Dear Anthony
Stadlen,
You said that VN´s words "might apply by extension to FW", but that
he "means primarily, and quite possibly exclusively, the 'stream of
consciousness' " because he had referred his observation to
J.Joyce´s mental soliloquies.
You are probably correct in your observation
because VN explicitly returned to this idea in the Joyce lecture (
Bowers,page 289) while describing Molly´s final soliloquy:
" but one can comment here that it exagerates the verbal side of
thought. Man thinks not always in words but also in images, whereas the
stream of consciousness presupposes a flow of words that can be notated: it is
difficult, however, to believe that Bloom was continuously talking to himself"
.
On page 363:
"we must not see in the stream of consciousness as renedered by Joyce a
natural event. It is a reality only insofar
as it reflects Joyce´s cerebration, the mind of the book".
And he added: " This book is a new world invented by Joyce. In that world
people think by means of words, sentences. Their mental associations are mainly
dictated by the structural needs of the book, by the author´s artistic purposes
and plans"
I think that one may still consider FW as an expression of
"Joyce´s cerebration" taking over "the shadows of thought".
What does actually "too much verbal body" mean?
( Curiously, in his JJ Lecture he
substituted by "images" what he had described as "shadows" in SO)
Jansy
....................................................................................
This scrap ot a sentence almost certainly applies to FW (SO, 30): "We
think not in words but in shadows of words. James Joyce´s mistake in
those otherwise marvelous mental soliloquies of his consists in that he
gives too much verbal body to his thoughts"
....................................................................................
I
suppose this might apply by extension to FW, but surely VN here means primarily,
and quite possibly exclusively, the "stream of consciousness" passages in
"Ulysses". After all, FW is supposed to consist of dream, not "mental
soliloquies".
Anthony Stadlen
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In a message dated 21/05/2005 21:36:09 GMT
Standard Time, chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu writes:
This scrap ot a sentence almost certainly applies to FW (SO,
30): "We think
not in words but in shadows of words. James Joyce´s
mistake in those
otherwise marvelous mental soliloquies of his consists
in tht he gives too
much verbal body to his
thoughts"
I suppose this might apply by extension to
FW, but surely VN here means primarily, and quite possibly exclusively, the
"stream of consciousness" passages in "Ulysses". After all, FW is supposed to
consist of dream, not "mental soliloquies".
Anthony Stadlen