This post considers Stephen Dedalus’s notion of “esthetic arrest” from the end of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joseph Campbell’s connection of this idea to the Hindu concept of “maya,” and the development of Joyce’s style in Finnegans Wake.
Continue readingI’ve recently returned to my re-reading of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and I’m finding the final chapter more interesting than ever before — and funnier! I’ve laughed out loud several times reading it, including one scene that I’ll discuss here in this post, a scene in which a strange character repeats himself. I compare it below to a recurring gag on my favorite television show, The Sopranos, and I reflect on the significance of Joyce repeating a moment from his own life, enshrining it in art in a way reminiscent of what William Wordsworth called a “Spot of Time.”
Close readings of Joyce, reflections on life, and fragments of pop culture — all this and more on today’s post!
Continue readingThe beginning of Chapter I.7 — all about Shem the Penman — tells the brief story of Shem asking the “first riddle of the universe” to all of his brothers and sisters. The riddle is the title of this post, and it’s written in straightforward English there. The “brothron and sweestureens” take turns guessing, but none can get it right, so Shem has to tell them the answer: “When he is a […] Sham.”
This post looks at the riddle as it recurs throughout Finnegans Wake, considering what it implies about masculinity and art.
Continue readingMy dad died last week.
I’ve been thinking of life and death in terms of Finnegans Wake and its exploration of fatherhood. Read on for a few brief thoughts on this subject, intermixed with a memorial for my own father.
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The Suspended Sentence 