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Fwd: Joyce, coarseness of
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Sandy,
I don't know if I've ever seen the Joyce/Nora letters of 1909 described as
"erotic," though it wouldn't surprise me that some not-very-deep thinker
would so describe them. I learned about them in 1991, from Jane Flood, the
Joyce scholar with whom I studied Finnegans Wake. The reason I was not
turned off by them may simply be my own incorrigibly coarse nature. I did
not find the letters "distancing" though, nor exploitative. Jim may have had
infantile needs, but he seems to have had adult needs as well, as seemingly,
did Nora. In any case, they stayed together through life's two major
calamities: failure and success. And that has seemed more to me than a
handful of lunatic letters written in the course of less than one month out
of over thirty years.
Andrew
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 7:27 PM
Subject: Fwd: Joyce
>
>
> Some readers are turned off by Joyce's "erotic" letters to Nora - and
> in parallel by Bloom's musings; and this response is probably evidence
> of careful, empathic reading. The apparently "intimate" letters are
> surprisingly distancing, concerned with Nora's physiological functions
> and Jim's infantile needs. Apparently, only the genius was to have
> feelings of interest. Great book; difficult author.
>
> -Sandy Drescher
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
----- End forwarded message -----