Volume 46, Number 20 · December 16, 1999
The Motherless Child
By John Banville
James Joyce
by Edna O'Brien
Lipper/Viking, 179 pp., $19.95
James Joyce was a tireless promoter of his own work and reputation. The silence that was one of the three principles of his stated artistic game plan—the other two were exile and cunning—was not so much Olympian impassivity as the twitching stony-facedness of the ventriloquist. He granted no interviews, did no literary hackwork, and ignored the achievements of his peers—though he did give an encomium to Anita Loos's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes—but never relaxed in the covert business of making his various supporters advertise, praise, and explain to a baffled public his increasingly difficult writings.
Review, 2550 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |