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Ah, a little room to breathe—for a week. My poetry class doesn’t meet this week so that gives me some rumination time, but I think I’ll enjoy this class. My professor expressed surprise that my poem “Witness at Xecul” was my first attempt ever, saying it was really quite good for someone who had never written poetry before. That was a nice confidence boost.

We’re talking about A Portrait of the Artist for two weeks in my Joyce class even though we had to read most of it for this week’s discussion, so that means some time to prepare for upcoming things in this class. I need to present a 10-minute presentation on the “Nestor” section of Ulysses, including dredging up additional criticism, which could be a bit of work. And I have a paper due in about month. I’ve already selected a title and theme: “Naming and Agency in Dubliners.” Are you asleep yet?

Despite Joyce not being my cuppa, I am learning quite a bit in this class. First off, I’ve learned that Joyce annoys me far less than the serious Joyce scholars. Joyce scholars are nerds who can’t get dates. If Joyce was still alive, they’d be his paparazzi and rooting through his garbage. They’ve analyzed and overanalzyed every word the man has ever written and wrung from each word every possible connotation, then assemble readings based on every possible of every possible connotation of every word ever written. They write far-fetched and myopic criticism—like the essay on Portrait that we read that seemed to rely heavily on a given (and not at all definitive) reading of Ulysses. It reminds me of Shakespeare scholarship; this stuff has been squeezed so dry that in order to write anything new, the argument must border on the silly or be so esoteric as to only make sense to other nuts who are just as overzealous as the author. It’s precisely the kind of thing that squashes the joy of reading literature out of students.

Secondly, I’m finding that I get more out of Joyce by discussing his work. It’s like poetry that way; I get way more out of poetry by talking about it with other people. Once I hear how others have read certain passages in Joyce, I buy in to the fact that it’s layered, multifaceted stuff. However, I still wouldn’t wish reading Joyce on anyone.

I also finished Iron Council by China Miéville and wasn’t completely sold on it. I read a piece by Carl Freedman that explains some of the Marxist content a little more clearly, but I got most of it as I read. The train is the central metaphor in the book, and there are two types of revolution happening simultaneously, one within the city and one without. I agree with Freedman that Miéville doesn’t cop out and offer easy or “right” answers for what a revolution would (or ought) to look like; but my problem is that the book just didn’t cohere like Perdido Street Station and The Scar and I felt myself struggling to stay interested. The weird is laid on just as thickly, but it felt less integral to the plot here. And the basic plot felt a lot like a D&D module as a core group of characters pick up allies as they move from (brief) encounter to encounter. So the premise is terrific but sadly I wasn’t convinced by the execution.

I’m reading The Difference Engine this week. Looking forward to it.

Current Mood: Sure |
Currently Listening To – The White Stripes – “Icky Thump”