Who should I read if I love James Joyce?I've never bothered with Ulysses or Finnegans Wake but Joyce is probably my favourite author
>>23318554All those 19th century French novelists.
>>23318554>love Joyce>haven't read Ulyssesokay, the Wake I get, but not Ulysses? What the fuck is wrong with you? That's like saying you love The Velvet Underground but refuse to listen to their first album
>>23318554>Joyce is probably my favourite author>never bothered with Ulysses or Finnegans Wakecan you please use better bait fisherman-san
>>23318554Chairman Mao's quotations
>>23318554he's your favorite writer because of Dubliners (which is great, but not one of the greatest books of all time) and Portrait (which is absolutely dull and uninteresting)?
>>23318575Which novelists?>>23318589I am just too intimidated>>23318626Yes
>>23318626>portrait dull and boring Psued detected
My advice would be to bother with Ulysses.
>>23318626Filtered.
>>23318554Ulysses and Finnegans wake
>>23318554Infinite Jest
>>23318554lolitasongs of a dead dreamer and grimscribehouse of seven gables
>>23318589Yeah I mean you can love Joyce, but have him be your favorite author? Once you read a lot of Ulysses and FW the prior books almost become irrelevant
>>23318671Flaubert probably but its pointless if you don't know French>>23318554Joyce read every word of Defoe, he liked Tolstoy (though you will imagine Tolstoy wouldn't like him), Shelley, Shakespeare, he was a huge advocate of Ibsen, he liked Jens Peter Jacobsen (never read him so couldn't vouch), Byron (actually gets beat up or something over it in Portrait)Ezra Pound and Yeats are the obvious choices to read because they are his peers and maybe the only ones at his level >>23318950Perhaps but couldn't be a more different aesthetic
>>23318554The unfortunate Finnegans Wake is nothing but a formless and dull mass of phony folklore, a cold pudding of a book, a persistent snore in the next room, most aggravating to the insomniac I am. Moreover, I always detested regional literature full of quaint old-timers and imitated pronunciation. Finnegans Wake’s facade disguises a very conventional and drab tenement house, and only the infrequent snatches of heavenly intonations redeem it from utter insipidity. I know I am going to be excommunicated for this pronouncement.
>>2331857519th century French novelists don't write schizophrenic word salads like Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.
>>23318554Moore's Voice of the Fire and Jerusalem.
>>23318554Try Frank O'Hara.
>>23318554Read the rest of Joyce's work
>>23318554Anatole France, don't repeat this secret to anyone
>>23319300>pointlessYeah, thanks for reminding us that Flaubert's >imagery >characterization >dramatic structure >thematic exposition >prose style qua specific arrangement of word-concepts, rather than arrangement of sounds >humor >pathos etc., are all utterly mediocre.
>>23321411pointless is an overstatement but what makes the book special is completely untranslatable, and Joyce would never have rated Flaubert so highly if he didn't know French
>>23321411Indeed, Flaubert could never hope to reach the genius of Joyce's special needs words such as: >Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunnt-rovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnukOr his playful neologisms about loudly lip-smacking that still marvel the average Redditoyce today:>Florry whispers to her. Whispering lovewords murmur liplapping loudly, poppysmic plopslop.
>>23318554How the actual fuck can you say that he's your favorite writer without having read Ulysses beforehand? Joyce is a god amongst men, and that's an understatement.
>>23318554James Stephens
>>23318554>I've never bothered with Ulysses or Finnegans Wake I take it you’ve read his earlier works then.
>>23322829>what makes the book special is completely untranslatableI don't think sonic effects are the only thing that makes Flaubert special, even Joyce would not agree with you on that.
>>23324030The distinctness of a language can't be reduced to "sonic effects" lol.
>>23318554read some fucking steamy hot brapp
>>23319300>IbsenThis has been a big question mark for me ever since I got into Joyce. I've read Dubliners, Portrait, and Ulysses, and I know about almost all of the guys you mentioned, and have read them. But Ibsen seems to be the big guy that influenced Joyce a lot, yet has fallen out of favor among modern readers. I'm curious about him.
>>23324189French and English are extremely similar grammatically though. >>23324196Ibsen, much like Flaubert and Dostoevsky, was one of the standard-bearers of the psychological approach to literature. This was what ushered in stream-of-consciousness Modernism, along with Hemingway's inversion of it.
>>23324203>French and English are extremely similar grammatically though.The languages work very differently. French language is "deep", far less words but they are very precise and go straight into the Middle Ages. English is more sprawling. French works translate into English worse than German or Russian. But this is my understanding>>23324196I wasn't aware he had fallen out of favor. He's one of the greatest dramatists. But he's never been the kind of artist to inspire tremendous enthusiasm like Shakespeare or Beethoven
>>23318554Winesburg, Ohio
>>23324268Doesn't that directly work *against* the idea of Flaubert as the "mot juste" author? His options were more limited and thus his choices less significant? Anyway my point is just that Flaubert's precision (and brutal honesty, which I think is what Joyce probably cared most about) of observation of people, settings, situations, etc. is a huge part of what makes him special, not just the precision of the language itself.
