader -- more than the
professional novelist -- may be more willing to grant Joyce the right to
compress into Bloom's day an unusual amount of perversity, and accept it
with
fewer questions, simply because he or she is in awe of Joyce.
VN could view Joyce as a colleague and fellow artist, to be respected, but
not
respected without question or reservation.
> ----------
> From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum on behalf of Donald B. Johnson
> Reply To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
> Sent: Monday, March 7, 2005 12:26 PM
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Subject: Spam: Re: Fw: VN speaks for himself to on pets,peats and petards
>
> <<File: ATT1903360.htm>>
>
>
> ----- Forwarded message from as-brown@comcast.net -----
> Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 19:21:53 -0500
> From: Andrew Brown <as-brown@comcast.net>
> Reply-To: Andrew Brown <as-brown@comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: Fw: VN speaks for himself to on pets,peats and petards
> To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
>
> Readers of Richard Ellmann's biography of Joyce, as well as readers of
the
> now-hard-to-find letters Joyce sent Nora from Dublin in December of 1909
know
> that Bloom's predelictions and peccadillos are, basically, those of Joyce
> himself. With respect to the writer of the Lectures on Literature quoted
> below, I demure and suggest instead that in art, which Joyce and Nabokov
both
> pursued, in fact, in the modernist tradition formulated by Wilde and
others,
> taste and morals mean much less than whether a work is written well or
badly.
> Nabokov was a man who could not find it in himself to accept a work like
> Huckleberry Finn because of what he considered its vulgarity. In this
matter
my
> own views part company with VNs, in spite of my considering him the
greatest
> American writer of the 20th century. When it comes to art (and much else,
> actually), you don't have to agree with anybody, not even your heroes, all
of
> the time.
>
> Andrew
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: D. Barton Johnson
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2005 4:10 PM
> Subject: Fw: VN speaks for himself to on pets,peats and petards
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello
> Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2005 11:45 AM
> Subject: VN speaks for himself to on pets,peats and petards
>
>
> Dear List,
>
> There is an important reference in VN´s lecture on Joyce which I
couldn´t
find
> yesterday but that I can now add:
>
> I´m copying from Fredon Bowers edition of Lectures on Literature, page
287:
>
> "Another consideration in relation to Bloom: those so many who have
written
so
> much about "Ulysses" are either very pure men or very depraved men. They
are
> inclined to regard Bloom as a very ordinary nature, and apparently Joyce
> himself intended to portray an ordinary person. It is obvious, however,
that
> in the sexual department Bloom is, if not on the verge of insanity, at
least a
> good clinical example of extreme sexual preoccupation and perversity with
all
> kinds of curious complications. His case is strictly heterosexual, of
course
->
> not homosexual as most of the ladies and gentlemen are in Proust (...) -
but
> within the wide limits of Bloom´s love for the opposite sex he indulges in
acts
> and dreams that are definitely subnormal in the zoological, evolutional
sense.
> I shall not bore you with a list of his curious desires, but this I will
say:
> in Bloom´s mind and in Joyce´s book the theme of sex is continually mixed
and
> intertwined with the theme of the latrine. God knows I have no objection
> whatsoever to so-called frankness in novels. On the contrary, we have too
> little of it, and what there is has become in its turn conventional and
trite,
> as used by so-called tough writers, the darlings of the book clubs, the
pets
of
> clubwomen. But I do object to the folowing: Bloom is supposed to be a
rather
> orginary citizen. Now it is not true that the mind of an ordinary citizen
> continuously dwells on physiological things. I object to the
continuously,
not
> to the disgusting. All this very special pathological stuff seems
artificial
> and unnecessary in this particular context".
> ..............................................
> There are other comments by VN about Joyce´s and Bloom´s
"extraordinariness"
> which are as vivid as the one here quoted.
> Young Eric´s or any Veen or Zemski (explicit) sexual fantasy should not
be
> confused with VN´s own, to the point of " continuously" permeating his
novel
> like a bass background.
>
> VN ( on page 346) writes about Joyce´s parodies :
> "We can thus define clichés as bits of dead prose and of rotting poetry.
> However the parody has its interruptions. Now what Joyce does here is to
cause
> some of that dead and rotten stuff to reveal here and there its live
source,
> its primary freshness (...) Joyce manages to build up something real -
pathos,
> pity, compassion - out of the dead formulas which he parodies".
>
> I also think that this very real, compassionate and golden atmosphere is
> something VN achieved in ADA, albeit by other means no less
"extraordinary".
