this book is too steeped in contemporary irish realities to be considered a timeless classic. this thought occured to me when the author once again for the n-th time brought up Parnell's failed rebellion or whatever
>>25576187The timely nature of a place makes it timeless. It paints a city that is distinctive yet reminiscent of cities you and I live in.
>this book is too steeped in the minutiae of whaling to be considered a timeless classic
>>25576187>this book is too steeped in contemporary french realities to be considered a timeless classic.>this thought occured to me when the author once again for the n-th time brought up the dreyfus affair or whatever
>this book is too steeped in contemporary italian politics to be considered a timeless classic
>this book is too steeped in contemporary russian political and theological thought to be considered a timeless classic
>>25576223found the antidreyfusard.
It pissed me off how many religious references there were but I get that he was just writing about what he knew. Also to capture the reality of living in Dublin at the time you need those popular references
>>25576237yeah man, he was like just writing from his heart about what he experienced dude
ireland is a really odd place. almost every problem that exists there only exists because of the british and to this day those british people will deny that they ever caused any problems but will turn around and prostrate themselves towards browns and blacks
>>25576248whoa cody dude thats freakin deep broski
i see what that anon meant when he made that thread lamenting the state of this board
>>25576208It was only written less than 200 years ago
>>25576224This but unironically. Dante basedjaking over someone declaring war on Florence was unbearable
>>25576248If that was the case then why isn't Ireland a utopia now? They've had 100 years to fix the country and it has become far worse.
Is portrait of an artist only considered a classic because it is the precursor to Ulysses?I read it over the summer and I was sorely disappointed. It makes me want to not read Ulysses.
>>25576731Nabokov didn't like Portrait either. I've read everything Joyce wrote except for Finnegans Wake. I'm going to tackle the wake soon, but I think, of what I've read, that Dubliners and Ulysses are his masterpieces. The former is a sublime short story collection with great characters, the latter's reputation is legendary for a reason.
>>25576722the issue isn't that they were held back from becoming some magical utopia, the issue is that their society was kept in a state of arrested development for centuries and because of that they are unable to even begin to develop any sort of utopian ideal. it's going to take at least several centuries from here on out for them to cultivate the necessary prerequisites but with the way the world is going, i very much doubt that'll ever happen
>>25576750They're a Subject people, not a Kingly people. Or I guess that's how I'd put it. They're meant to be ruled, not rule. The minute they were out from under Britain's thumb they enslaved themselves to Liberalism. Why do they keep bringing in more Muslims despite the hatred the population has for them? Their nature is to serve a dominant power.It's no coincidence that every Irishman with an ounce of independence fled the island and never went back. Joyce did. So did Yeats. So did Wilde. Hell, so did everyone from Ireland that left for America.
>>25576187isn’t that the the entire joke? that the epic was relocated into one very specific place on one specific day? in any case it’s kind of a stupid american-coded reading of a work, that gets ‘timelessness’ backwards. no writer until 19th century americans tried to make their scope universal. it’s easy for american lit to detach itself from the culture that produced it because … they dont have one. no distinct literary tradition. obviously every timeless work we have sits firmly inside a tradition & culture.
It's real dumb to think a timeless classic gets to be a timeless classic by avoiding specificity. A bridge spans a gap but the bridge is made outb of bridge, not out of gap. The "contemporary Irish realities" do a lot of the work of making the book universal, if you didn't have them you have no way in.
>>25576756>They're a Subject people, not a Kingly people.i would agree but the british were once a kingly people but are now a subject people. times change>Why do they keep bringing in more Muslims despite the hatred the population has for them?the prevailing theory i've heard is that the people who made that happen were actually irish expats who, once those beliefs were ingrained into them from living overseas, brought it back to ireland in the 90s/2000s but i can't confirm if that's true or not
>>25576784What's funny is that "Merry Old England" is just Catholic England. When was England merry and gay and full of fun and celebrations? It was before the Reformation, when the saints' feast days were celebrated with fun and frolicking and frivolity. Everyone who pines for "Merry Olde England" regrets the Reformation. That's all it is.
