
Who the Hell Is This Joyce (1928) - s_dev
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/09/21/who-the-hell-is-this-joyce/
======
svat
Really impressed with H. G. Wells here; he manages to:

\- imagine (correctly or incorrectly) a system of values/upbringing that might
result in _Finnegan 's Wake_ being seen as good or worthwhile [not his words,
but for example: valuing “artistic” / “creative expression” over pleasure or
illumination for the reader],

\- articulate his own values and why as a result he considers it not worth his
time,

\- yet remain humble [you may not think so but this is how it appears to me]
that this is just his own point of view and for others with different values,
this “extraordinary experiment” may be worthwhile after all — or not.

This ability to imagine another point of view, another system of preferences
even, and come with a plausible explanation of it.

~~~
themodelplumber
I agree in part but also disagree: It has a certain accommodation to it--you
are probably fine where you are. I'm fine over here.

But why is this necessary, unless you basically hate a person and don't think
you could ever reconcile? It's a psychology of tribalism.

Unfortunately the letter also has a certain "shoot first, ask questions later"
aspect to it. Like, why wouldn't Wells diplomatically _ask_ Joyce about the
perspectives that informed his writing to the public in such a way?

The "articulate his own values and why as a result he considers it not worth
his time" aspect is also a bit of a cringe along the same lines. You can see
it all the time today, in comments on things that are shared on various, ahem,
online communities. Especially in response to new projects or posts that don't
seem completely pragmatic or tuned for performance, as if everything is meant
for a paying audience of common moviegoers. Why wasn't I consulted? I'm a
common man! I represent your most common audience!

Nah, I think Wells was also feeling afraid of being left out, tossed into the
dustbin. Why else would you stake your entire identity so firmly in opposition
to someone else, in a letter to that person, instead of keeping it open and
asking questions? You're arguing for your own existence. Maslow has entered
the chat with some cake and coffee and a monthly stipend.

Finally he seems to project some pretty nasty subjective perceptions right
into Joyce's rationale. It kinda pulls Joyce down from what Wells seems to
treat as a high horse. But it also promotes Wells' own perceptions all the way
down the page. Like he invited himself to a debate and forgot to summon a live
opponent.

TBH while it's amusing to read, and especially in a pompous voice, it also
illustrates (to some, and hopefully) how we can learn to do much better for
ourselves and others as a thoughtful corresponding audience.

~~~
svat
Interesting perception. I looked up the context of this letter: according to
the books linked below and
[https://jamesjoyce.ie/day-24-february/](https://jamesjoyce.ie/day-24-february/)
— the timeline was this:

\- In 1917 (when Wells would have been ~51 and Joyce ~35), Wells had written
“one of the most favourable reviews” of Joyce's _A Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man_. This was very helpful to Joyce, and Joyce wrote a letter to Wells
thanking him. Even earlier, Wells had helped Joyce secure a grant.

\- In 1928 (a few days before this letter), Wells and Joyce met for the first
time and had lunch. During this lunch meeting they discussed Joyce's work, and
Joyce “as was his fashion” asked Wells for a favour (probably enlisting his
support when it finally came out as a book).

\- Wells then _replied_ with this letter, which explains why the second
sentence of Wells's letter has “I don’t think I can do anything for the
propaganda of your work.” Joyce found the letter “friendly and honest”.[1]

I think some of what you said may make more sense for an unsolicited letter,
especially one posted in public (like the comments on online communities that
you mention) — bothering to write to someone to attack them. Here, though, I'm
afraid I can't share your perception that Wells was “afraid of being left
out”, or “stak[ing his] entire identity” or “invited himself to a debate” — he
was simply declining a request: “Sorry I can't help you in the way you asked:
here's why, but good luck anyway”. One part of what you said that I can fully
agree with is that it “promotes Wells' own perceptions all the way down the
page”: because explaining his perception is the point, and it's one of the
polite things you can do when saying No.

[1]:
[https://books.google.com/books?id=eVGFCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT158&lpg=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=eVGFCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT158&lpg=PT158)
and
[https://books.google.com/books?id=8MkRCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA92&lpg=P...](https://books.google.com/books?id=8MkRCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA92&lpg=PA92)
and
[https://jamesjoyce.ie/day-24-february/](https://jamesjoyce.ie/day-24-february/)

~~~
themodelplumber
Ah, I see what you're saying. You're responding to the historical question of
veracity of details as if I wrote them to say that Wells was literally just a
this or that, but I'm writing metaphorically to intuit Wells' psychological
position. A metaphorical debate--he wrote _as if_.

Sorry I can't be more clear for now but this kind of mixing of language
interpretations happens sometimes. For example in MBTI soft-theory land this
happens quite often on a tech site like HN when an INTJ writes metaphorically
and an INTP consumes literally for logical analysis. Instant disagreement is
common.

~~~
richthegeek
Your comment has a certain accommodation to it -- you are probably fine where
you are (in INTP land). I'm fine over here (as an INTJ).

But yes, nothing about your comment came across as hypothetical conjecture.
The tone is overwhelmingly "here is my conclusion, watch me work vigorously
back to it and then insinuate many bad things as a result of my mistake".

~~~
themodelplumber
> you are probably fine where you are (in INTP land). I'm fine over here (as
> an INTJ).

Which is still qualitatively a different type of accommodation, as I'm saying
we are likely, or possibly both right while also respecting the approach
taken. Do you see how this is different from missing the purpose of the
approach taken, remarking on how it is not fit for consumption by the common
man, and saying, "it's OK, there is room for us both to be wrong here?"

> hypothetical conjecture

Why, because I don't have Wells in the room to ask? Accusing someone of
hypothetical conjecture on a reading of a historical document is poor form
here, given the context. I was given historical data based on a conjectural
map of my writing onto someone else's psychology. I gave a valid reason why
such a map leads away from my intended meaning. If you have a specific
critique about the other post's contents, please go ahead. Otherwise
criticizing my tone, whether to make Wells and I "both wrong" or for some
other reason is unfair to the spirit of the discussion.

------
Quequau
100% of my interest in James Joyce comes from Joseph Campbell.

The first time I tried to read Joyce my attempt did not go well because I
didn't really understand why Campbell was so taken with these works, so my own
expectations about what I was getting into were wildly off the mark.

So I really get where H. G. Wells is coming from. Though I have to admit that
Wells' writing is way, way more articulate than my thoughts at the time.

Many years later I got back into Joseph Campbell by way of Julian Jaynes and
wound up with Finnegan's Wake again only I suppose with a different set of
expectations and perspective. It's still not something I personally would read
for idle pleasure but I feel like I'm understanding more of the big picture
Joseph Campbell was all about, so it was a worthwhile read.

~~~
dtwhitney
IMHO, Ulysses is worth the time, but I agree about Finnegans Wake

~~~
melq
Also, Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist are excellent and not nearly as
dense.

------
gazzini
> Your last two works have been more amusing and exciting to write than they
> will ever be to read.

I’m imagining HG Wells on a modern software team, code-reviewing a large
refactoring diff.

~~~
raverbashing
Well Finnegans Wake is, in an artistic way, one literary version of IOCCC

------
brushfoot
This reminds me of Vladimir Nabokov's opinion of Joyce.

Here's Martin Amis, speaking at Nabokov's centenary celebration in 1999:

"[O]nly once, I think, did [Nabokov] bow to a superior talent. Of James Joyce
he said, 'My stuff is patball to his champion game.'

"Now, how sincere was Nabokov being? In my view the bidding starts at 50% and
then drops sharply. Anyway it's a judgment he whittled away at elsewhere. That
600-page crossword clue Finnegans Wake Nabokov considered a tragic failure: 'a
cold pudding of a book, a persistent snore in the next room.'"

------
RyanShook
“But the world is wide and there is room for both of us to be wrong.”

~~~
themodelplumber
Sadly it's not meant as an insult and yet it seems Wells was not able to
afford his more passionate sentences a little touch-up. That a feud occurred
around writing like this is unfortunate but it's also notable that Joyce was
extremely graceful in his correspondence. He demonstrates an open-mindedness
that Wells could have used to his own advantage. But Wells seemed strongly
captured by his own perceptions and chose to give the finger to what could be
called a growth mindset.

Plus it's terrible to tell a friend that you may both be wrong, when they may
still have something to say--unless you are ready to be accused of backing out
of the entire friendship arrangement. Relationships are all about
reconciliation. They're not about subjective meta-narratives which attempt to
evenly dole out critique, but from one side. It makes the doling side appear
delicate and fearful of their own weaknesses.

Better to listen to friends, ask questions, and present your concerns as if
they are third parties to yourself. Otherwise you will end up without friends
when you need them most. Wells' own writing was likely gasoline on the fire,
but I don't think he knew what he was getting into. Simply admitting possible
fault as an entry point to subjective commentary like "BUT you're in the same
fault zone with me" is a slap in the face.

~~~
radiowave
> Plus it's terrible to tell a friend that you may both be wrong

You're very definitely not British.

~~~
themodelplumber
Could you explain this comment? I'm not British.

~~~
dmix
You seem to be taking excessive British politeness as more of an insult when
it's really an attempt at diffusing any hurt/confrontation from the underlying
critiques. The intention of adding that statement is not really to reiterate
he thinks Joyce is bad or wrong, the main point was admitting he may very well
be wrong himself - as a saving-face escape hatch of sorts.

Adding "maybe we're both wrong" is similarly a way to avoid confrontation and
politely avoid open disagreement - allowing them both to remain on the same
plane of neutrality and maintain respectful discourse.

It's always difficult to explain these sorts of things without tonality and
cultural familiarity (much like explaining sarcasm on the internet). For the
British culturally there is an underlying assumption that you're trying to be
respectful/non-confrontational even when you're technically critiquing
someone's work (which is a sort of overwhelming politeness the British are
famous for - being polite means never being brash or overly direct). Another
example of this sort of indirection is a "backhanded compliment".

~~~
themodelplumber
That's so interesting. Thank you for your explanation. I think I can only
offer in reply that if Wells' English is excessive British politeness, I
wonder if there is even an adjective which could begin to describe Joyce's
Irish politeness. :-)

With all due respect to cultural differences, one of these levels of
politeness seems to have comparatively and metaphorically wiped the floor with
the other.

------
Gormisdomai
"Your last two works have been more amusing and exciting to write than they
will ever be to read."

Part of this message would be good for programmers to hear too

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Isn’t this the perfect code? Fun to write, boring to read. When reading
existing code, I love boring.

------
dmix
> And while you were brought up under the delusion of political suppression I
> was brought up under the delusion of political responsibility.

So much relevant to today in this personal letter.

------
yutopia
So Wells = modernist and Joyce = (early) postmodernist? This all looks
familiar and relevant to our times, the struggle between one who believes in a
shared reality and possibility of progress, and the other whose MO is to
persistently challenge and deconstruct. I’ve only read Dubliners so not an
expert on Joyce by any means though.

> But the world is wide and there is room for both of us to be wrong.

Perhaps not so in the 21st century, the postmodernists have won. External
reality is a mirage now and we can choose from any of the countless, mutually
incompatible narratives as we see fit.

~~~
dri_ft
I would describe Wells not as modernist but as a hangover of a certain strain
of Victorian thinking: a basically rationalist, socialist worldview,
optimistic about the prospect of improving the world if we could just drop all
our silly prejudices. John Stuart Mill, George Bernard Shaw, the Fabian
Society.... This perspective didn't fare very well in the early twentieth
Century. Orwell describes Wells somewhere as 'too sane to understand the
modern world'.

I'd count Joyce as a canonical modernist. (If he isn't, who is?)

~~~
yutopia
Thanks, so Finnegans Wake is considered a modernist novel? Interesting.
Totally out of my depth here but it seems so much at odds with modernist ideas
in other artistic disciplines, e.g., architecture.

~~~
dri_ft
Definitely.

Yes, there are lots of modernisms. Modernism in literature really has very
little in common with modernism in architecture, for instance. Even more
confusing, each of these modernisms has its own postmodernism, all 'post'
their respective modernisms in different ways.

The sort of fragmentation of language and narrative that we see in Ulysses and
Finnegans Wake is a pretty central modernist trait, I'd say. An even more
central example would be something like Eliot's The Wasteland.

~~~
hsitz
Relevant Wikipedia entry:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern_literature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern_literature)

------
alberto_ol
previous discussion 4 years ago

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12552507](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12552507)

------
david927
This is a wonderful critique and made all the more enjoyable with hindsight.
Wells here represents a common view but not an enlightened one and history has
favored the latter.

Joyce was arguably the greatest writer of the 20th century.

Wells wrote enjoyable books that could entertain most anyone.

------
demadog
I mean, these two quotes by Joyce himself say it all:

“If I gave it all up immediately, I'd lose my immortality. I've put in so many
enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries
arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's
immortality.” -Joyce's reply for a request for a plan of Ulysses, as quoted in
James Joyce (1959) by Richard Ellmann

“The demand that I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole Life
to reading my works.” -Interview with Max Eastman in Harper's Magazine, as
quoted in James Joyce (1959) by Richard Ellmann. Eastman noted "He smiled as
he said that — smiled, and then repeated it."

------
flatline
> Your last two works have been more amusing and exciting to write than they
> will ever be to read.

That pretty well sums up my experience with Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake as
well, though to be fair I have never given the latter much of a try.

~~~
demadog
Have you read Dubliners? Such a good collection of stories. Honestly he
mastered “great” writing and seems he just got bored and wanted to play at a
higher level.

~~~
bvm
The Dubliners is my desert island book. I can happily just sit there and re-
read The Dead over and over again and never bore of it, there's so much there.
Especially the way it builds to that incredible ending passage.

 _His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the
universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the
living and the dead._

~~~
biswaroop
Yes! Sorry, I'm just here to fan over Dubliners too. Every winter, on a snowy
Massachusetts day, I read them all over again. It's incredible how The Dead
and Araby contain so much of what makes us humans. It's hard to explain the
images and feelings Joyce brings out in me as I'm reading them. I've met
people who think it's boring, and while I understand that different people are
attracted to different styles of writing, I'm always amazed that it's possible
to dislike Dubliners.

------
BruceEel
Great find! Another interesting and rather different take on Finnegan's Wake
is Terence McKenna's FW talk :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdXBulkqH5s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdXBulkqH5s)
, worth listening to.

------
reedwolf
>You began Catholic, that is to say you began with a system of values in stark
opposition to reality

Heh.

~~~
at_a_remove
I plan on quoting this in a letter to a friend who despises his Catholic
upbringing yet recognizes that he has certain baggage from it. It will amuse
him.

------
dmoo
[https://www.rte.ie/culture/2020/0610/1146705-listen-
ulysses-...](https://www.rte.ie/culture/2020/0610/1146705-listen-ulysses-
james-joyce-podcast/)

For those who want to dip their toe into Ulysses

------
bryanrasmussen
So recently I noted that Dickens' re-evaluation came 70 years after his death
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23454834](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23454834)
\- it is now 79 years after the death of Joyce - is there a re-evaluation
under way, is he going down, and if so who is going up? I personally don't
think Wells is going up, but Verne might be (based on nothing more than
feeling).

on edit: although of course there would be no reason that the critical
reputation of Verne should be gained at the expense of Joyce. Just that we are
far enough away from a generation of writers that you would think there would
be some shaking up of the critical order.

------
macarthy12
Please, tell me, is there a reply? I want to see Joyces response.

~~~
casefields
There's more info here on their relationship:
[https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/03/09/henry-james-h-g-
wel...](https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/03/09/henry-james-h-g-wells-art/)

~~~
sateesh
Thanks for the link, it is an interesting read. But it is about interaction
between Henry James and H.G.Wells, not between James Joyce and Wells.

------
forgotmypw17
I think putting H. G. Wells in the byline, while setting the date to 2016, is
confusing/incorrect.

------
Gowan29
That was an amazing read!

------
purplezooey
funny letter. "You have turned your back on common men—on their elementary
needs and their restricted time and intelligence, and... you have elaborated.

------
adaisadais
I just finished Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. (9.3/10)

Should I read Ulysses? I’ve wanted to read it on account of its acclaim but
after reading some comments here I feel like maybe not?

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
Anna Karenina is a classical novel that follows classical literary
conventions. It's heavy and will give your understanding of Russian naming a
workout, but it's still basically readable.

Ulysses, on the other hand, is hundreds and hundreds of pages of modernist
stream of consciousness, from the point of view of many characters who don't
believe in providing context, where every sentence is packed full of
complicated wordplay and obscure allusions, and everything happens at a
snail's pace. If the idea of reading a book where you literally can't
understand half of it gives you pause, Ulysses is probably not the book for
you.

For what it's worth, Joyce is commenting on Finnegans Wake, which goes 10x on
everything above and is basically entirely incomprehensible.

~~~
saberience
You should add "in your opinion." Just because you couldn't understand or
appreciate Ulysses, it doesn't mean that other people cannot, it takes a
certain amount of education and reading of other books to be able to "get"
Joyce and especially Ulysses.

Do you expect a person to fully understand C++ the first time they use it?

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
I read Ulysses to the end and appreciated it as the literary experiment it is.
I don't intend to do it again though, and despite being quite widely read,
thank you very much, I'm not going to claim I understood more than a fraction
of it.