> Paradise regained?
> Jansy
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
>
This message and any attachments contain information, which may be
confidential
or privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please refrain from
any
disclosure, copying, distribution or use of this information. Please be
aware
that such actions are prohibited. If you have received this transmission in
error, kindly notify us by calling 1-800-262-4723 or e-mail to
helpdesk@bbdo.com. We appreciate your cooperation.
----- End forwarded message -----
Looking over what I wrote yesterday, I'm going to change my ground slightly,
based on the following, taken from the Lecture quote below:
"... if not on the verge of insanity, at least a good clinical example of
extreme sexual preoccupation and perversity with all kinds of curious
complications..."
All things considered, Joyce probably does come about as close to "the verge
of insanity" as anyone I've ever read. In fact, there were quite a few times
in his life when he was more or less hanging on by his fingernails.
Finnegans Wake was not written by a man overly inhibited by the bonds of
sanity.
I think readers of Ulysses have been able to accept Leopold Bloom for the
reason that many of Bloom's most extraordinary thoughts come out in the
surrealistic Nighttown section, but also, the non-analytical lay-reader --
more than the professional novelist -- may be more willing to grant Joyce
the right to compress into Bloom's day an unusual amount of perversity, and
accept it with fewer questions, simply because he or she is in awe of Joyce.
VN could view Joyce as a colleague and fellow artist, to be respected, but
not respected without question or reservation.
----------
From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum on behalf of Donald B. Johnson
Reply To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Monday, March 7, 2005 12:26 PM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Spam: Re: Fw: VN speaks for himself to on pets,peats and
petards
<<File: ATT1903360.htm>>
----- Forwarded message from as-brown@comcast.net -----
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 19:21:53 -0500
From: Andrew Brown <as-brown@comcast.net>
Reply-To: Andrew Brown <as-brown@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Fw: VN speaks for himself to on pets,peats and petards
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Readers of Richard Ellmann's biography of Joyce, as well as readers of the
now-hard-to-find letters Joyce sent Nora from Dublin in December of 1909
know
that Bloom's predelictions and peccadillos are, basically, those of Joyce
himself. With respect to the writer of the Lectures on Literature quoted
below, I demure and suggest instead that in art, which Joyce and Nabokov
both
pursued, in fact, in the modernist tradition formulated by Wilde and others,
taste and morals mean much less than whether a work is written well or
badly.
Nabokov was a man who could not find it in himself to accept a work like
Huckleberry Finn because of what he considered its vulgarity. In this matter
my
own views part company with VNs, in spite of my considering him the
greatest
American writer of the 20th century. When it comes to art (and much else,
actually), you don't have to agree with anybody, not even your heroes, all
of
the time.
Andrew
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2005 4:10 PM
Subject: Fw: VN speaks for himself to on pets,peats and petards
----- Original Message -----
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello
Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2005 11:45 AM
Subject: VN speaks for himself to on pets,peats and petards
Dear List,
There is an important reference in VN´s lecture on Joyce which I couldn´t
find
yesterday but that I can now add:
I´m copying from Fredon Bowers edition of Lectures on Literature, page
287:
"Another consideration in relation to Bloom: those so many who have
written so
much about "Ulysses" are either very pure men or very depraved men. They
are
inclined to regard Bloom as a very ordinary nature, and apparently Joyce
himself intended to portray an ordinary person. It is obvious, however,
that
in the sexual department Bloom is, if not on the verge of insanity, at least
a
good clinical example of extreme sexual preoccupation and perversity with
all
kinds of curious complications. His case is strictly heterosexual, of
course -
not homosexual as most of the ladies and gentlemen are in Proust (...) - but
within the wide limits of Bloom´s love for the opposite sex he indulges in
acts
and dreams that are definitely subnormal in the zoological, evolutional
sense.
I shall not bore you with a list of his curious desires, but this I will
say:
in Bloom´s mind and in Joyce´s book the theme of sex is continually mixed
and
intertwined with the theme of the latrine. God knows I have no objection
whatsoever to so-called frankness in novels. On the contrary, we have too
little of it, and what there is has become in its turn conventional and
trite,
as used by so-called tough writers, the darlings of the book clubs, the pets
of
clubwomen. But I do object to the folowing: Bloom is supposed to be a
rather
orginary citizen. Now it is not true that the mind of an ordinary citizen
continuously dwells on physiological things. I object to the continuously,
not
to the disgusting. All this very special pathological stuff seems
artificial
and unnecessary in this particular context".
..............................................
