On James Joyce

Whenever people ask me who my favourite writer is, I blurt, without even letting them complete the question, “Joyce, Joyce, it can’t be anyone else.” And the reactions I normally receive are mixtures of surprise and doubt.

A writer who have not read even one Austen or Bronte novel, says his favourite writer is Joyce. It surely would stir doubt about the honesty of the statement. Even it can reflect pompousness, pretentiousness or boastfulness of an aspiring writer who wants to let people know that he knows things.

I don’t want to defend myself, I don’t need to. And I am not bound to explain myself either, because I really don’t care.

This post is my dedication to the writer for whom I have the purest, the most childish love possible between a writer and a reader.

(Before starting, I confess: I have not read “Ulysses” and “Finnegans Wake” yet.)

 

I never knew I want to be a writer. I am good with mathematics and science has always been my easy choice. Still, when time or mood permitted, I picked a random book and read. My childhood books consisted of the Bengali translation of “Tintin” and Bengali comics like “Nonte-Fonte”, “Batul the Great”. I never needed to seek stories in English language. Feluda and Byomkesh gave me all the Sherlock Holmes I wanted to read and “Chader Pahar” (The Mountain of Moon) gave me all the adventures I aspired to have. When I needed some serious stuff, I had our good old Tagore.

During my college days, I didn’t regularly read books. My selection was so random that I read one book by Bhagat, then next by Robin Cook, then Hosseini or Ken Follett or Coelho. I never wrote much either. One or two scattered Bengali poems max.

James Joyce

So 19 years of my life had passed and I had read only some 20+ books. After graduating in engineering with rather good marks, I had too much free time. I watched all the movies I got from hostel and had all the boozing I could indulge myself in while staying in home.

I could do nothing but read books. I read “The Idiot” by “Dostoevsky” next. Strange, isn’t it? I just randomly picked it from my ebook collection I got from my hostel friends (reading or not you got to have collections to show off). It was long but I liked it. It was good time-pass for me. I read “1984”, “A Passage to India” after that, which I got from our town library. I attempted to read “Beloved” and “Midnight’s Children” back then but couldn’t understand it.

One day, I happened to come across a book titled, “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” By then, I started to doubt whether I’d remain an engineer and go for research in control and automation.

The title and the content of the book had a kind of ironical justification to my mental condition back then.

There were few thoughts, emotions I used to have when I was child and I thought only I thought that, and they were my secrets, my very own little but extremely personal ones. No one knew it. But here was this book where I was seeing Stephen doing things, thinking things that shook me at the most vulnerable corners of my mind. For example when I read:

But he was not sick there. He thought that he was sick in his heart if you could be sick in that place. Fleming was very decent to ask him. He wanted to cry. He leaned his elbows on the table and shut and opened the flaps of his ears. Then he heard the noise of the refectory every time he opened the flaps of his ears. It made a roar like a train at night. And when he closed the flaps the roar was shut off like a train going into a tunnel. That night at Dalkey the train had roared like that and then, when it went into the tunnel, the roar stopped. He closed his eyes and the train went on, roaring and then stopping; roaring again, stopping. It was nice to hear it roar and stop and then roar out of the tunnel again and then stop.

I literally used to do that. During the boring lectures in the programs at my missionary school, I used to do that (opening and closing ear-flaps) and entertained myself. I thought I knew a trick that no one knew. It was mine. Mine. But this strange author came and took that away. For the first time, I realized what words could do to a person. I read that part again and again. After that, I came across this paragraph,

He turned to the flyleaf of the geography and read what he had written there: himself, his name and where he was.

Stephen Dedalus

Class of Elements

Clongowes Wood College

Sallins

County Kildare

Ireland

Europe

The World

The Universe

I wrote that in my school copies. (Anirban Nanda, Class 4, Section A, Saradamoni Sisu Niketan, Haldia, West Bengal, India, Asia, World, Universe.) How the hell Joyce knew that?

