« “Snow makes crime scene investigation much easier....” | Main | North to Alaska! »
February 14, 2017
Everybody Must Be Stoned
I read as much of “Ulysses” as I thought I was obligated to do, then recognized that I was no longer willing to give Joyce the satisfaction of my attention.
There’s the sense, at least, that Joyce put his back into it a little bit. The painter just sought the easy path – the Pollock and the Rothko – and found it cleared of obstacles by a public who was tired of things being important. The public could form no bond with the important, and so they asked for, and received, something that looked as messy and meaningless as they felt. “We are not permanent. Please do not speak to us of permanent things.” But they’re up against it from the start. If you’re a modernist, or a post-modernist, or doing anything which rests its meaning in negation, then it’s only useful once. By 1920 it was pretty much spent, and after that it was all just one kind of pooping in cans or another. Beauty is permanent. Reaction decays. - – New West Havens
Posted by gerardvanderleun at February 14, 2017 10:35 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
It wasn't all quite spent by 1920...we still had performance art to look forward to...and the public having to subsidize it all.
Posted by: indyjonesouthere at February 14, 2017 11:19 AM
Never encountered an Irishman I could listen to or read. It always comes out scrambled.
Posted by: BillH at February 14, 2017 1:33 PM
I always thought it odd that Hemingway who wrote so clearly and continually produce the perfect sentence could spend so much time at Shakespear & Co. reading a borrowed copy of Ulysses and going on and on about it.
Posted by: Chuck at February 15, 2017 5:09 AM
When I was a young man I read Portrait of the Artist.
I have undergrad minors in English with an emphasis on expository prose and technical writing and I've never been so damned bored with anything in my life.
Posted by: Jack at February 15, 2017 9:02 AM
I heard somewhere that you should never allow yourself to be lectured by an Irishman. I have thought of that over the years. I bet its right.
Posted by: pbird at February 15, 2017 9:29 AM