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01402_Field_95.cap.txt
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1996-03-14
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@
Born in Dublin, into
a large family,
Joyce decided
against becoming a
priest and read
languages at
university instead.
After graduating he
spent time in Paris,
in great poverty.
Returning briefly
to Dublin in 1904,
he lived for a while
in the sea-defence
tower which
appears in the
opening section
of his greatest
novel Ulysses. His
first two books
were of poetry
#
Dubliners was a
series of sketches
of inhabitants of
the city. It showed
the beginnings of
Joyce's "stream of
consciousness
technique" which
pursued the story
as events flowed
through the minds
of the characters
rather than from
the viewpoint of
an all-seeing
author
#
Some critics
spotted Joyce's
genius early on,
and also the
qualities that
would be asso-
ciated with him:
improprieties of
sexual description,
kicking the moral
customs of the
time, fiery
language, and
intense feeling
#
Joyce called Dublin
"the center of
paralysis", so far
as his creativity
was concerned,
but made it the
setting of Ulysses,
the action of which
takes place on one
day and involves
the wanderings of
Leopold Bloom
about the city. It
established stream
of consciousness
as a major mod-
ernist technique
#
Ulysses prompted
many reactions
from critics, its
sheer size and
all-inclusiveness,
its obscurity,
fondness for
word-play and
(for the time)
obscenity making
many feel it was
too difficult to
read. Fragmentary
and monumental at
once, it is the
quintessential
modernist novel
#
Joyce suffered the
attention of the
British censors,
who on grounds of
obscenity inter-
cepted and des-
troyed chapters
of Ulysses as they
were sent to
England from
France. Publication
in the US was
stopped by a
prosecution
initiated by the
Society for the
Suppression of Vice
#
Joyce's last novel
Finnegans Wake
also provoked
controversy. It is
ostensibly the
record of a single
night "in the mind"
of the publican H.C.
Earwicker. But
many readers are
unable to find in
the book more than
a jumble of words,
fused together in
a hyper-allusive
fashion
@