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TIME: Almanac of the 20th Century
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<text>
<title>
(1930s) Ulysses
</title>
<history>
TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1930s Highlights
Books
</history>
<article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
Ulysses
</hdr>
<body>
<p>(January 29, 1934)
</p>
<p> Ever since 1922, when the first edition of Ulysses was
published Paris, hundreds of U.S. citizens have smuggled copies
through the customs or bought them from bookleggers. But his
week, on the strength of Federal Judge John Munro Woosley's
decision that Ulysses is not obscene, Random House was able to
publish the first edition of the book ever legally printed in
any English-speaking country.
</p>
<p> For every first-hand reader of Ulysses there have been scores
of second-hand gossipers. Censorship rather than sound criticism
has spread its reputation throughout the Western world. What the
man in the street has heard of Ulysses has made him prick up his
ears.
</p>
<p> Trusting readers who plunge in hopefully to a smooth beginning
soon find themselves floundering to troubled waters. Arrogant
Author James Joyce gives them no help, lets them sink or swim.
</p>
<p> Every schoolboy knows the story of the Odyssey, epic-sequel
to the Iliad, which recites the ten-year wanderings of the wily
Odysseus (Latin--Ulysses) in his long-thwarted attempts to get
home to his island kingdom after the siege of Troy. The Ulysses
of the Odyssey is
a cunning, common-sensible, nervy, not-too-scrupulous man, an
opportunist who triumphs at last not so much by virtue as
endurance.
</p>
<p> Joyce first conceived the tale of Leopold Bloom as a short
story, only to discover too many possibilities in it. In his
strolls down the beaches of literature he stumbled on the
Odyssey, an archaic old bottle but still stout, decided it was
just the thing for his 20th Century wine. Thus Ulysses became
Bloom, the wanderer in search of home, wife and son. Penelope
was his wife Molly; Telemachus, Stephen.
</p>
<p> Ulysses is an epic constructed on the principles of solid
geometry, a synthetic dissection. Showing a thick segment (in
time: 20 hours) of one day's life in Dublin, it cuts through
many a solid slice of human tissue. It slices through "literary"
brain cells:
</p>
<p> "Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no
more, thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am
here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that
rusty boot. Snotgreen, blue-silver, rust: coloured signs...Airs
romped around him, nipping and eager airs. They are coming
waves. The white-maned seahorses, champing, brightwind-bridled,
the steeds of Mananaan...Broken hoops on the shore; at the land
a maze of dark cunning nets; farther away chalkscrawled
backdoors and on the higher beach a dryingline with two
crucified shirts. Ringsend: wigwams of brown steersman and
master mariners. Human shells...He turned his face over a
shoulder, rere regardant. Moving through the air high spars of
a threemaster, her sails brailed up on the crosstrees, homing,
upstream, silently moving, a silent ship."
</p>
<p> The Author is variously regarded by those who have never read
his books as either a dirty-minded old man or a young crackpot.
He is neither. Though critics may bark up different trees in
assaying his work, most of them agree that Joyce, as an
experimentalist with language, is farther out on a limb than any
other writer of English.
</p>
<p> If readers think Ulysses is difficult, they will throw up
their hands in horror over Work in Progress, whose entire
"action" takes place in the dreaming mind of a sleeper, whose
language is accurately described by one admirer as "intensive,
comprehensive, reverberative infixation; the sly, meaty, oneiric
logorrhoea, polymathic, polyperverse." Even friendly critics
admit that no plain reader will ever tackle such a book as Work
in Progress.
</p>
<p> After the War Joyce moved to Paris, where he still lives, a
shy, proud private citizen with a worldwide reputation. His few
intimate friends include Padraic Colum, James Stephens, Lord and
Lady Astor, John McCormack, Sylvia Beach. He rarely misses a
chance to hear opera. Himself no mean tenor, he often sings at
his mildly convivial parties, at which he urges red wine on his
guests, drinks only white himself. Like his predecessor "Homer"
who was reputed to be blind. Joyce has long had trouble with his
eyes, with periods of virtual blindness. After more than ten
operations he can see just well enough to read newspaper
headlines, to scrawl his own writing hugely on vast strips of
paper. Behind his thick glasses he often wears a black patch
over his left eye.
</p>
<p> Enthusiasts have hailed James Joyce as an invigorator and
inventor of language. But perhaps he will be longest remembered
as the man who made "unprintable" archaic.</p>
</body>
</article>
</text>