Though winter is short in my country, I cherished those nights inside quilt as described below.

First came the vacation and then the next term and then vacation again and then again another term and then again the vacation. It was like a train going in and out of tunnels and that was like the noise of the boys eating in the refectory when you opened and closed the flaps of the ears. Term, vacation; tunnel, out; noise, stop. How far away it was! It was better to go to bed to sleep. Only prayers in the chapel and then bed. He shivered and yawned. It would be lovely in bed after the sheets got a bit hot. First they were so cold to get into. He shivered to think how cold they were first. But then they got hot and then he could sleep. It was lovely to be tired. He yawned again. Night prayers and then bed: he shivered and wanted to yawn. It would be lovely in a few minutes. He felt a warm glow creeping up from the cold shivering sheets, warmer and warmer till he felt warm all over, ever so warm and yet he shivered a little and still wanted to yawn.

In short, I felt Joyce wrote this book for me to read. It was meant for me. The struggle of Stephen to find his vocation in later chapters resonated with me. Though the prose was becoming denser with each chapter, I read the book line by line. Read each sentence again and again until I understood it. I read it three times in a row. I almost ruined the library copy.

There are many more deeper secrets that I share with this book and for this reason, whenever I feel down, I read it; whenever I feel a block, I read it.

I read Dubliners after that and with each story —I must emphasize on ‘each’— I learned unexplored sides of human emotions. So, yes, even if Joyce had never written (thank God he did) “Ulysses” or “Finnegans Wake”, I’d worship him all the same.

Joyce is not just another writer for me; he is my tuning point, my Literary Guru.

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Discussion: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Lately, though I have watched the movie, I picked up the book ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’ which, literary critics categorize by a fancy name bildungsroman; meaning books that concentrate on the vulnerability and transformation during teenage years of a person.

I am sitting to write this post entirely out of urge to discuss a book like this which specifically tries to decipher all the perks of becoming an adult from a teenager. So, this is not a review to be clear (and hence it contains spoilers).

So, we have an introvert, sensitive (very) boy who tries to adapt himself for high-school mindset. I didn’t like ‘Catcher In The Rye’ (don’t know why) but I seem to like this one very much. The major reason for that might be huge similarity between Charlie (that’s the boy) and I. Though I am more emotionally attached to Stephen in ‘A Portrait of the Artist As a Young man‘ by Joyce (I’ll come to that later sometime). Charlie really sucks at building relationship with opposite sex and he falls in love pretty soon after meeting Sam. Sam is a very realistic girl, much older and already in a relationship. She understands Charlie’s attraction to her, and she tries to make sense to him like this:

And I felt good that those were the first two words that I ever typed on my new old typewriter that Sam gave me. We just sat there quiet for a moment, and she smiled. And I moved to the typewriter again, and I wrote something.

“I love you, too.”

And Sam looked at the paper, and she looked at me.

“Charlie… have you ever kissed a girl?”

I shook my head no. It was so quiet.

“Not even when you were little?”

I shook my head no again. And she looked very sad.

She told me about the first time she was kissed. She told me that it was with one of her dad’s friends. She was seven. And she told nobody about it except for Mary Elizabeth and then Patrick a year ago. And she started to cry. And she said something that I won’t forget. Ever.

“I know that you know that I like Craig. And I know that I told you not to think of me that way. And I know that we can’t be together like that. But I want to forget all those things for a minute. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I want to make sure that the first person you kiss loves you. Okay?”

“Okay.” She was crying harder now. And I was, too, because when I hear something like that I just can’t help it.

“I just want to make sure of that. Okay?”

“Okay.”

And she kissed me. It was the kind of kiss that I could never tell my friends about out loud. It was the kind of kiss that made me know that I was never so happy in my whole life.

These is a very tender way of handling such situation and I love the way it’s executed.

