Saturday, August 2, 2008
James Joyce and Proust Again
I was hurrying to finish reading Charles Rosen's book Piano Notes because I had to return it to its owner. Rosen was writing about contemporary music, and then he had this to say: "Not many lovers of literature have been able to get all the way through Joyce's Ulysses, and I have met only two people who have read every word of Finnegan's Wake...Few people would deny that parts of A La Recherche du Temps Perdu are extremely tiresome, even those lovers of Proust who judge the work a masterpiece...Disgust, bewilderment, and even the most exasperated irritation are not insurmountable barriers to aesthetic appreciation; they may in fact be a stimulus."
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I found a beautiful vintage 60s cloth-bound copy of Ulysses once-- the typography was bold and modern. Then I tried to read it, and I really tried. I stopped at some point, someone was wiping with newspapers and I just couldn't keep going. Somehow I got through/eventually relished another 800 pg stream-of-consciousness novel by Albert Cohen. You are right, a certain level of irritation can help get one through a difficult book. Tho' I still haven't gotten past the intro to Dave Egger's Work of Staggering Genius.
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