JAMES JOYCE
Abandoning
his homeland for permanent exile on the Continent, James Joyce became, with the
publication of Ulysses, the most controversial and, later, famous novelist of
his time. More an antinovel than a
novel, Ulysses could only have been the work of a mind well-versed in
classic and, in particular, Homeric literature, from which it derives its Greek
title, but of a mind able to draw contemporary parodic
parallels with The Odyssey ... in the 'adventures', during
one day in Dublin, of a certain Leopold Bloom, an Irish Jew, or archetype
wanderer, with whom Joyce was evidently inclined to identify or, at the very
least, empathize.
Certainly Joyce had no great love of the
Irish, from whose Catholic fold he had 'fallen' into socialist exile, and it is
equally evident, from their initial attitude towards his work, particularly Ulysses,
that most of the Irish had no great love of him either, since he was hardly
typical of the race - what genius ever really is? - but
a self-professed rebel against traditional values whose ideological sympathies
lay with socialist republicanism. Of
course, latterly things have changed somewhat, at any rate to the extent that
republicanism, in particular under the banner of Fianna
Fàil, has acquired a certain respectability, if not
long-term credibility, in many Irishmen's eyes, and Joyce is now regarded by a
significant section of the Irish people as Ireland's greatest modern writer,
though more by Fianna Fàil
supporters, one suspects, than by those who favour Fine Gael!
Poor