There are other comments by VN about Joyce´s and Bloom´s
"extraordinariness"
which are as vivid as the one here quoted.
Young Eric´s or any Veen or Zemski (explicit) sexual fantasy should not
be
confused with VN´s own, to the point of " continuously" permeating his
novel
like a bass background.
VN ( on page 346) writes about Joyce´s parodies :
"We can thus define clichés as bits of dead prose and of rotting poetry.
However the parody has its interruptions. Now what Joyce does here is to
cause
some of that dead and rotten stuff to reveal here and there its live source,
its primary freshness (...) Joyce manages to build up something real -
pathos,
pity, compassion - out of the dead formulas which he parodies".
I also think that this very real, compassionate and golden atmosphere is
something VN achieved in ADA, albeit by other means no less "extraordinary".
Paradise regained?
Jansy
----- End forwarded message -----
This message and any attachments contain information, which may be
confidential or privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please
refrain from any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of this
information. Please be aware that such actions are prohibited. If you have
received this transmission in error, kindly notify us by calling
1-800-262-4723 or e-mail to helpdesk@bbdo.com. We appreciate your
cooperation.
----- End forwarded message -----
I do not quite know what to do with the message below. I will probably be
considered young and unduellable. Please do not post it if you think it
isn't worth it. Thanks.
Best, Sergey
Dear List,
Joyce was eminently sane and sober both as a writer and a person. As DN
remarked in one of his postings, genius is, above all, discipline. Neither
ULYSSES nor FINNEGANS WAKE could have been written, if Joyce had nothing
else to do as a writer but to fictionalize his peccadilloes and whims. A
remarkable sense of structure plus a remarkable sense of style is what makes
him a genius.
I agree with Andrew Brown that one is well advised to view a writer with
reservations, and awe is of little help when one is trying to understand
anything. But when assessing such cases as Joyce (and VN) one may easily
disregard the sheer amount of work such writers had to do to attain their
"status".
Ditto for Beckett. He described man as a non-knower and a non-can'er (he
called it the "authentic weakness of being"), but not non-hoper. Richard
Ellmann gave what seems to me to be one of the most accurate assessments of
the writer: "He seems to say that only there and then, as metabolism lowers,
amid God's paucity, not his plenty, can the core of the human condition be
approached... Yet his musical cadences, his wrought and precise sentences,
cannot help but stave off the void."
Joyce and Beckett, just as VN, require a sustained effort of understanding.
Sergey
----- Original Message -----
From: Donald B. Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 12:31 AM
Subject: Re: Spam: Re: Fw: VN speaks for himself to on pets,peats and
petards
----- Forwarded message from Andrew.Brown@bbdodetroit.com -----
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 13:19:58 -0500
From: "Brown, Andrew" <Andrew.Brown@bbdodetroit.com>
Reply-To: "Brown, Andrew" <Andrew.Brown@bbdodetroit.com>
Subject: RE: Spam: Re: Fw: VN speaks for himself to on pets,peats and
petards
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Looking over what I wrote yesterday, I'm going to change my ground slightly,
based on the following, taken from the Lecture quote below:
"... if not on the verge of insanity, at least a good clinical example of
extreme sexual preoccupation and perversity with all kinds of curious
complications..."
All things considered, Joyce probably does come about as close to "the verge
of
insanity" as anyone I've ever read. In fact, there were quite a few times in
his life when he was more or less hanging on by his fingernails. Finnegans
Wake
was not written by a man overly inhibited by the bonds of sanity.
I think readers of Ulysses have been able to accept Leopold Bloom for the
reason
that many of Bloom's most extraordinary thoughts come out in the
surrealistic
Nighttown section, but also, the non-analytical lay-reader -- more than the
professional novelist -- may be more willing to grant Joyce the right to
compress into Bloom's day an unusual amount of perversity, and accept it
with
fewer questions, simply because he or she is in awe of Joyce.
VN could view Joyce as a colleague and fellow artist, to be respected, but
not
respected without question or reservation.