It’s tender because from the beginning I’m telling Charlie is vulnerable, too vulnerable to grasp a situation like following:

After a few minutes, the boy pushed the girl’s head down, and she started to kiss his (). She was still crying. […] I had to stop watching at that point because I started to feel sick, but it kept going on, and they kept doing other things, and she kept saying “no.” Even when I covered my ears, I could still hear her say that.My sister came in eventually to bring me a bowl of potato chips, and when she found the boy and the girl, they stopped.

My sister was very embarrassed, but not as embarrassed as the girl. The boy looked kind of smug. He didn’t say much. After they left, my sister turned to me.

“Did they know you were in here?”

“Yes. They asked if they could use the room.”

“Why didn’t you stop them?”

“I didn’t know what they were doing.”

“You pervert,” was the last thing my sister said before she left the room, still carrying the bowl of potato chips.

[…]

“He raped her, didn’t he?”

She just nodded. I couldn’t tell if she was sad or just knew more things than me.

“We should tell someone, shouldn’t we?”

And I was disturbed to read this part, and was quite in doubt if the author did justice to a situation like this. But the way author let him grasp those things is admirable.

There are other situations, which I think, is impossible to come up out of imagination.

When I was done reading the poem, everyone was quiet. A very sad quiet. But the amazing thing was that it wasn’t a bad sad at all. It was just something that made everyone look around at each other and know that they were there. Sam and Patrick looked at me. And I looked at them. And I think they knew. Not anything specific really. They just knew. And I think that’s all you can ever ask from a friend.

Such things couldn’t be written unless the author himself went through them, and though I have not done the required research, I strongly believe Stephen Chbosky in some way, in some time, was involved with similar situations in his early life(it is further reassured by the fact that he has not written anything else since).

The foundation of the path of transformation of being prepared for the hard future of Charlie mostly laid by books and a teacher like Bill. Reading classics and cultivating ideas by writing essays on them is an effective way of developing character and moral basis of any teenager/person.

In later part of the novel, Charlie is forced to be involved in an one-sided relationship with Sam’s best friend and he, in an inappropriate moment chooses to kiss Sam instead of his existing girlfriend, and jeopardizes every relation between him and everyone. He finds himself dangling in between an un-achievable love and unwanted love; thus alienating himself from every friend of his, he goes through a nervous breakdown.

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER Ph: John Bramley © 2011 Summit Entertainment, LLC. All rights reserved.

At the end he became friends with everyone again via few fortunate and/or critical moments.

But this teaches us an important lesson: everything heals with time. Also, there are few golden moments like when Patrick is being mocked and insulted by his homosexual partner for saving himself from public shame, Charlie interfere and saves Patrick from a disgraceful scene.

The above scene turns Charlie into Patrick’s closest friend at near end and Patrick tries to kiss him in an intimate situation to which, Charlie doesn’t protest. I like to quote what to be learned here:

“Charlie, you’re missing the point. The point is that I don’t think you would have acted different even if you did like Mary Elizabeth. It’s like you can come to Patrick’s rescue and hurt two guys that are trying to hurt him, but what about when Patrick’s hurting himself? Like when you guys went to that park? Or when he was kissing you? Did you want him to kiss you?”I shook my head no.“So, why did you let him?”

“I was just trying to be a friend,” I said.

“But you weren’t, Charlie. At those times, you weren’t being his friend at all. Because you weren’t honest with him.”

But at the same time, we can’t be just shoulders to cry on when we want something more. If we love someone, we should go and try to get it. It’s important to note that I said ‘try’; not persuade. Sometimes, we can’t get things because we never attempt to have them, out of generosity or assumption.

I said, “Well, I thought a lot of things. But mostly, I thought that your being sad was much more important to me than Craig not being your boyfriend anymore. And if it meant that I would never get to think of you that way, as long as you were happy, it was okay. That’s when I realized that I really loved you.”