------
mathattack
I’ve has Ulysses on my shelf for years. Wells may have just put it there for
another few years.

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
I managed to struggle my way through Ulysses, which at least has some
semblance of narrative structure and mostly uses actual English words, but
Wells is commenting on Finnegans Wake, which is _thoroughly_ impenetrable.
Here's the second paragraph:

 _Sir Tristram, violer d 'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passen- core
rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor
to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor had topsawyer's rocks by the stream
Oconee exaggerated themselse to Laurens County's gorgios while they went
doublin their mumper all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe
to tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venissoon after, had a kidscad
buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all's fair in vanessy, were sosie
sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a peck of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen
brewed by arclight and rory end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on
the aquaface._

( from
[http://finwake.com/1024chapter1/1024finn1.htm](http://finwake.com/1024chapter1/1024finn1.htm)
)

~~~
briansteffens
Ah, but you left out the first paragraph which clarifies the second entirely!

>riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us
by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.

And you'll just have to read to the end of the book to find out how the
sentence begins.

Joking aside, I actually love this style of writing even though I get
virtually no narrative from it. I read it almost like some sort of abstract
poetry, letting my mind wander as the words go by.

Also, I find it reads a lot better out loud than silently: easier to notice
some of the strange dream-like word mixes. Like `venissoon` kind of sounds
like `very soon`. I only saw `venison` until I read it out loud.

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
I love Jabberwocky as well, but that's a single page, not 500.

[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42916/jabberwocky](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42916/jabberwocky)

~~~
mcv
That is a great comparison. I love Jabberwocky, but you can't read an entire
book in that style. Yet Joyce apparently did write that book.

I've never read Joyce, but based on these couple of lines I think I understand
Wells' letter. It's magnificent to be able to write like that, but please keep
it short. Nobody can withstand that for more than a page or two.

------
simonebrunozzi
> You began Catholic, that is to say you began with a system of values in
> stark opposition to reality.

Well, I agree, but I also have never seen it written so nicely like this.

~~~
perl4ever
It sounds like it might be clever, but then I realize I don't know what it
means.

If you had values not in opposition to reality, then they wouldn't be relevant
to reality, would they? Because in not opposing reality, they couldn't guide
you in changing it.

The most you could really say about values being objectively wrong is if they
are inconsistent and _could not_ be fulfilled in reality in any possible
universe. But what is a possible universe? And what if all value systems are
impossible to completely fulfill?

~~~
cousin_it
You're overthinking it. Some people have a "fuck this world" attitude, others
don't, that's all Wells wanted to say.

~~~
pjc50
It's quite clearly a scientism/superstition feud. Remember that Ireland was
_extremely_ Catholic at this point, and the guilt/purity psychology of that
would pervade everything.

Wells is arguing that Joyce is being shocking for the sake of it in an
internal struggle with his conservative values, while Wells sees himself as a
scientific man "never been shocked to outcries by the existence of water
closets and menstrual bandages".

(Presumably a reference to Ulysees and the content that got it banned:
[https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-
literature/articles/ulysses-a...](https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-
literature/articles/ulysses-and-obscenity#) )

------
seven4
_" My warmest wishes to you Joyce. I can’t follow your banner any more than
you can follow mine. But the world is wide and there is room for both of us to
be wrong."_

Thats HG Wells for - "You Suck".

~~~
fisherjeff
I don’t know, I read it as “you don’t like my books and I don’t like yours,
and that’s fine!”

It’s a great piece: An eloquent reminder that disagreement doesn’t have to
mean disrespect.

------
anonymousiam
James Joyce

------
000dry
It seems theres a bit of an impression of Wells here that he is being even-
handed, but I would beg to differ.

He frames himself and Joyce as opposites, as if in an attempt to make what
follows fair game.

I think if someone came up to me and said, "Not that my opinion matters, but I
think you're disgusting", I'd still be pretty offended. I think onlookers
would see something like that as unnecessary.

Just don't write the letter next time, eh Wells?

~~~
bzbarsky
Context matters. Per the other comments up-thread, the letter was a response
to a request for help in advertising a specific book (Finnegan's Wake) that
Joyce made of Wells. Not writing the letter and just not responding to the
request would be fairly rude too, no? Just refusing without expalaining why
would also be a bit odd, given that Wells had provided just such help for
Joyce's previous work.