> ----------
> From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum on behalf of Donald B. Johnson
> Reply To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
> Sent: Monday, March 7, 2005 12:26 PM
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Subject: Spam: Re: Fw: VN speaks for himself to on pets,peats and petards
>
> <<File: ATT1903360.htm>>
>
>
> ----- Forwarded message from as-brown@comcast.net -----
> Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 19:21:53 -0500
> From: Andrew Brown <as-brown@comcast.net>
> Reply-To: Andrew Brown <as-brown@comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: Fw: VN speaks for himself to on pets,peats and petards
> To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
>
> Readers of Richard Ellmann's biography of Joyce, as well as readers of
the
> now-hard-to-find letters Joyce sent Nora from Dublin in December of 1909
know
> that Bloom's predelictions and peccadillos are, basically, those of Joyce
> himself. With respect to the writer of the Lectures on Literature quoted
> below, I demure and suggest instead that in art, which Joyce and Nabokov
both
> pursued, in fact, in the modernist tradition formulated by Wilde and
others,
> taste and morals mean much less than whether a work is written well or
badly.
> Nabokov was a man who could not find it in himself to accept a work like
> Huckleberry Finn because of what he considered its vulgarity. In this
matter
my
> own views part company with VNs, in spite of my considering him the
greatest
> American writer of the 20th century. When it comes to art (and much else,
> actually), you don't have to agree with anybody, not even your heroes, all
of
> the time.
>
> Andrew
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: D. Barton Johnson
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2005 4:10 PM
> Subject: Fw: VN speaks for himself to on pets,peats and petards
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello
> Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2005 11:45 AM
> Subject: VN speaks for himself to on pets,peats and petards
>
>
> Dear List,
>
> There is an important reference in VN´s lecture on Joyce which I
couldn´t
find
> yesterday but that I can now add:
>
> I´m copying from Fredon Bowers edition of Lectures on Literature, page
287:
>
> "Another consideration in relation to Bloom: those so many who have
written
so
> much about "Ulysses" are either very pure men or very depraved men. They
are
> inclined to regard Bloom as a very ordinary nature, and apparently Joyce
> himself intended to portray an ordinary person. It is obvious, however,
that
> in the sexual department Bloom is, if not on the verge of insanity, at
least a
> good clinical example of extreme sexual preoccupation and perversity with
all
> kinds of curious complications. His case is strictly heterosexual, of
course
->
> not homosexual as most of the ladies and gentlemen are in Proust (...) -
but
> within the wide limits of Bloom´s love for the opposite sex he indulges in
acts
> and dreams that are definitely subnormal in the zoological, evolutional
sense.
> I shall not bore you with a list of his curious desires, but this I will
say:
> in Bloom´s mind and in Joyce´s book the theme of sex is continually mixed
and
> intertwined with the theme of the latrine. God knows I have no objection
> whatsoever to so-called frankness in novels. On the contrary, we have too
> little of it, and what there is has become in its turn conventional and
trite,
> as used by so-called tough writers, the darlings of the book clubs, the
pets
of
> clubwomen. But I do object to the folowing: Bloom is supposed to be a
rather
> orginary citizen. Now it is not true that the mind of an ordinary citizen
> continuously dwells on physiological things. I object to the
continuously,
not
> to the disgusting. All this very special pathological stuff seems
artificial
> and unnecessary in this particular context".
> ..............................................
> There are other comments by VN about Joyce´s and Bloom´s
"extraordinariness"
> which are as vivid as the one here quoted.
> Young Eric´s or any Veen or Zemski (explicit) sexual fantasy should not
be
> confused with VN´s own, to the point of " continuously" permeating his
novel
> like a bass background.
>
> VN ( on page 346) writes about Joyce´s parodies :
> "We can thus define clichés as bits of dead prose and of rotting poetry.
> However the parody has its interruptions. Now what Joyce does here is to
cause
> some of that dead and rotten stuff to reveal here and there its live
source,
> its primary freshness (...) Joyce manages to build up something real -
pathos,
> pity, compassion - out of the dead formulas which he parodies".
>
> I also think that this very real, compassionate and golden atmosphere is
> something VN achieved in ADA, albeit by other means no less
"extraordinary".
> Paradise regained?
> Jansy
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
>
This message and any attachments contain information, which may be
confidential
or privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please refrain from
any
disclosure, copying, distribution or use of this information. Please be
aware
that such actions are prohibited. If you have received this transmission in
error, kindly notify us by calling 1-800-262-4723 or e-mail to
helpdesk@bbdo.com. We appreciate your cooperation.
----- End forwarded message -----
Looking over what I wrote yesterday, I'm going to change my ground slightly,
based on the following, taken from the Lecture quote below:
"... if not on the verge of insanity, at least a good clinical example of
extreme sexual preoccupation and perversity with all kinds of curious
complications..."
All things considered, Joyce probably does come about as close to "the verge
of insanity" as anyone I've ever read. In fact, there were quite a few times
in his life when he was more or less hanging on by his fingernails.