She sat down on the floor with me. She spoke quiet.“Charlie, don’t you get it? I can’t feel that. It’s sweet and everything, but it’s like you’re not even there sometimes. It’s great that you can listen and be a shoulder to someone, but what about when someone doesn’t need a shoulder. What if they need the arms or something like that? You can’t just sit there and put everybody’s lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can’t. You have to do things.”

“Like what?” I asked. My mouth was dry.

“I don’t know. Like take their hands when the slow song comes up for a change. Or be the one who asks someone for a date. Or tell people what you need. Or what you want. Like on the dance floor, did you want to kiss me?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Then, why didn’t you?” she asked real serious.

“Because I didn’t think you wanted me to.”

“Why did you think that?”

“Because of what you said.”

“What I said nine months ago? When I told you not to think of me that way?”

Nearing the end, I can only say that, Charlie has already achieved maturity when he thinks:

The party at Craig’s was great. Craig and Peter bought champagne to congratulate all the people who were graduating. And we danced. And we talked. And I saw Mary Elizabeth kissing Peter and looking happy. And I saw Sam kissing Craig and looking happy. And I saw Patrick and Alice not even care that they weren’t kissing anybody because they were too excited talking about their futures.

By the way, it has left me dubious about existence of persons like Sam and Patrick.

Now, about the ‘A Portrait’ by Joyce:

You’ll get another article like this soon enough.

Thanks for reading. ❤

Why your story doesn’t have to have a thrilling plot? (Or how a predictive plot can win one’s heart?)

What do you think first while formulating a story? Let me guess:

1. You first think about a theme.

2. Then you think about your characters.

3. Next you think about an awesome ending, or a thrilling twist.

4. You now think about title of your story.

and so on…so forth.

In most of the stories that I have read in recent anthologies; there is a struggle for an interesting twist or plot, or, some stories have twists or ending that have been forcefully inserted. Now this doesn’t have to be the case for every story. If you have a fair story which doesn’t lead to a twisting end naturally; don’t worry, your plot is still good.

Let me tell you a truth: Many authors try to hide their incompleteness of writing ability by introducing interesting twists and turns. And they think readers will ignore the writing style and concentrate on the twist.

In many cases, this is true. Readers do love twists. But when your story includes them forcefully it feels very sick. Any good perfume has three levels of smell:

1. Extrinsic perception: It is the perception of smell the moment you apply the perfume.

2. Middle taste: After the strong smell is gone there will be a semi-light scent exciting your nostril.

3. Intrinsic perception: It is core or innermost layer of scent that lingers hours after applying the scent.

Why am I talking about scent?

Because stories have similarity with a good perfume.

Your major twists are the extrinsic perception. Things that readers immediately notice.

Your theme and characters are middle taste.

And your narrating style or use of language is the intrinsic perception.

A story having bad narration and good twists will be hard-hitting but wouldn’t last long. But a story having beautiful narration lingers in reader’s mind even long after reading the story. The story will last long. People will read your story again and again.

To kill a mockingbird is a classic example of having all the above components. That’s why it will be immortal. Ulysses by James Joyce doesn’t have any plot. But it will be remembered as the bible of modern literature solely due to its ground breaking narration. Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf is also a classic example of beautiful narration. Also I have seen that to many  writers, a well narrated story means it will have to have unpronounceable words which will only contribute in distracting an average reader.

To conclude, your predictive plot will become a heart winner only if you have that power of language. And all the musings above are my own. My view may differ from yours. But whatever your view is, you must keep writing and do experiments with your style.

Happy writing!