>>25576806shakespeare was greatly preoccupied with the loss of innocence. there has always been an older england, which was sweeter, purer, where the weather was always springtime and the daffodils blew in the warm breezes. you feel a nostalgia for it in chaucer, and you feel it all through shakespeare. it is, of course, an age that never existed, but exists in the heart of all english poetry.
>>25576812Going even further back than the Catholics:It's Fairies. It's the Fair Folk, the Good Neighbors. The British Isles used to be absolutely haunted by them. I'm convinced that the British Isles were magical as fuck long ago, in the earliest Arthurian tales Arthur and his men are fighting giants and dragons. I don't doubt that giants and dragons were real at one point, especially in Britain and Ireland.And you do wonder at that regret, a little bit, don't you? Because you pine for the ancient England, the wild, free, magical England, but it was dangerous, wasn't it? If it was ever real. To be at the mercy of the Fairies, and the Giants, and the Dragons. To be in a magical fantasy world isn't actually fun or safe, not most of the time.So it comes down through the ages as "Merry Old England." But at the time maybe it wasn't so merry. It was just otherworldly, in a way that wasn't always fun.
>>25576819auden said something like ‘fairy tales don’t teach children that dragons are real. they know dragons are real and fairy tales teach them they can be slain.’
>>25576248The internet provides countless proofs, such as your comment, that the Irish are a people of color.Further evidence is that the radlib women at my book club will never vote to read any male European author unless he is Irish.
>>25576832do they read poles & italians? think the yanks used to not consider those whites either.
No, you aren't German.No, you aren't Irish.No, you aren't Scottish.No, you aren't Italian.You're an American and that will never change.
>>25576839Silly Anon, Catholic Americans will never really be Americans. In this Anglo-Protestant-Jewish country, Catholics will never be at home, and will always be strangers. And this informs everything we do and say and think.
>>25576248>Catholicism is the fault of the British
>>25576731muy filtrado
>>25576839nothing more stomach-turning than americans talking about being irish/scottish/etc. if your line has been in america for longer than 2 generations you’re not irish, you’re american. america is an assimilation machine. no one hates it more than the nation they claim to be a member of as well.
>>25576248The Irish are the snowflakes of history.
>>25576864it’s an immigrant country. either everyone or no one is at home. the culture isn’t anglo-protestant-jew; it’s anglo-protestant-jew-catholic-black-german-french-asian-esperanto-international. i think that’s why so many americans cling to their background; adrift, nervously self-assertive, an individualist in a crowd of individualists.
>>25576248>the absolutely retarded Easter Rising happened because of the British>the IRA is because of the British>the 3000-year-old conflict between the north and the rest of the island was somehow caused by a race of men that didn't even exist until circa 1100Almost every problem that exists in Ireland only exists because of the Irish. Otherwise why don't any of those problems exist in Scotland or Wales? They're content to just seethe more or less peaceably instead of starting to shoot wildly around them in doomed rebellions like a bunch of Arab retards; why?
>>25576721Shut up, you WILL enjoy relitigating every single political incident and personage during the lifetime of Dante Alighieri
>>25576731No, foids like Portrait unironically because something something Dedalus sensitive, also they like it seething about Catholicism (DID YOU KNOW THEY FORBID CONTRACEPTION?????).
>>25576248It's always somebody else's fault. The psychology of the Irish is fundamentally immature. Joyce knew this. It's why he left.
>>25576248lol and now look at the english faggots
>>25576187Your general knowledge doesn't match the text? You don't want to expand your general knowledge?
>>25576731I think so. It's a fine enough book, but clearly from an immature author. The jump in quality from Portrait to Ulysses is immense.Read Pierre; or, the Ambiguities if you want a Künstlerroman from a master in his prime.
>>25577016Britain is back baby. We’ve got sovereignty, surface-air-missiles, and power pop. Johnny Foreigner thinks we’re cool again. Starmer under house arrest within a week.
>>25577054Yup, right. You get what you deserve. Are you the britbong anon who works at the kids wedding dress shop?
>>25577054We've also got 6% gilt yields.In reality, everything we've "got" belongs to our creditors.