Finnegans Wake was not written by a man overly inhibited by the bonds of
sanity.
I think readers of Ulysses have been able to accept Leopold Bloom for the
reason that many of Bloom's most extraordinary thoughts come out in the
surrealistic Nighttown section, but also, the non-analytical lay-reader --
more than the professional novelist -- may be more willing to grant Joyce
the right to compress into Bloom's day an unusual amount of perversity, and
accept it with fewer questions, simply because he or she is in awe of Joyce.
VN could view Joyce as a colleague and fellow artist, to be respected, but
not respected without question or reservation.
----------
From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum on behalf of Donald B. Johnson
Reply To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Monday, March 7, 2005 12:26 PM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Spam: Re: Fw: VN speaks for himself to on pets,peats and
petards
<<File: ATT1903360.htm>>
----- Forwarded message from as-brown@comcast.net -----
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 19:21:53 -0500
From: Andrew Brown <as-brown@comcast.net>
Reply-To: Andrew Brown <as-brown@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Fw: VN speaks for himself to on pets,peats and petards
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Readers of Richard Ellmann's biography of Joyce, as well as readers of the
now-hard-to-find letters Joyce sent Nora from Dublin in December of 1909
know
that Bloom's predelictions and peccadillos are, basically, those of Joyce
himself. With respect to the writer of the Lectures on Literature quoted
below, I demure and suggest instead that in art, which Joyce and Nabokov
both
pursued, in fact, in the modernist tradition formulated by Wilde and others,
taste and morals mean much less than whether a work is written well or
badly.
Nabokov was a man who could not find it in himself to accept a work like
Huckleberry Finn because of what he considered its vulgarity. In this matter
my
own views part company with VNs, in spite of my considering him the
greatest
American writer of the 20th century. When it comes to art (and much else,
actually), you don't have to agree with anybody, not even your heroes, all
of
the time.
Andrew
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2005 4:10 PM
Subject: Fw: VN speaks for himself to on pets,peats and petards
----- Original Message -----
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello
Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2005 11:45 AM
Subject: VN speaks for himself to on pets,peats and petards
Dear List,
There is an important reference in VN´s lecture on Joyce which I couldn´t
find
yesterday but that I can now add:
I´m copying from Fredon Bowers edition of Lectures on Literature, page
287:
"Another consideration in relation to Bloom: those so many who have
written so
much about "Ulysses" are either very pure men or very depraved men. They
are
inclined to regard Bloom as a very ordinary nature, and apparently Joyce
himself intended to portray an ordinary person. It is obvious, however,
that
in the sexual department Bloom is, if not on the verge of insanity, at least
a
good clinical example of extreme sexual preoccupation and perversity with
all
kinds of curious complications. His case is strictly heterosexual, of
course -
not homosexual as most of the ladies and gentlemen are in Proust (...) - but
within the wide limits of Bloom´s love for the opposite sex he indulges in
acts
and dreams that are definitely subnormal in the zoological, evolutional
sense.
I shall not bore you with a list of his curious desires, but this I will
say:
in Bloom´s mind and in Joyce´s book the theme of sex is continually mixed
and
intertwined with the theme of the latrine. God knows I have no objection
whatsoever to so-called frankness in novels. On the contrary, we have too
little of it, and what there is has become in its turn conventional and
trite,
as used by so-called tough writers, the darlings of the book clubs, the pets
of
clubwomen. But I do object to the folowing: Bloom is supposed to be a
rather
orginary citizen. Now it is not true that the mind of an ordinary citizen
continuously dwells on physiological things. I object to the continuously,
not
to the disgusting. All this very special pathological stuff seems
artificial
and unnecessary in this particular context".
..............................................
There are other comments by VN about Joyce´s and Bloom´s
"extraordinariness"
which are as vivid as the one here quoted.
Young Eric´s or any Veen or Zemski (explicit) sexual fantasy should not
be
confused with VN´s own, to the point of " continuously" permeating his
novel
like a bass background.
VN ( on page 346) writes about Joyce´s parodies :
"We can thus define clichés as bits of dead prose and of rotting poetry.
However the parody has its interruptions. Now what Joyce does here is to
cause
some of that dead and rotten stuff to reveal here and there its live source,
its primary freshness (...) Joyce manages to build up something real -
pathos,
pity, compassion - out of the dead formulas which he parodies".
I also think that this very real, compassionate and golden atmosphere is
something VN achieved in ADA, albeit by other means no less "extraordinary".
Paradise regained?
Jansy
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