©Anirban Nanda

My Experience with reading Ulysses:: Part 1

Few facts about Ulysses before reading this post:

1. Ulysses is the single most significant novel written in 20th century literature.

2. Ulysses is the name of a character in HOMER’s ODYSSEY; i.e. it is a modern remake of the old epic.

3. Ulysses has defined the modern day story telling.

To know more historical facts and some awesome facts about this book, read:

http://www.shmoop.com/ulysses-joyce/

 

My Experience with reading Ulysses:: Part 1

DATE: 3/05/2015:

Presently I have completed the first 3 chapters of total 18. The first 2 of them were okay with the introductory help from The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses and I was excited to go into the next chapter. And here I was struck! This Proteus chapter is fucking obscure! But though I could make out the 1st few paragraphs from lectures of “Wings of Art – Joseph Campbell on James Joyce”; going few more pages and then I was like drowning in sea, river, fountain of fucking conscience. So I just read along mechanically with sometimes peeking into the bloomsday book and I experienced very rich and raw emotions coming out for a few times. This chapter was intentionally made obscure so professors can ponder over it for years. Joyce himself told this. He said:

***Will update the review after reading the next chapters.

Update on 4/5/15:::

CHAPTER 4: CALYPSO>

After those tough paragraphs from Proteus; Calypso is like bathing in cool water! Those earthly worlds of Bloom; those free flowing thoughts; I love them. It is so rich and pitch perfect that I read it again and again. Great going! Next chapter. Fast!

CHAPTER 5: LOTUS- EATERS>

More beautiful than previous chapter. Just take look at this paragraph:

He turned from the morning noises of the quayside and walked through Lime street. By Brady’s cottages a boy for the skins lolled, his bucket of offal linked,smoking a chewed fagbutt. A smaller girl with scars of eczema on her forehead eyed him, listlessly holding her battered caskhoop. Tell him if he smokes he won’t grow. O let him! His life isn’t such a bed of roses. Waiting outside pubs to bring da home. Come home to ma, da. Slack hour: won’t be to many there. He crossed Townsend street, passed the frowning face of Bethel. El, yes: house of: Aleph, Beth. And past Nichols’ the undertaker. At eleven it is. Time enough. Daresay Corny Kelleher bagged the job for O’Neill’s. Singing with his eyes shut. Corny. Met her once in the park. In the dark. What a lark. Police tout. Her name and address she then told with my tooraloom tooraloom tay. O, surely he bagged it. Bury him cheap in a whatyoumaycall. With my tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom.

OR what about this:

Sleeping sickness in the air. Walk on rose-leaves. Imagine trying to eat tripe and cowheel. Where was the chap I saw in that picture somewhere? Ah, in the dead sea, floating on his back, reading a book with a parasol open. Couldn’t sink if you tried: so thick with salt. Because the weight of the water, no, the weight of the body in the water is equal to the weight of the. Or is it the volume is equal of the weight? It’s a law something like that. Vance in High school cracking his fingerjoints, teaching. The college curriculum. Cracking curriculum. What is weight really when you say the weight? Thirtytwo feet per second, per second. Law of falling bodies: per second, per second. They all fall to the ground. The earth. It’s the force of gravity of the earth is the weight.

ANOTHER ONE (WARNING!Obscenity ahead!):

He saw his trunk and limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemonyellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower.

Beautiful. Isn’t it?

***Wait for the next chapters.

Update on 5/5/15::

Chapter 6: Hades>>

Okay, in this chapter Mr. Bloom went to his friend’s funeral and thought about all kind of gloomy thoughts. Here also, Joyce’s magic works. Beautiful language. See the following few lines:

The carriage, passing the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadway before the tenement houses, lurched round the corner and, swerving back to the tramtrack, rolled on noisily with chattering wheels.Mr Dedalus fell Sack.

OR

Inked characters fastfading on the frayed breaking paper. *** Mr Bloom entered and sat in the vacant place. He pulled the door toafter him and slammed it twice till it shut tight. He passed an arm through the armstrap and looked seriously from the open carriagewindow at the lowered blinds of the avenue. One dragged aside: an old woman peeping.Nose whiteflattened against the pane.

OR

The caretaker put the papers in his pocket. The barrow had ceased to trundle.Bury the dead. Say Robinson Crusoe was true to life. Well then Friday buried him. Every Friday buries a Thursday if you come to look at it.

O, poor Robinson Crusoe ! How could you possibly do so?

Part 2 of this post will be updated soon.